University of Texas Tower

Austin, Texas

Long before Columbine, the Navy Yard, movie theaters and grocery store parking lot shootings, Charles Whitman raised the bar for mass murder when he killed 17 people on a hot summer day in 1966 from the top of the University of Texas tower using a range of semi-automatic weapons purchased around town. I was 11-years old, and remember the worries about my uncle, who was a professor at UT, where was he? Seven years later when I was a freshman, another student jumped from the top of the Tower at high noon while the bells tolled, "Raindrops Keep Falling From My Head."

The Tower symbolizes the best of UT; it burns orange when UT wins game or when a professor wins a Nobel Prize. The Tower inscription on reads, "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free."

Despite all the Texas bluster, though, I can't forget the anxiety of my family on that day in 1966--where is he? Or understand why Texas continues to have liberal gun laws that make it possible for many Whitmans to go on shooting sprees. With all the victory and academic pride associated with the Tower, I still wonder when the truth about gun violence and mental illness will actually set us free?

Cathy