Gun Culture is White Culture

by JUSTIN FELDMAN
Nancy Lanza was a survivalist who stockpiled food and semi-automatic weapons. She believed that an economic collapse was imminent and prepared to defend herself from the resulting social chaos. Nancy included her son Adam in these activities, taking him to shooting ranges for target practice. I suspect that if she were a Salafist Muslim rather than a survivalist, we would have read it in the headlines by now. Instead, the media has all but ignored Nancy Lanza’s ideological views in their coverage of the Sandy Hook shooting. Survivalism is an unremarkable detail in the life of a “gun enthusiast”, a lifestyle explained and normalized by “gun culture”.

The US has 300 million personal firearms. No nation has more guns per capita and no wealthy nation does less to regulate them. People here don’t just have guns – we love guns and love to shoot guns. We love guns so much that within hours of 20 children being murdered, many of us seemed primarily concerned with protecting gun rights. While we often use the term “gun culture” to explain these phenomena, we are rarely able to deconstruct this term. Michael Moore, for example, had to shrug his shoulders in “Bowling for Columbine” and call gun culture a mysterious case of American exceptionalism.

America Was Built on White Paramilitary Violence

But what exactly is exceptional about the United States? As with other imperial powers, tremendous state violence was necessary to occupy a territory, suppress its indigenous population, enslave millions of Africans, and assault striking workers. But the United States is unique in the extent to which we’ve relied on paramilitary forces – groups going by the names of militias, slave patrols, lynch mobs, and posses – to impose racial and economic domination through terrorism. These paramilitaries were usually not professional forces. Instead, their members were ordinary white folks: Landowners, slaveholders, and businessmen took part, but so did poor farmers and those in the working class. Participation in these groups was instrumental in creating a common white identity that crossed class lines. Paramilitarism bestowed privilege upon many whites who were otherwise indebted to and exploited by the upper classes. It created a culture of popular violence linked inextricably to race.

The constitutional right to bear arms, guaranteed by the Second Amendment, came about because Virginia’s statesmen wanted assurances that the new federal government wouldn’t dismantle their slave patrols. By the time its constitutional convention met in 1788, Virginia had seen its share of slave uprisings. In 1739, at least 60 slaves set fire to plantations, killed 20 whites, and tried to liberate more slaves who could join them. A well-armed group of plantation owners crushed the rebellion on its second day, executing most of the rebels and deporting some to the West Indies. Virginia strengthened its slave patrols in response and made participation mandatory for white men of all economic classes. Historian Charles T. Bogus, among others, has documented how local control of these militia groups was a precondition for Virginia to ratify the US Constitution.

Slave rebellions were fairly common. There were at least 250 conspiracies or uprisings involving more than ten slaves throughout US history. Whites in the South were, in general, terrified of slaves’ potential power, especially given that slaves outnumbered whites by large margins in much of the region. White fear meant that wherever there were slaves, there was a patrol ready to shoot should anyone get out of line. In the US South, slave patrols predated police forces and in fact evolved into the police.

Following the Civil War and formal abolition of slavery, whites formed paramilitary organizations to continue their domination of blacks. These groups – the Redshirts, White League, and Ku Klux Klan – were a natural continuation of slave patrols. The Klan was the most successful, claiming as many as 5 million members at its peak in the 1920s. Klan members enjoyed close ties to local and state governments in the South through alliances with police, sheriffs, and Democratic politicians. The group’s favored method of terrorism against black people was the lynching, usually under the pretext of “delivering justice” for crimes like rape, murder, or hitting on white women. White vigilantes hanged nearly 5,000 blacks between 1882 and 1968. They deliberately performed lynching as a spectacle to provide entertainment for other whites. As historian Phillip Dray describes:

“Lynching was an undeniable part of daily life, as distinctly American as baseball games and church suppers. Men brought their wives and children to the events, posed for commemorative photographs, and purchased souvenirs of the occasion as if they had been at a company picnic.”

The western US had its own forms of paramilitarism, which were no less violent or pervasive. During the 19th and 20th centuries, white mobs attacked Chinese, Japanese, and Mexican immigrants as well as the Irish and Slavs who were not yet considered white. Many of these attacks were against striking workers. In 1917, for example, Mexican mine workers went on strike in Bisbee, Arizona. To break the strike, the local sheriff gathered a posse of 2,200 white civilians who rounded up 1,300 Mexican workers and forced them into train cars at gunpoint. They were illegally deported as the train headed to Mexico. In a notorious episode of anti-Asian violence that took place in 1871, 500 white vigilantes attacked and robbed nearly every Chinese resident living on Calle de los Negros – killing at least 18 of them – in retaliation for the death of a white rancher inadvertently killed by a Chinese man’s bullet.

Mike Davis, who has thoroughly documented white paramilitary terrorism in the American West, has this to say about its class character:

Victorian vigilantes (with the notable exceptions of the two San Francisco vigilance movements of the 1850s) tended to be workers, petty entrepreneurs, and small farmers fighting in the name of Jacksonian values to preserve a monopoly of ‘white labor’ against what they construed as elite conspiracies to flood the state with ‘coolies’ and ‘aliens.’ From the turn of the century, however, such plebian nativism, although still present, yielded to anti-Asian and antiradical outbursts now led by wealthier farmers, middle-class professionals and local business elites, who were as likely to be California Progressives as old-guard Republicans.

Military and police forces rely upon professional killers who are a degree removed from society. American paramilitarism, however, is violence “by and for the people”. It has shaped white culture and, in a way, is white culture. Paramilitary terrorism was not carried out at random – it was typically a response to a perceived transgression of written or unwritten laws by a person of color. Because the violence came from ordinary white folks who often held anti-elite views (though they ultimately supported existing racial and economic hierarchies), vigilantism took on a populist character. For its beneficiaries, vigilantism has become inseparable from notions of justice and democracy. Our paramilitary history has shaped America’s legal institutions and culture in such a way that people fetishize gun violence, can easily obtain guns, and are all too inclined to pull the trigger. It is no coincidence that the US and Israel, two societies built and sustained by the violence of their settlers, suffer the highest rates of gun-related homicides among the 47 nations the UN considers “highly developed”.

Paramilitary Fantasies in the Twenty-First Century

The Civil Rights movement weakened the political power of white vigilantism. Although paramilitary organizations like the Patriot movement’s militias and the Minutemen border patrols exist, their members tend to shy away from explicitly racist language and distance themselves when their more radical members perpetrate acts of terror.

Though paramilitarism has declined from earlier eras, its cultural legacy is still with us. The rate of gun ownership has dropped since the 1970s, but the number of guns each owner possesses has increased dramatically. Gun owners are more likely than ever to have assault weapons and to have many of them. They buy guns en masse in response to distinct events like Y2K,  the 9/11 attacks, and the election of a black president. These firearm ownership patterns tell the story of a significant minority ofwhite rural and suburban Americans who are living out paramilitarist fantasies. A small fraction involve themselves in militia groups or armed neighbor watches (think George Zimmerman), but most are not organized in any meaningful sense. More often, their politics are expressed only through their lifestyle (one could say the same for much of the contemporary Left).

Nancy Lanza was a survivalist engaging in such a lifestyle. Survivalists (or “preppers”) fear the erosion of white privilege caused by a perceived loss of national sovereignty, increased immigration, and the specter of a social collapse that would prevent the state from subduing black or brown people. Survivalist novels are filled with fantasies of whites fighting off Chicano nationalists led by the “King of Aztlan”. Some preppers believe in conspiracy theories like the North American Union, a supposed merger of the US with Canada and Mexico. One man, featured in the show “Doomsday Preppers” on the National Geographic channel, simply believes that “after an economic collapse, rioting will spread from urban centers in waves.”

Gun Nuts

Within hours of the Sandy Hook shooting, the media attributed Adam Lanza’s actions to personal mental health issues rather than the violence of white male culture. James Utt, writing on the Aurora shootings earlier in the year, wrote:

[W]hen Nidal Hassan opened fire at Ford Hood in 2009, the media and politicians were taking Muslim Americans (particularly Muslim members of the armed services) to task, questioning their loyalties, questioning if they were part of an “inherently violent” culture, questioning every aspect of their identity.  The same sort of questions were asked when Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people at Virginia Tech, only directed at Asian American Immigrants… Why is no one asking what’s wrong with White Men in the United States?

Similarly, when discussing Nancy Lanza and other white vigilantes, white liberals like to use the term “gun nut”. This term also individualizes the fetishization of gun violence, defining it with a quasi-medical term: Only a person who is a “nut” with mental issues could love assault weapons. The gun nut frame allows white liberals to distance themselves from paramilitarism without critiquing whiteness or the violence of the state. What they don’t understand, however, is that racist state violence and vigilante terrorism go hand-in-hand.

Exactly 150 years ago, Union soldiers killed 38 Dakota Indian rebels under the direct order of President Lincoln. It was the largest execution in US history. Before the army hanged the men, it was very clear that a mob of white settlers were going kill the Dakota themselves. The state co-opted the mob’s violence and replaced it with its own violence. This is a pattern repeated throughout our history. In the post-Civil Rights era, vigilantes play less of a role in controlling people of color, but the state – through more intensive policing and mass incarceration – plays a greater role. The Klan may not be lynching people daily, but the state incarcerates more black men now than were slaves in 1850. The people of Brisbee, Arizona may not be forcibly deporting Mexicans, but ICE conducts the equivalent of nearly one Brisbee Deportation a day. State violence continues to produce whiteness and white privilege. We, as its beneficiaries, are all co-conspirators as long as we stand by and watch it happen.

Justin Feldman can be reached at:  altermundialism@gmail.com.

The American political system, corporate-owned and consequently staunchly reactionary and shamelessly hypocritical, is widely regarded by progressives around the world as the worst obstacle to desperately needed advances in all areas, from the long-sabotaged accomplishment of social justice and peace for the vast majority of humanity (including most Americans) to the literal saving of the planet itself.  Below, a perceptive analysis by a colleague in this global struggle. —Eds.

By Salvatore Babones, Crosspost with Truthout

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. (Photo: Iowa Democrats / Flickr)
NOTE: This article originally appeared in Australian Options magazine, to which we recommend our readers.

arch-conservative Barry Goldwater reportedly wondered in amazement that he and presidential candidate Bob Dole were by then on the left of the Republican party. Goldwater died in 1998; both parties have since moved much farther to the right. Today, Goldwater would be considered left even for a Democrat.

Over the past forty years, America has become much more politically correct with regard to gender and sexuality. Men do not openly display calendars featuring topless models on their office walls, and public gay bashing is now considered inappropriate, even in Republican circles. But gender and sexuality are issues that transcend social class. Even rich, powerful men have gay children – or may be gay themselves. Even rich, powerful men have wives.

On every other issue, America – or at least American politics – has swung violently to the right. The more social class is involved, the further to the right America has swung. Poverty was once a social disease to be cured; it is now an individual crime to be punished. Put it down to individualism, conservatism, neoliberalism, or whatever -ism you want, America is now the world’s greatest reactionary force.

Unfortunately, all the evidence is that the rest of the world is following America down the road to perdition. Nowhere are national health insurance schemes, access to free education, and old age pensions being expanded. Nowhere is the world moving forward. Everywhere the social gains of the twentieth century are either being eroded, or destroyed.

The mid-late twentieth century may or may not turn out to have been the highpoint of human civilization. Progress may yet return. But if it does, it will not be led by the United States. It will be resisted by the United States. It’s up to the rest of the world to provide the hope for the future that once emanated from Washington, New York, and California. Otherwise you will become just like us.

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Salvatore Babones (@sbabones) is a senior lecturer in sociology and social policy at the University of Sydney in Australia and an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington, DC.

Fess Parker as Davy Crocket, in the Disney TV miniseries, a highly adulterated version of the “rugged individualist” frontier hero.

by LAWRENCE DAVIDSON
Here is part of an Associated Press announcement appearing in U.S. papers on 20 December 2012:  “Declaring the time for action overdue, President Obama promised on Wednesday [19 December] to send Congress broad proposals in January for tightening gun laws and curbing violence after last week’s schoolhouse massacre in Connecticut.”

The issue of violence goes far beyond the Newtown Connecticut incident, of course, and its ubiquity, on the streets as well as in the schools, is what has moved Obama to finally act.  One can speculate about why violence in the United States, here represented by assaults using  guns, is so widespread.  Certainly, there is a cultural aspect to it.

Back in 1893 Frederick Jackson Turner wrote a famous essay about the “closing of the American frontier.”  He commented that having been a frontier society since the first settlers arrived from Europe, a frontier mentality became a seminal aspect of the American character.  Though Turner tied this culturally embedded mentality to the impulse for both personal liberty and national territorial expansion, there is another aspect of the frontier that may well be its most lasting contribution to U.S. culture.

Historically what is life on a frontier like?  It is usually unsettled, without the secure rule of law.  In the case of the United States, the frontier was a semi-militarized place with an enemy just over the horizon, violence common, and guns for just about every settler.  Out of this environment grew the perverse ideal of power and freedom embodied in the “rugged individual” who uses force (coming literally out of the barrel of a gun) to tame an “uncivilized” world and thereby obtain what he needs and protect what he has. That heritage might partly explain why, out of a population (as of 2011) of  311,591,91, there are an estimated 270,000,000 firearms in the hands of the civilian population.

Gun culture was an integral part of the frontier culture and is still, for many Americans, symbolic of their personal liberty.  But in the end the gun is only a device through which to wield  power and it is power that Americans aspire to above all.  It is their “manifest destiny.”  Too many Americans see themselves as exceptional: blessed by God, expert practitioners of free enterprise, and the people who really know what  freedom and rights are all about.  And, in the process of using power to demonstrate this exceptional status, both as individuals and as a nation,  they consistently make a bloody mess.

Using Power

Here in the United States guns kill about 17,000 people a year, of which about 3000 are children.  That is horrid enough, but the real picture is actually much worse.  The domestic death toll caused by America’s civilian propensity to act out moments of power through violence is but a pittance compared to the carnage the U.S. produces through the projection of military and other forms of force abroad.  Using guns, mechanized weapons, and chemical agents in Vietnam the United States demonstrated its power and managed to kill anywhere between 500,000 to 2 million civilians.  it is not possible to know how many of these were children, but the number must run at least into the tens of thousands.

In Iraq, the U.S. developed a new official weapon that has proved particularly fatal to children.  This is the weapon of sanctions. Such sanctions demonstrate that the U.S. has the power to manipulate most of the world’s economy to the detriment of its enemies.  In the case of Iraq, sanctions functioned as a sort of economic Agent Orange.  They defoliated that country’s societal infrastructure over a thirteen year period.  Sanctions were Imposed in 1990 as a consequence of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and maintained after the conclusion of the First Gulf War.   As a consequence of these sanctions,  important medicines, vital repair parts for water purification and sewage systems and  other necessary items were not allowed to be imported into Iraq.  The deaths of some 350,000 Iraqi children (the low end estimated number), most under five years of age, can be directly or indirectly tied to this sanctions regime. The sanctions were only removed in 2003 when the U.S. invaded the country.

Then came the weapons-related deaths as a result of the Second Gulf War (2003 to 2011) launched on false pretenses by the Bush Jr. administration.  Realistic estimates range from 600,000 to one million additional Iraqi deaths (adults and children) in this stage of operations.

The Latest Target

Now there are reports that Washington is once more, through the weapon of sanctions, creating the conditions for the deaths of the young and vulnerable.  This time the target is Iran. According to Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council, U.S. sanctions are starting to impact the health of innocent Iranian citizens. Iran’s ability to purchase some medicines and hospital equipment has been impaired by U.S. sanctions and people have already died as a result.

Nonetheless, American lawmakers such as Robert Menendez (D-NJ) have successfully sponsored ever more sanctions for Iran.  “It seems to me we have to completely exhaust all the tools in our sanctions arsenal, and do so quickly, before Iran finds a way to navigate out of its current crisis.”

Why is Menendez and his fellows in Congress doing this?  Because of some alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program?  No.  The Iran sanctions, growing slowly in intensity, predate that concern.  Since the fall of the Shah in 1979 Washington has conceived of Iran as an enemy and therefore a legitimate target against which to demonstrate our power.  It is reasonable to assume that Menendez knows what such policies means in human terms.  But, like former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright referring to the disastrous consequences of the Iraq sanctions, he seems to believe that the horror of it all is worth it.

Many Americans are dismayed, as they surely should be, by the domestic massacres of their children.  These are the deaths closest to home and the ones they are forced to face up to due to media attention. They are also confused about what to do because, for so many, guns and freedom are synonymous.  All the other instances of violence:  the nightly murders in poor districts of cities and towns across the nation, the piled up bodies of adults and children in places like Vietnam and Iraq, are largely hidden from the citizenry.  And certainly the consequences  for the average citizen of Iran of the U.S. government acting out in a powerful way,  will be kept remote enough so as to avoid all empathy.

Whether Americans are paying attention or not, their government, their elected officials, continue to make sure that the U.S. remains out and about across the globe, projecting the nation’s power via guns and sanctions, and thereby helping to lower the world’s burgeoning population in the most negative of all possible ways.

The politicians who initiate these murderous policies may hardly know, in any fully analyzed way,  why they do so. But they know it feels culturally comfortable to persist.  They have their superficial ideological conviction that there must be an evil enemy to fight and, in juxtaposition to that enemy, they are always the good guys.  Many also have the simplistic notion that gun ownership is as vital to the individual citizen’s freedom as military power is to the nation’s liberty.  Just as the individual American believes he owns that semi-automatic rifle to protect home and hearth, so his national leaders cherish (and over-fund) the national arsenal. They have power and they will use it.  They believe, probably sincerely, that they are still on the frontier protecting their homestead from the uncivilized.

Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University in West Chester PA.

MIKE INGLES

et.al says people in South Carolina have been coming up to him saying “Please don’t let them take my guns away.” I’m sure it happens all-the-time, dear Lindsey.

“Them” in this case is we the people through our elected representatives. “Guns” in that statement means automatic and semi-automatic weapons.

What does Lindsey say in response? He says he was raised with guns and that carrying guns is a part of his southern heritage.

Sometimes, if you take a long-view, I actually think the north lost the Civil War by allowing all those backwater types to meld into civil society. I mean, now that cotton is dead, and the leather whip concessions have been closed—what’s the point?

“We need to have armed guards in our schools.” Says the South Carolinian taskmaster.

Even back in the wild-wild-west, schools didn’t have armed guards. Didn’t have them during the Civil War years either, as I recall.

“Progress,” said the poet, e.e. cummings, “is a comfortable disease.” In the South, progress is protecting a lingering death.

That 22% living in South Carolina and southern Indiana and the Ozark Mountain range, who still slop hogs and drink moonshine and sign by making an X, please relocate to a more favorable climate, like Wyoming—where Dick Cheney is still wound-up tighter than a coo-coo clock. There you can kill to your heart’s delight—there’s Big Horn Ram and pigs and coyotes and no Catholics or Jews or brown people of any kind. Unless they’re selling guns out of the trucks of their cars.

As for me, I’m ashamed to say that until this morning I did not know that about a 1/3 of the high schools in central Ohio have armed security on their campuses. Here I thought we’d made some progress along the way? It saddens me to think that children must confront armed security—like they have in prisons—each day on their way to the cafeteria or to art-class or to the gym. They endure this violation of their Civil-Rights because 22% of us think that the 2^nd amendment trumps all other rights in the country. Because hunters want 30 in the clip.

Maybe I’d better get my bucket and slop the hogs.

_______________
Mike Ingles is a freelance writer living in Ohio. He has a degree in American Literature from Franklin University, Columbus, Ohio. 
duckrun2@aol.com

By Marlee Macleod, TruTV.com

Lost Innocence

“He was our initiation into a terrible time.”
-Guadalupe Street merchant, Austin TX.
Several biographical and character strains surface in Whitman and many other multiple killers: hyper-individualism; authoritarian fathers or broken families; gun infatuation; seeing themselves as “losers” or “failures”; and almost always, avid hunting. None of these traits can be controlled by law successfully except for arms possession and hunting. They are largely culturally determined. But most importantly, in the final analysis, the killers are also victims. —Eds

VICTIM AND VICTIMIZER
College photo of Charles Whitman (University of Texas)

By now, Americans are virtually unshockable. When we hear of the latest workplace shooting, the latest school shooting, the latest loner who snapped and took others with him to his final rest, we are saddened, certainly, but not shocked. It has happened so often that we’ve long since lost count of the shooters and the victims, long since forgotten which towns bear the indelible marks of random violence. So it is difficult for us to understand the horror to which Americans were introduced by Charles Whitman on August 1, 1966. Until Whitman undertook his shooting spree in Austin, Texas, public space felt safe and most citizens were utterly convinced they were comfortably removed from brutality and terror. After August 1, 1966, things would never be the same.

The Texas Tower

Whitman’s story stands out for many reasons, not the least of which being that it features a co-star-the University of Texas Tower, from which he fired almost unimpeded for 96 minutes. The Tower afforded Whitman a nearly unassailable vantage point from which he could select and dispatch victims. It was as if it had been built for his purpose. In fact, in previous years Charlie had remarked offhandedly to various people that a sniper could do quite a bit of damage from the Tower.

The Tower is big-307 feet tall. It is a shorter building than the nearby State Capitol, but it stands taller as it is built on higher ground. It opened in 1937 and by 1966, it attracted roughly 20,000 visitors a year, most of whom wanted to take in the spectacular view of Austin from the 28th floor observation deck. The first death associated with the tower came during its construction; a worker slipped and fell twelve floors in 1935. There was another accidental death in 1950. There were also suicides in 1945, 1949 and 1961. Despite these tragedies the Tower stood as a beloved symbol of Texas pride and expansiveness, the figurative heart of the surrounding campus and city.

Early Charlie

The Whitman family, Charles in the
back row.

On the surface, Charles Whitman would have seemed as steady and upstanding as the Texas Tower itself. He came from a wealthy, prominent family in Lake Worth, Florida. He was a gifted student, an accomplished pianist, and an Eagle Scout. But the trappings of the Whitman home concealed turmoil. C.A. Whitman was a self-made man, a plumber who had worked and willed his way to the top of his profession and into polite society. He brooked no weakness in any of his three sons, and he ruled his home dictatorially. “I did on many occasions beat my wife,” he would later say, “but I loved her…I did and do have an awful temper, but my wife was awful stubborn….because of my temper, I knocked her around.” His discipline with his sons was equally harsh—he often employed belts, paddles and his fists to make sure they complied with his rules and met his expectations. Materially, though, C.A. Whitman’s family was amply provided for. C.A. and Margaret always drove late-model cars, and each of the boys was given guns, motorcycles, and other gifts C.A. thought fitting. Their home was the nicest in the neighborhood, with all the amenities and a swimming pool. But the luxuries did nothing to alleviate the troubles within the Whitman household.

In June of 1959, shortly before Charlie Whitman’s 18th birthday, tensions with his father came to a head. Charlie came home drunk from a night out with friends, whereupon C.A. beat him and threw him into the pool, where he nearly drowned. A few days later he applied for enlistment in the United States Marine Corps. He left for basic training on July 6, 1959.

Charlie spent the first part of his stint with the Marines at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba. He worked hard at being a good Marine, following orders dutifully and studying hard for his various examinations. He earned a Good Conduct Medal, the Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal, and a Sharpshooter’s Badge. Chillingly, the records of his scores on shooting tests show that he scored 215 out of 250 possible points, that he excelled at rapid fire from long distances, and that he seemed to be more accurate when shooting at moving targets. Captain Joseph Stanton, Executive Officer of the 2nd Marine Division remembered, “He was a good marine. I was impressed with him. I was certain he’d make a good citizen.”

It was important to Charlie that he be the best Marine he could be. After years of belittlement and abuse from his father, he was anxious to prove himself as a man. Every opportunity for advancement was a chance to distance himself from his brutal upbringing. The Naval Enlisted Science Education Program (NESEP) seemed tailor-made for the up-and-comer Charlie fancied himself to be. NESEP was a scholarship program designed to train engineers who would later become officers. Charlie took a competitive exam and then went before a selection committee which chose him for the prestigious award. He would be expected to earn an engineering degree at a selected college and follow that with Officer’s Candidate School. His tuition and books would be paid for by the Marine Corps. He would also receive an extra $250 a month.

Charlie was admitted to the University of Texas in Austin on September 15, 1961. After years of rigid discipline at home and regimented life in the Marines, he was suddenly free to use his time as he wished. Almost immediately he began to get into trouble. He and some friends were arrested for poaching deer. He accumulated gambling debts and refused to pay them, angering some dangerous characters in the process. His grades were unimpressive. He did manage some improvement after he married his girlfriend, Kathy Leissner, in August, 1962, but the Marine Corps was unforgiving of his previous behavior. His scholarship was withdrawn and he returned to active duty in February, 1963.

He was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. After a year and a half of freedom, he found the discipline and structure of military life oppressive. His wife was back in Texas finishing her degree and he was lonely. He tried to recapture his scholarship but failed, and was informed that the time he’d spent in Austin did not count as active duty enlistment. He resented the Marine Corps and it showed in his behavior. In November 1963, he was court-martialed for gambling, usury and unauthorized possession of a non-military pistol. He had threatened a fellow soldier who had failed to repay a $30 loan with 50 percent interest. He was found guilty and sentenced to 30 days confinement and 90 days hard labor. A promotion he had received upon his return to active duty was stripped from him. Lance Corporal Whitman was once again Private Whitman, and he was desperate to be free of the Marine Corps. He turned to his father for help. C.A. Whitman had made connections in his years as a prominent businessman, and he set about trying to pull strings to get Charlie’s enlistment time reduced. Charlie’s stint was reduced by a year, and in December 1964, he was honorably discharged from the Marines.

Back In Austin

Charlie returned to Austin with a fervent sense of purpose. His failure as a Marine and as a student embarrassed him, and he was determined to redeem himself. He changed his major from mechanical engineering to architectural engineering and began applying himself more vigilantly than he had in his first spell at the university. He took a job as a bill collector for the Standard Finance Company, then moved on to a teller position at Austin National Bank. In his spare time, he served as scoutmaster for Boy Scout Troop 5. He worked hard at being upstanding and admirable, yet constantly berated himself for not living up to his own expectations. His copious journals contain countless self-improvement schemes and lists of traits he felt he should develop. In the early period of his marriage, he had followed his father’s example and become violent with his wife. He was determined not to repeat this behavior and reminded himself in his journal of how a kind and caring husband should act. He seemed to have no inner foundation of morals on which to build his own character; his constant self-instruction was an attempt to impose such a structure from outside himself. A friend described him as, “like a computer. He would install his own values into a machine, then program the things he had to do, and out would come the results.” From time to time, though, his façade would crumble. He was subject to bouts of temper and frustration, which only served to further damage his self-respect.

Kathy Whitman
(Texas Dept of Public
Safety)

Kathy Whitman did the majority of the breadwinning in the Whitman household. Her job as a teacher at Lanier High School in Austin provided a salary and health insurance; Charlie’s income supplemented hers, but he was keenly aware that his wife earned more than he.

Furthermore, he continued to receive money and expensive gifts from his father. Charlie hated freeloaders, yet that was how he saw himself. He hated failure, yet he had failed to accomplish anything he had set out to do since he left home at 18. He saw being overweight as a sign of weakness, yet he was unable to keep himself as trim as he had been in the Marines. Outwardly, Charlie was diligent and conscientious, a devoted husband and a hard worker; inwardly, he seethed with self-hatred.

Kathy Whitman noticed her husband’s ever bleaker outlook and began to gently urge him to seek counseling. Meanwhile, C.A. and Margaret Whitman separated after another violent row. Margaret and Charlie’s brother Patrick moved to Austin in the spring of 1966. C.A. called ceaselessly, begging Margaret to return to him, but she refused. In May she filed for divorce. Charlie’s troubled family, it seemed, had followed him. In this place where he was determined to make a new start he was constantly reminded of his past. His depression and anxiety worsened, and Kathy finally persuaded him to see a doctor that spring.

Dr. Jan D. Cochrun prescribed Valium for Charlie and referred him to University Health Center Staff Psychiatrist Dr. Maurice Dean Heatly. Heatly found that Charlie “had something about him that suggested and expressed the all-American boy,” but that he “seemed to be oozing with hostility.” Charlie spoke mainly of his lack of achievement and his hatred of his father. At one point, he told Heatly that he had fantasized about “going up on the Tower with a deer rifle and shooting people.” Heatly was not disconcerted. Many of his patients had made references to the Tower, and Charlie showed no behavior patterns as of yet that indicated that he was serious. He had, in fact, been making such comments for years, and everyone dismissed them as nonsense. Heatly suggested that Charlie return a week later, and told him that he could call at any time. Charlie did not return, nor did he call.

In the summer of 1966, Charlie dutifully attended to his class work and his job as a research assistant with the help of the amphetamine Dexedrine. Sometimes he went for days without sleep, studying and attending to various projects. He was taking a very heavy course load, trying harder than ever to excel. But the drug made him inefficient. Even though he spent many hours working, he could not seem to accomplish what he wanted. As a result, his self-esteem suffered even more. Additionally, his father was still calling, trying to get Charlie to convince Margaret Whitman to return to him in Florida. Though friends and family generally agreed that Charlie was under strain and trying to do too much, no one noticed he was edging quietly toward violence. As the Texas summer heat intensified, Charlie became ever more consumed by his fantasies of killing.

Preparations

Charlie’s first concrete action toward the plan he’d been formulating came on July 31. That morning he bought a Bowie knife and binoculars at a surplus store, and canned meat at a 7-11. Afterwards, he picked up Kathy from her summer job as a telephone operator for Southwestern Bell. They went to a movie, and then joined Margaret Whitman for a late lunch at the cafeteria where she worked. Following lunch, they dropped in on their friends John and Fran Morgan. The Morgans found Charlie unusually quiet, but suspected no trouble. Kathy returned to Southwestern Bell for another shift at 6:00 p.m. Charlie went home alone. At 6:45 p.m,. he began typing a letter of explanation and farewell.

“I don’t quite understand what it is that compels me to type this letter,” he wrote. “Perhaps it is to leave some vague reason for the actions I have recently performed.” He went on to say he’d increasingly been a victim of “many unusual and irrational thoughts” and that his attempt to get help with his problems (the visit to Dr. Heatly) had failed. He expressed a wish that his body be autopsied after his death to see if there was a physical cause for his mental anguish. As he continued, he outlined his plan for the coming 24 hours. “It was after much thought that I decided to kill my wife, Kathy, tonight after I pick her up from work at the telephone company,” he revealed. “The prominent reason in my mind is that I truly do not consider this world worth living in, and am prepared to die, and I do not want to leave her to suffer alone in it.” He continued, “similar reasons provoked me to take my mother’s life also.”

Charlie’s typing was interrupted by a visit from Larry and Eileen Fuess, a couple with whom Charlie and Kathy were friends. The Fuesses found Charlie unusually calm, but happy. They chatted for a while. Charlie told stories, talked of buying land on Canyon Lake, and spoke very sentimentally of Kathy. Twice he said, “It’s a shame that she should have to work all day and then come home to…..” but didn’t finish the sentence. The three friends bought ice cream from a street vendor, and the Fuesses left around 8:30 p.m.

Presently, Charlie left the house to pick up Kathy. Her shift ended at 9:30, and they were probably back home by 9:45. Kathy chatted on the phone for a while, then Charlie called his mother, asking if he and Kathy could come over and enjoy the air conditioning at her apartment. But Kathy didn’t accompany him to his mother’s place. She went to bed, and Charlie left their house around midnight.

Margaret Whitman greeted her son in the lobby of her apartment building, The Penthouse. When they were inside apartment 505, Charlie attacked her. The exact circumstances are not known, but it seems that he choked Margaret from behind with a length of rubber hose until she was unconscious. He then stabbed her in the chest with a large hunting knife. There was also massive damage to the back of her head, but since no autopsy was performed, it is uncertain if the wound was inflicted with a gun or with a heavy object. Margaret Whitman was dead by 12:30 a.m., at which time Charlie sat down to write another letter of explanation. “I have just taken my mother’s life,” he wrote, “I am very upset over having done it…I am truly sorry that this is the only way I could see to relieve her sufferings but I think it was best.” He placed his mother’s body in bed and pulled up the covers, then composed another note, this one designed to delay the discovery of what he’d done. He posted this one, intended for the building houseman, on the door of apartment 505. It read, “Roy, I don’t have to be to work today and I was up late last night. I would like to get some rest. Please do not disturb me. Thank you. Mrs. Whitman.”

Charlie left The Penthouse at about 1:30 a.m. but quickly returned saying he was Mrs. Whitman’s son and needed to get into her apartment to get a prescription he’d promised to fill for his mother. Probably, he had forgotten a bottle of Dexedrine, which he would need in the coming hours. The doorman let him into the apartment, and he returned in about five minutes with a pill bottle. He left The Penthouse for good around 2:00 a.m.

Kathy Whitman lay in bed asleep when Charlie returned home. Quickly and quietly, he pulled back the bedding and stabbed her five times in the chest. She probably never awoke. He then turned his attention to the letter he’d been typing the previous evening when the Fuesses had visited. “3:00 a.m.,” he scrawled on the page in blue ink, “Both dead.” With his pen he continued the explanation of his crimes, placing the blame for everything on his father and trying to make sense of the twisted morality that had brought him to murder. “I imagine it appears that I bruttaly [sic] kill [sic] both of my loved ones,” he wrote. “I was only trying to do a quick through [sic] job.” He wrote a few more notes, one to each of his brothers and one to his father. He left instructions that the film in his cameras be developed, and that his and Kathy’s dog be given to her parents. For a little while he looked back in his diaries, highlighting entries where he had extolled his wife’s virtues in years past. Then he set about preparations for the killing spree which would follow in a few hours.

Ready for Battle

(Austin Police Department)

In his old Marine footlocker Charlie packed an array of supplies. He brought a radio, 3 gallons of water, gasoline, a notebook and pen, a compass, a hatchet and hammer, food, two knives, a flashlight and batteries, and various other implements which made it clear he was prepared for a lengthy standoff. Additionally, he packed guns—a 35 caliber Remington rifle, a 6mm Remington rifle with a scope, a 357 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver, a 9mm Luger pistol, and a Galesi-Brescia pistol. Later that morning he would buy two more weapons, a 30 caliber M-1 carbine and a 12-gauge shotgun. As he packed he refined his plan. At 5:45 a.m. he called Kathy’s supervisor at Southwestern Bell and told her his wife was sick and wouldn’t be reporting to work that day.

Charlie spent the morning accumulating more supplies. At around 7:15, he went to Austin Rental Company and rented a two-wheeled dolly to help him transport the heavy, unwieldy footlocker. He cashed checks amounting to $250 at the Austin National Bank, and bought guns and ammunition at Davis Hardware, Chuck’s Gun Shop, and Sears. Arriving home again at around 10:30 he called his mother’s employer and said she was ill and wouldn’t be coming to work that day. Then he took his new shotgun out to the garage and sawed off part of the barrel and the stock. At around 11:00 a.m. he put on blue coveralls over his clothes, trundled his footlocker to the car, and headed for campus.

At 11:30 a.m. Charlie arrived at a security checkpoint on the edge of campus. His job as a research assistant had provided him with a Carrier Identification Card, which was issued to those with a need to deliver large items onto the campus. He told Jack Rodman, the guard at the checkpoint, that he would be unloading equipment at the Experimental Science Building and that he needed a loading zone permit. Rodman issued him a forty-minute permit. By 11:35 Charlie had parked, unloaded his gear and entered the Tower. With his coveralls and dolly he attracted no undue attention—he looked like a janitor or maintenance man. He took an elevator up to the 27th floor, and then dragged the dolly and footlocker up three short flights of steps.

Edna Townsley was the receptionist on duty to supervise the 28th floor observation deck that morning. Her shift was to end at noon. Charlie hit her on the back of the head, probably with the butt of one of his rifles. He hit her again after she fell, then dragged her across the room and behind a couch. She was still alive, but would die in a few hours. At around 11:50, Cheryl Botts and Don Walden entered the reception area from the observation deck and found Charlie leaning over the couch, holding two guns. They greeted him, and though they found him strange and noticed some “stuff” on the floor (Edna Townsley’s blood), they were not immediately alarmed. Charlie watched them board the elevator, which took them to safety.

Meanwhile, M.J and Mary Gabour, their two sons, and William and Marguerite Lamport were headed up the steps from the 27th floor. They found the door barricaded by a desk. Mark and Mike Gabour pushed the desk away and leaned in the door to see what was going on. Suddenly Charlie rushed at them, spraying them with pellets from his sawed-off shotgun. Mark died instantly. Charlie fired down the stairway at least three more times. Marguerite Lamport was killed; Mary Gabour was critically wounded, as was her son Mike. They would lay where they fell for more than an hour. William Lamport and M.J. Gabour ran for help.

From the Tower

View from Texas Tower
(Austin Police Department)

On the lower floors of the Tower the alarm spread. People began barricading themselves into classrooms and offices. On the observation deck, Charlie unpacked his array of supplies and his guns. He wedged the door to the deck shut with the dolly and quickly set about firing. Turning his attention to the area of campus known as the South Mall, he began with his most accurate weapon, the scoped 6mm rifle. His first target was Claire Wilson, a heavily pregnant eighteen-year-old. The bullet pierced her abdomen and fractured the skull of the baby she carried, killing it. When she cried out, an acquaintance, Thomas Eckman turned and asked her what was wrong. Just then he was hit in the chest. He fell dead across his wounded girl. Nearby, Dr. Robert Hamilton Boyer, a visiting physics professor, took a bullet to the lower back. He died quickly.

To the east of the Tower at the Computation Center, Thomas Ashton, a Peace Corps trainee, was shot in the chest. He died later at Brackenridge hospital. As others in areas around the Tower began falling, those in surrounding buildings began to take notice. Wounded victims lay helpless, pinned down in the 95+ degree heat and fearful of being shot again. At about noon, University Police arrived at the Tower and proceeded to the 27th floor, where they discovered the Gabour/Lamport party. An order was given to secure the exits and shut off the elevators. It was not yet clear how many shooters there were, but from the number of calls that were coming in to both the Austin Police and the University Police, it seemed there must be an army atop the Tower.

Charlie was still moving about the observation deck unhindered, and turned his attention westward, toward Guadalupe Street. Known as the Drag, the busy street was lined with businesses and formed the western boundary of the UT campus. Initially, people on Guadalupe Street thought the echoing gunshots were part of a college prank. Then Alex Hernandez, a newsboy on a bicycle, fell wounded. Seventeen-year-old Karen Griffin fell next, and would die a week later. Thomas Karr, who had probably turned to render aid to Griffin, was then shot in the back. He died an hour later. Those inside Guadalupe Street businesses huddled together away from windows.

Austin Police were arriving on campus and trying to make their way to the Tower. Officers Jerry Culp and Billy Speed were huddled, with others, under a statue south of the Tower, trying to figure their next move. Charlie shot Billy Speed through a six-inch space between two balusters, which were part of a rail that surrounded the statue. Though Speed’s wound looked superficial to those around him, it was in fact grave. He was dying.

Back on the Drag, the carnage continued. Harry Walchuk, a thirty-eight-year-old doctoral student and father of six was exiting a newsstand when a bullet entered his chest. He died at the scene. Nearby, high-school students Paul Sonntag, Claudia Rutt and Carla Sue Wheeler dove for cover behind a construction barricade. As Paul peered out from behind the barricade to see what was happening, Charlie shot him through his open mouth. He was killed instantly. Another shot hit Claudia Rutt, who died later at Brackenridge Hospital.

By now word of what was happening had spread, and police began returning fire toward the Tower, trying to pick off Charlie as he rose up over the parapet to take aim. Citizens went home and got their own guns, and hundreds of shots chipped away at the Tower in the next hour. Charlie began shooting through the rainspouts on each side of the building, making himself virtually impossible to hit. He switched guns from time to time. The greater part of his killing had been done in his first twenty minutes on the observation deck, but he was not finished. Over 500 yards to the South, city electricians Solon McCown and Roy Dell Schmidt parked their truck and joined a group of reporters and spectators. They huddled behind cars for safety. Schmidt, probably thinking that they were out of range, stood up. He was hit in the abdomen, and was dead ten minutes later.

As more victims fell, police officers made their various ways to the Tower. Austin Police Officers Jerry Day, Houston McCoy, and Ramiro Martinez, Department of Public Safety Officer W.A. Cowan, civilian Allen Crum and others converged on the 27th floor. They cleared the floor and brought down Mary and Mike Gabour, who had lain critically wounded in a deep pool of blood for over an hour. Martinez and Crum moved carefully up the steps and into the reception area. McCoy and Day soon followed. There was no definite plan of action; each man had to improvise as the situation developed. From inside the reception area, they could cover windows on the south, southwest, and west sides of the Tower. Martinez tried the door to the observation deck, but found it had been wedged shut. He kicked the door until the dolly fell away, freeing the door. The men waited and watched the windows.

Charlie Whitman dead
(Austin Police Department)

Ramirez emerged onto the deck, and began crawling toward the northwest corner, where the shots seemed to be coming from. McCoy followed, while Crum and Day guarded the door. As Charlie tried to change position, Crum misfired his gun, sending him back to the northwest corner. There he sat with his back against the north wall, aiming his carbine toward the south, from whence Crum’s shot had come. Martinez and McCoy continued their slow crawl, friendly fire from the ground zinging around them. When Martinez reached the northeast corner, he rounded it and began firing his .38. Charlie tried to return fire but could not bring his weapon around in time. McCoy fired his shotgun twice at Charlie’s head, knocking him to the floor. Martinez then grabbed McCoy’s gun and ran toward Charlie’s twitching body, firing into it point blank. At 1:24 p.m. Charlie was dead.

Aftermath

Charlie had killed fourteen people and injured dozens more in a little over ninety minutes. Soon, Charlie Whitman’s name was being broadcast nationwide in television and radio news bulletins. In Needville, Texas, Kathy Whitman’s father heard his son-in-law’s name on the radio. Concerned for his daughter, he contacted Austin police. Kathy’s friends were calling, too, expressing concern and offering support. A car was sent to the Whitman’s Jewell Street home. Peering through a window, Officers Donald Kidd and Bolton Gregory saw Kathy’s body lying in bed. They entered the house through the window and found that she had been dead for some time. They also found Charlie’s notes. “Similar reasons provoked me to take my mother’s life also,” one read. Arriving at the Penthouse at around 3:00 p.m., police found the body of Margaret Whitman.

It soon became known that Charlie had sought the help of Dr. Heatly some months before, and Heatly released all his records regarding him to the public. Because Charlie had told Heatly of his fantasy of killing people from the tower during his one appointment, Heatly was suddenly under intense scrutiny. He was never found responsible in any way for the killings, however. The general consensus was that he’d done the best he could with the information he was given by Charlie. Nothing else about Charlie suggested that he would do what he did, so Heatly did not consider him a threat to himself or others.

When Charlie’s body was autopsied doctors discovered a small tumor in his brain. Some of his friends and family have seized upon this as the cause of his actions, but experts concur that this is doubtful. Charlie was buried in Florida beside his mother. As he was an ex-Marine, an American flag covered his coffin. Kathy Whitman was buried in her hometown of Needville, Texas.

At the Texas Tower the observation deck remained open for several years. The University spent $5000 repairing bullet holes in 1967. There were suicides, though, four of them in the years between 1968 and the closing of the deck in 1974. In 1976 the University of Texas Regents declared the deck permanently closed, and so it remained for over twenty years.

In October, 1998, University of Texas President Larry Faulkner announced plans to reopen the observation deck. He asked for the support of the University Regents in making the Tower a positive symbol of Texas pride once again. The Regents approved his plan, and on September 15, 1999 (the school’s 116th anniversary) the deck was reopened. There are security guards on the ground floor of the Tower and on the deck itself, which is surrounded by a stainless steel lattice to prevent suicides and falls. Visitors can once again enjoy the panoramic view from the Tower, but must pass through a metal detector to gain entry. The ghost of Charlie Whitman is, for the most part, exorcised. Yet the security precautions remind visitors that safety can only be ensured through hyper-vigilance.

There was a time when things weren’t like that. Charlie Whitman ended it for good.

Bibliography

Fox, James Alan and Jack Levin, Mass Murder and Serial Killing Exposed. Dell Publishing, 1996.

Lane, Brian and Wilfred Gregg, The Encyclopedia of Mass Murder. London: Headline Book Publishing, 1994.

Lavergne, Gary M., A Sniper in the Tower: The True Story of the Texas Tower Massacre. Bantam, 1997.

Newton, Michael, Mass Murder: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1988.

Steiger, Brad, The Mass Murderer. New York: Award Books, 1967.

Contemporary accounts may also be found in archives of these Texas newspapers: Dallas Morning News and the Austin American-Statesman