Shots Fired at University of Texas Campus; Gunman Dead

[Isolder74]

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Shots Fired at University of Texas Campus; Gunman Dead
Updated: 7 minutes ago

Mara Gay Contributor
AOL News
(Sept. 28) -- A gunman killed himself after opening fire today in a library at the University of Texas in Austin today, police say.
The campus remains on lock down, as police search for a possible second shooter.

A man walked into the Perry Castaneda Library this morning with an automatic weapon and fired multiple shots before turning the gun on himself, Helena Wright of the Austin Police Department told AOL News. Perry Castaneda is the university's main library.

The shooter is dead, Wright said. No other injuries have been reported.

UT spokesman Don Hale told the Austin American-Statesman the university sent emergency text messages to students and faculty warning them to stay away from the library and remain indoors. He did not immediately return a call for comment today.

Randall White, an adjunct law professor at the university, said he saw the suspected gunman outside the library. "He was running down the streets firing random shots," Wilhite told CNN. "At first I didn't think it was gun shots." Wilhite said the man was 6'2, white and wore a black ski mask and a dark tie. "I didn't think it was real until I saw bullets strike the ground," he said.
Kevin Olsen, a graduate student, told the paper he heard bursts of gunfire and said students were walking around campus looking "kind of in awe."

The name of the suspected gunman has not been released.

In 1966 the campus was the site of a deadly shooting spree when Charles Whitman, a student, climbed the university's iconic Texas Tower and opened fire, killing 14 people and wounding more than thirty more.

Frankly, I'd wouldn't mind if the name of the gunman is never released and he disappears into obscurity.

[Solauren]

Problem is, if you don't release his name, you have people digging into it, and spreading conspiracy theories about him. In effect, idolizing him. Mystique does that.

Release his name, and now he's just another fucked up suicide.

[TithonusSyndrome]

I take it you've never been privy to the school of thought that sensational publicity for school shootings might encourage them? I mean yeah yeah, that same old song and dance is bound to emerge that "oh it's not my fault, other people have control over their own actions and i didn't make them do it", but if you're in a position of significant influence, then you kind of have a moral obligation to not contribute to the decisions of future would-be gunmen.

[Solauren]

Oh, I have heard about that. And I agree.

I also know that some members of the media would sensationalize the fact no name is being given.

[Anguirus]

They are telling us all to stay off campus. Supposedly they got conflicting descriptions of the first shooter so they are scouring the streets for an accomplice.

I kind of doubt it, but MUCH better to be safe than sorry.

[Jaepheth]

Hopefully it holds that no one else was/is injured and this was just a rather theatrical suicide.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Hopefully it holds that no one else was/is injured and this was just a rather theatrical suicide.

Pretty much yeah.

Unfortunately the "Handguns on camps" bill will now sail through the legislature and undergrads will be able to pack heat....

I dont know if I feel comfortable raking a cheater over hot coals if they have a gun.

[Alphawolf55]

Hopefully it holds that no one else was/is injured and this was just a rather theatrical suicide.

Pretty much yeah.

Unfortunately the "Handguns on camps" bill will now sail through the legislature and undergrads will be able to pack heat....

I dont know if I feel comfortable raking a cheater over hot coals if they have a gun.

I kind of wonder how degrading you must be if you legitimately worry about someone shooting you over how you talk to them but just assume if they're not willing to attack you with their fist or a possible knife they most likely aren't gonna shoot you.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Hopefully it holds that no one else was/is injured and this was just a rather theatrical suicide.

Pretty much yeah.

Unfortunately the "Handguns on camps" bill will now sail through the legislature and undergrads will be able to pack heat....

I dont know if I feel comfortable raking a cheater over hot coals if they have a gun.

I kind of wonder how degrading you must be if you legitimately worry about someone shooting you over how you talk to them but just assume if they're not willing to attack you with their fist or a possible knife they most likely aren't gonna shoot you.

And I wonder if you think before you post. If I were in any position of authority, I would be legitimately concerned over allowing students to pack firearms on campus. I can't control the level of training or personal responsibility each student has. I have no way of knowing if a given student, if presented with a failing grade, or legitimate concerns over his academic performance; is going to react in a cool and collected fashion, or pull out his gun and murder his professor in a fit of pique.

In untrained hands, guns are not violence deterrents, but violence enablers; and since Americans won't cotton to any sort of firearms training or regulation that would more than mildly inconvenience people that I, personally, wouldn't trust with a staple gun (let alone anything that shoots bullets,) I can completely understand where he's coming from.

[Alphawolf55]

I love how you didn't address my point at all and instead when on a tangent

Of course untrained civilians with guns are a bad idea, in the event of defending themselves they might cause more harm then before. But what I was addressing though is, is the fear that now people are going to be shooting you for doing your job. Guns don't magically make you a violent person. True it makes violence easier, and it makes people act a little more boldly, but if no one has attacked you before for doing your job. Unless you're so physically imposing that you intimidate everyone around you, you probably don't have much to worry about.

Now that I dont think students should be packing heat at school, I just don't think them shooting their professors for a bad grade should be one of the top concerns.

[Steel]

Unfortunately the "Handguns on camps" bill will now sail through the legislature and undergrads will be able to pack heat....

I don't know how people think that this sort of thing is a good idea. At the moment the stable equilibrium of no guns is occasionally perturbed and people die. The solution they propose is to move to the unstable equilibrium where every instant there can be violence and death, and there will still be shootings that lead to as many deaths on top of the constant threat of shootings from moment to moment.

If someone pulls out a gun in a lecture theatre then if noone else is armed some people die, the rest flee. If everyone else is armed, then lets suppose that as soon as the shooter kills the first person they're shot by someone else. How does anyone know if there were one or two shooters? Chances are that whoever shot the first guy is going to be shot by 5 other overenthusiastic gun holders. Then they're almost certainly going to miss and hit someone else and then people start defending themselves and the whole thing devolves into a bloodbath. I'd rather take my chances to run in a crowd from a shooter than to risk a dozen trigger happy idiots protecting me.

That is a far more likely scenario than the shootings in the first place. If only there were proper firearm regulations in place (see every other civilised country where school and university shootings never happen).

[Alphawolf55]

Isn't that a bit extreme though? I mean I live in an open carry state and we literally have some of the lowest shooting rates in the country and stuff like that never happens.

[Steel]

Isn't that a bit extreme though? I mean I live in an open carry state and we literally have some of the lowest shooting rates in the country and stuff like that never happens.

I guarantee you the shooting rate in my city is lower.

[General Zod]

Isn't that a bit extreme though? I mean I live in an open carry state and we literally have some of the lowest shooting rates in the country and stuff like that never happens.

Don't you live in New York? Everything I can find suggests they have some of the strictest handgun laws in the US.

[Alphawolf55]

Half the time I live in NYC, I also live in NH which was declared the safest state in 2008, 2009, and 2010

[General Zod]

Half the time I live in NYC, I also live in NH which was declared the safest state in 2008, 2009, and 2010

Yeah. . .given how tough it is to actually get a handgun in New York it's probably not a good example of anything. Especially considering open-carry states like California with a significantly higher murder rate.

[Alphawolf55]

Yeah but i also live in NH which is an open carry state and it only takes like a 50 dollar payment to get a permit and it's literally as safe as possible in this country

[Alyrium Denryle]

Hopefully it holds that no one else was/is injured and this was just a rather theatrical suicide.

Pretty much yeah.

Unfortunately the "Handguns on camps" bill will now sail through the legislature and undergrads will be able to pack heat....

I dont know if I feel comfortable raking a cheater over hot coals if they have a gun.

I kind of wonder how degrading you must be if you legitimately worry about someone shooting you over how you talk to them but just assume if they're not willing to attack you with their fist or a possible knife they most likely aren't gonna shoot you.

You don't have to be degrading. Cheaters are actually statistically more likely to be narcissists and sociopaths than anything else, as a a result they feel as if they are Entitled to cheat and fulfill their sad and pathetic little dreams. Such a person may very well feel they are within their rights to remove an obstacle to their success, namely me.

But what I was addressing though is, is the fear that now people are going to be shooting you for doing your job. Guns don't magically make you a violent person.

No, they just give someone predisposed toward violence in a systematic or momentary way the means by which to be violent. Have you ever dealt with a student who's dreams have been shattered thanks to their own incompetence and dishonesty? I have had people cry, become physically aggressive etc. I do NOT want any of them with a means by which to increase the risk to me and decrease the risk to them in a confrontation. That is the only reason violent person will not attack you. The prospect of being harmed in kind. Someone with a gun has little to worry about from me, because all of the sudden what physical imposition I do possess and whatever institutional authority I have to inflict punishment goes out the window.

Yeah but i also live in NH which is an open carry state and it only takes like a 50 dollar payment to get a permit and it's literally as safe as possible in this country

The population is also really fucking small.

When I have the time I will do an Analysis of Covariance on gun laws and violent crime rates, controlling for state population size.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Yeah but i also live in NH which is an open carry state and it only takes like a 50 dollar payment to get a permit and it's literally as safe as possible in this country

The population is also really fucking small.

When I have the time I will do an Analysis of Covariance on gun laws and violent crime rates, controlling for state population size.

There's also the part where NH's population is mostly well-off, well-educated, and progressive; and NH is surrounded by progressive, liberal, relatively anti-gun states and freakin' Canada. Contrast this with another open-carry state with a nearly-identical population to New Hampshire . . . New Mexico, which has two million people to New Hampshire's 1.9. While New Hampshire has a murder rate of 0.8 per 100,000, New Mexico has a murder rate of 8.7 per 100,000. This is in spite of the fact that New Mexico has a fraction of New Hampshire's population density. It is also poor, un-educated, and conservative. It is surrounded by conservative, pro-gun states, and freakin' Mexico.

[MKSheppard]

Unfortunately the "Handguns on camps" bill will now sail through the legislature and undergrads will be able to pack heat....

Excellent.

It's worth noting that when Charles Whitman went on his rampage there in the 1960s; it was the students who had hunting rifles in their car trunks (again, different era) that helped keep Whitman pinned down enough to reduce casualties and provide some help until the cops could arrive in force.

[Alphawolf55]

I wouldn't call Massachusetts or Maine anti-gun to be honest.

[aerius]

Unfortunately the "Handguns on camps" bill will now sail through the legislature and undergrads will be able to pack heat....

I dont know if I feel comfortable raking a cheater over hot coals if they have a gun.

You're thinking about it all backwards. As an American it's your 2nd Amendment duty to pack your own firearm so the perp won't even think about shooting you, and if he's still dumb enough to make a threatening move you can shoot him first. It's your constitutional right and you must exercise it, or the dirty socialist liberals will win.

[Pelranius]

Unfortunately the "Handguns on camps" bill will now sail through the legislature and undergrads will be able to pack heat....

Excellent.

It's worth noting that when Charles Whitman went on his rampage there in the 1960s; it was the students who had hunting rifles in their car trunks (again, different era) that helped keep Whitman pinned down enough to reduce casualties and provide some help until the cops could arrive in force.

Given that ROTC participation was more prevalent then, that could have made those students more effective and smarter with firearms. If you arm the overmedicated, fratboy doofuses of today whose only experience with firearms is via video games, the outcome could be quite different.

[Stark]

Come on, one event you can harp on for decades is way more meaningful than any actual analysis.

I'm not sure how the law can override private properly requirements, but whatever .

[Coyote]

As for the "publicity" angle, I think that just identifying these troglodytes as "a troubled student" or "a disturbed former employee" (etc) would be much better than obsessing about him by name for weeks and showing other troubled punks "this is a potential road to infamy".