From the Tower shootings in 1966 to Campus Carry in 2016: Collective trauma at the University of Texas at Austin

Abstract

AbstractThe first mass school shooting in the modern history of the United States occurred at the University of Texas at Austin on August 1, 1966. A 25‐year‐old student, Charles Whitman, went on a rampage that ultimately left 16 dead and 31 injured. With no prior models for how to respond, public discourse about the tragedy was squelched. Fifty years lapsed before a proper permanent memorial was dedicated – the same day that the Campus Carry gun law went into effect. This article explores the tragedy and its aftermath through the lens of history, rhetoric, sociology, and psychoanalysis. The silence and disavowal after the killings, the perception that Austin lost its innocence, feelings of helplessness and shame, more permissive gun laws, and even the counter‐culture's glorification of Whitman were symptomatic of collective trauma. In the years since the massacre, we learned that collective trauma requires witnessing, discourse, and memorialization for healing to occur.