The Texas Killer
Sir: The fact that Charles Whitman [Aug. 12] was psychotic and is now dead is unimportant to the unaccountable, unbalanced, whacked-up bunch of people who will strive to perpetrate any crime for the sake of the publicity, as you well know. How can you elevate such a person to that extent? Charles Whitman may be "news"—but isn't there someone in this country who deserved enough commendation last week to have appeared on your cover? You could always resort to a picture of Niagara Falls.
Jo RENNER
Ambler, Pa.
Sir: Whitman told his psychiatrist he had a desire to shoot people from high places. That nothing was done in the light of this threat I consider to be a gross moral, if not professional, lapse on the part of the psychiatrist. It is criminal that this boy could have seen a psychiatrist and not have had basic tests done, such as an encephalogram, which could have spotted the cause of his suffering and led to control of his antisocial behavior.
KATHERINE HOWARD
Minneapolis
Sir: In these times of euphemism—of a softening of language as soft as the brains of those who are softening it—let us not forget that Whitman was a bully, a pervert and a coward. He was a pervert in that he enjoyed murdering more than not murdering. He was a coward in that he fled his problems through death—and had not the courage to take his own life, but forced the responsibility on another.
Louis P. SHEPHERD
Associate Professor of English State College
Fitchburg, Mass.
Sir: I trust Officers Martinez and McCoy of the Austin police will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for the way they conducted themselves during the slaughter on August 1. It would appear that these policemen went to the University of Texas tower and shot that nice young man without even extending to him the courtesy of first informing him of his rights, such as his right to refuse to be questioned if he didn't feel like being questioned, his right to have a lawyer at his side, etc. Didn't this constitute police brutality at its worst?
JACK C. DEAGAN
Chicago
Sir: TIME is to be commended for setting the record straight as to the meaning of "the right to bear arms." That phrase has been used out of context by the gun lobby in its fight against a reasonable firearms law to suggest that every man, woman and child has a right to be armed to the teeth. The Founding Fathers never sought to inject such a remarkable concept into the Second Amendment. The Kennedy assassination, the attack on James Meredith, the University of Texas rampage must arouse Congress to enact laws aimed at keeping firearms out of the hands of the unstable, the immature and the antisocial.
PETER BUCK FELLER
Washington, B.C.
Sir: You are correct when you say, in reviewing Carl Bakal's The Right to Bear Arms [July 29], that the U.S. of 1966 has no marauding redcoats or redskins. But unfortunately we do have the Black Muslims, Hell's Angels, the Ku Klux Klan, etc. Since the beginning of time, man has needed to defend himself. To deny the honest citizen easy access to firearms is to deny him a life without fear.
VANCE MCLAUGHLIN
Pittsburgh
Old Shoes & Rice