“In August of last year, a demented sniper sat with an arsenal of weapons at the top of a University tower and coldly and systematically killed and maimed 44 Americans.

"The horror of that senseless slaughter shocked the entire Nation. Yet, today, 13 months later, Congress has failed to enact a gun control law. In those intervening 13 months, guns were involved in more than:

• 6,500 murders
• 10,000 suicides
• 2,600 accidental deaths
• 43,500 aggravated assaults
• 50,000 robberies.

"FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover has just reported that the use of firearms in dangerous crimes is on the upswing. For the first six months of 1967 there was a:

• 24 percent rise in the use of guns in aggravated assaults.
• 37 percent rise in the use of weapons in robberies.

"A civilized nation cannot allow this armed terror to continue.”

-Lyndon B. Johnson: “Letter to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House of Representatives Urging Enactment of Gun Control Legislation,” September 15, 1967. 

Photo of UT Tower by daleexpress