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Fifty years ago today, Charles Whitman killed 17 people and injured 30 more (one of the victims lived for years but ultimately died from wounds linked to the shooting). Whitman killed his wife and mother first and then went up the clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin and fired on the campus, terrorizing everyone who was there that day. In the era before Columbine or Virginia Tech or Orlando, it was a kind of tragedy people could not imagine until it happened.
Today, a campus carry law takes effect in Texas -- over the objections of nearly all campus leaders and faculty members.
Also today, UT Austin will unveil a new memorial to those killed on Aug. 1, 1966. A photo of the new memorial is at right.