In 1966 Charles Whitman shot a bunch of people from a 29 floor tower in Texas. He killed 10 from the tower and others on the ground earlier. But were the tower shots real difficult? Would an average shooter be able to do the shots? He was described as a sharpshooter but to what degree was he? Just curious.
They would not be easy shots, 300+ feet (if I have my info correct). It appears he had a magnification scope on his gun, but I can’t tell what power.
In general, without seeing the line up of the shot, I can’t say, but having been on 300+ foot buildings, I’d say it’s very, very (as in under 1% IMO) unlikely an average shooter, much less an average person, could take those shots. Moving targets are almost impossible for most people to hit, from that distance it’d be a major, major difficulty to hit someone, even if they were stationary.
ETA: remember, this guy was a well trained marine.
4X scope on a Remington 700 6mm rifle. Not that hard at all. Most of his targets were not moving that fast or were stationary.
okay, but wasn’t everyone evacuated after the gunshots? Admittedly, I don’t know much about this particular incident (I did a 30 second google to refresh), but didn’t he shoot out of a drain pipe or something? That can’t be easy…
As for not moving? Why the hell not?!?!? They were being shot at!
This is only 100 yards. Any moderately competent hunter who bags a deer every couple of years and shoots infrequently would be expected to be able to hit a human torso sized target at 2 to 3 times that range with plain old iron sights (no scope), say every other shot.
Infantrymen are expected to hit moving and partially covered human size targets reliably at 300 to 400 yards with no scope. Good marksmen using a decent rilfe and scope can hit a dinner plate target at 600 to 700 yards. Military snipers are expected to hit a dinner plate target on first shot from 800 to 1000 yards.
Perhaps someone with personal exprience of military marksmanship standards can come along to chime in.
I can shoot as accurate as anyone listed above (exception to snipers).
Average shooters, and average people, cannot. The OP was specific about “average” and frankly, deer hunters aren’t average shooters.
Yeah they are. What pool are you going to draw from if not hunters? The average guy off the street probably couldn’t do it, but as trupa notes, your average deer hunter could. From that vantage point, it just isn’t that hard a task. Most were killed/wounded in the first few minutes, before counter-sniper fire and aircraft fire forced Whitman to limit his shooting to loopholes. Heck, I’m just a middling shot and I can punch 3" targets at 100 yeards with iron sights if I’m shooting from a rest, as Whitman was.
He was sitting up there for more than an hour,
Way up there on the Texas Tower
Shooting from the twenty-seventh floor. Yahoo!
He didn’t choke or slash or slit them,
Not our Charles Joseph Whitman,
He won’t be an architect no more.
-The Ballad of Charles Whitman - Kinky Friedman
He was trained in the Marines.
From here:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/20857/charles_whitmanthe_texas_tower_massacre.html
My pool of shooters is major city (DC Metro, Ohio, NC) and country (outside of DC Metro, Ohio & NC), for the most part, so I’m not lacking in knowing deer hunters (or people who claim to hunt deer, but are always ill when hunting season starts… :dubious: ), but I will readily admit my lack of hunting and lack of will to hunt do likely skew my view of “average” shooters.
The “average” shooter when i think of average owns a shotgun/rifle/pistol or two, and shoots every six months or year, once a month at most (after that, you’re out of “average” and into “recreational”), and even there you’re on the border.
I suppose the difference is our use of the term “average,” mine is to say, “the shooter, which if you totaled the number of individuals who shoot this would be the highest population of them,” yours, I think, is more along the lines of a linear chart, with average being roughly between “least” and “most” skilled in shooting.
It’s not a difficult shot for an experienced shooter, but for what I think of as average (also known as: lowest common demoninator), I’d be surprised if 1 in 10 could make it.
I don’t know about the Marines, but in the army all soldiers are trained to hit stationary targets out to 300 meters with iron sights, give the average soldier (as in mechanic, clerk, etc; not infantry) an M-16 with a 4x scope on it, and most will hit a stationary 300 meter target every time. Infantrymen are going to be even better than the average soldier.
For those saying the average joe couldn’t make those shots, lets put it this way: The sort of person who owns (or has easy access to) a Remington 700 isn’t going have a problem hitting targets far past 100 yards.
You mean people who can’t really shoot actually own guns?
…Isn’t that like …extremely dangerous?
Only if they have ammunition. 
And I don’t know if there are places in the US that require that you show proficiency in firearms to own them, but I know Texas, as of the early 2000’s when I lived there, only required three things for you to purchase a firearm:
- Be 21 years of age or older
- Not be a convicted Felon
- Have the financial means to purchase a firearm (because if you didn’t, well, it’s not like anybody was going to sell it to you.)
I think you typically have to show proficiency to apply for a Conceal-and-Carry license, at least in Texas. Dunno about other states.
Honestly, this debate doesn’t make sense. You have three types of people:
- gun owners who are interested in shooting;
- gun owners who are not interested in shooting; and
- non gun owners.
Of the first group, almost anyone with a bit of practice is going to be able to make those shots with a hunting rifle. It doesn’t take too much practice to become proficient enough to shoot at fairly short range and hit people-sized targets, of which he had a lot. Also, his accuracy rate, IIRC, wasn’t superhuman.
The second group of gun owners consists of people like gangbangers, seniors who buy a gun for “protection” and never learn to use it, people who inherited guns and put them in the closet, etc.
The final group is pretty self explanatory.
So if you’re asking about the “average shooter”, that includes only the first group. And the answer to the OP is “yes, an average shooter could do about the same thing”. Without getting into penis contests about how “we’re all good, but that average guy can’t shoot for shit” (because anyone on the SD is above average in every way), the fact is those shots didn’t require a tremendous amount of skill to pull off beyond a little bit of practice and familiarity with the gun.
According the the contemporary Time magazine piece on the killings,
It also seems that 5 of the people killed were actually shot at close quarters in the tower. So the vast majority of shots that he fired killed no-one although many were wounded.
When I was a teenager in Texas, back in the 1950s, if you had the money, you could buy the weapon. Everyone in Texas, in those days, was assumed to be familiar, if not proficient, with guns.
In Florida, if one applies for a CCW, one has to demonstrate proficiency by firing at a target in an approved shooting range.
Friend Louis B wrote:
For a Nebraska license the proficiency section of the concealed handgun permit qualification is thirty shots, six of which are from three feet. The longest distance is 21 feet.
While a three hundred foot shot with a good scoped rifle is not difficult at all, shots from a three hundred foot tall building would be more difficult due to the large down angle involved. It would take practice.
But typically only to a standard of accuracy that most police can manage (which is to say, not very stringent).
Given that Whitman was a trained sharpshooter, and that he fired quite a bit of ammo during the incident, I’d say he had enough practice!
The targets were moving. One guy stuck his head out to look at the tower and got shot in the head.
I heard he shot people who were a quarter mile away. Is that possible?
Not really, but kind of. Which is why I think there should be a class taught at the high school level – in schools – about safe firearm handling (basic level, mandatory), and one for marksmanship (advanced level, non mandatory), much in the same way some schools offer drivers Ed as a class you can take.
[quote=“Raguleader, post:12, topic:552665”]
These are the only federal requirements to purchase a firearm. (also, no dishonorable discharge from the military, or domestic violence restraining order).
You must also show proficiency to get a ccw licence in Ohio, Florida and Virginia. However, it’s the most basic level of proficiency.
It is possible, yes.
Shots at that range are a challenge, but not impossible. In fact, with 100 dollars you can get a mosin nagant 91/30, which is a 100+ year old Russian design and is capable of killing someone well over 1/2 mile away. It was the very same firearm used by the white ghost, I can’t remember his name, but he was a Finnish soldier who killed hundred of Russians when they invaded Finland. He singlehandedly held down an entire forest, got exploded and kept killing – the guy pits Jason Bourne to shame, frankly. If Superman was half the man this guy was, he would have single handed saved krypton *while en utero. *
Also, I disagree with the three categories of shooters above.
There are at least;
- Non gun owners.
- Gun owners, not shooters.
- Occasional shooters, non gun owners – typically rent a firearm or shoot with a friend.
- Occasional shooters.
- Frequent shooters
- Hobbists.
- Professionals.
- Jerry Michuleck. :o
IMO, the 5 or above can make this shot, maybe 70% of 5 and above. Maybe 10% of 4 (I’d be surprised), at most, but 1, 2, 3 are certainly unable to make shots like this regularly.