This Day in History: The Luby's shooting, also known as the Luby's massacre, took place on this day in 1991, at a Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas. The killer, George Hennard, drove his pickup truck through the front window of the restaurant. He quickly shot and killed 23 people, and wounded 27 others. He had a brief shootout with police, refused their orders to surrender, and fatally shot himself. At the time, the shooting was the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in U.S. history.
Suzanna Hupp was in that restaurant that day with her parents. She reached in her purse for her gun, but then realized her gun was 100 yards away in her vehicle because Texas law at the time demanded it. Her parents were both killed. Since then she has lobbied for looser gun control laws that she says could have allowed her to save the 23 victims, including both of her parents.
About a dozen years or so I remember watching her testimony in congress, and it was one of the most powerful statements in defense of gun rights. Watching her speak changed my mind on guns. (You also get to see a young Chuck Schumer).
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