Worst Non-School Mass Shooting in US History* (To Date)

A Brief History

On October 16, 1991, 35 year old loser George Hennard crashed his truck into the front of a Luby’s Cafeteria in Kileen, Texas, hopped out of the pick-up, and began shooting, eventually killing 24 people (including himself) and wounding another 27. Up to this point, the Luby’s Cafeteria shooting was the deadliest non-school shooting in US history.

(Note: This tragedy was greatly eclipsed by the horrific mass shooting at Las Vegas, Nevada on October 1, 2017, in which a single gunman shot and killed 58 people, with another 413 reporting wounds or injuries.)

Digging Deeper

Although this incident was the worst non-school related massacre by firearms in US history, the Sandy Hook Elementary Shootings (2012) and Virginia Tech (2007) school shooting incidents both had more fatalities. At Luby’s, Hennard used 2 pistols in the onslaught, a Glock 17 and a Ruger P89, both in 9mm Luger caliber, the Glock with a 17 round magazine and the Ruger with a 15 round magazine.

Of course, the perpetrator was known to have a drug habit, which should prohibit him from buying or possessing a firearm, as he was booted from his job as a merchant marine sailor for drug use. Obviously, no legal mechanism exists in the US for such an incident to be reported to the BATFE or the FBI, so his purchase of the 2 handguns at a legitimate gun shop were perfectly legal as far as the background check process goes. Our background check system relies on the purchaser to self-report an addiction to drugs!

Hennard (no big surprise) was unemployed, and is said by his acquaintances to have been something of a hater, hating women, minorities and gays. During his rampage, he sometimes passed up men in order to shoot women, and of the 23 he killed 14 were female. Victims ranged in age from 30 to 75 years old.

Hennard had also been stalking 2 teen aged girls (sisters) in his own neighborhood that he considered his “groupie fans.” Apparently this did not cause police to confiscate his guns or put him on a “no buy” list, even though the mother of the girls took crazy sounding letters from Hennard to the police.

During the 15 minute incident, before Hennard stopped and shot himself, Hennard walked deliberately from cowering person to person, shooting them in the head or body and sometimes saying “Bitch!” when he shot a woman. During the shooting an auto mechanic patron dived through a glass window and was followed by about 20 other customers.

Of course, gun control advocates jumped on the incident to press for an agenda of limiting firearms and demanding a ban on “assault weapons” (none of which were used) and “high capacity” magazines. More rational people recognized that if Hennard had been limited to 10 round magazines he could have used a deadlier caliber (such as .45 ACP, .40 S&W, or .357 Sig) and perhaps have killed even more people. Or perhaps he could have armed himself with several guns, making the capacity point moot.

Once again, the US suffered at the hands of a mentally disturbed person, and virtually nothing has been done since to keep such people from purchasing guns. The law requires that someone be adjudicated mentally ill before being banned from possessing a gun, and merely being scary to your friends and relatives is not now a prohibitive condition. Perhaps some sort of referral process can be initiated where people you suspect of being unstable can be required to by examined for mental stability in order to be allowed possession of firearms. Instead, the bumbling Federal Government has decided that Veterans that assign another person to cash their disability check are considered mentally unfit to possess a firearm and are put on the no sell list!

With monotonous regularity, mass or shocking shooting incidents result in passionate cries for gun control laws that have no relationship whatsoever to preventing the incident that took place, and nothing is done about mental health, which leaves gun advocates with their proposed solution that the public can best protect itself by responsible citizens that go through background checks and training be allowed to have a concealed carry permit for firearms. After all, 1 such person could have ended the massacre in a second, instead of cowering helplessly or being forced to flee, risking a shot in the back.

Question for students (and subscribers): What are your opinions on this highly emotional topic? Please let us know in the comments section below this article. We appreciate both sides of the argument. Oh, the Luby’s reopened in a few months and stayed in business for 9 more years.

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