The Kent State university shootings (a.k.a. “The Kent State Massacre”) were a touchstone for the Viewnam-era American anti-war movement. On May 4, 1970, after three days of campus-wide unrest, 29 (out of 77) National Guard troops fired their M1 Garand rifles on a group of protesters. In all, they loosed 67 bullets, killing four students and wounding nine. Wikipedia explores the cause celebre’s causation: “The Adjutant General of the Ohio National Guard told reporters that a sniper had fired on the guardsmen, which itself remains a debated allegation. Many guardsmen later testified that they were in fear for their lives, which was questioned partly because of the distance between them and the students killed or wounded. The President’s Commission on Campus Unrest avoided probing the question regarding why the shootings happened. Instead, it . . . concluded that ‘the indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable.'” But, perhaps, understandable. New information from phillyburbs.com sheds light on the possible roots of the tragedy.
