Audio Analysis Brings New Revelations From Kent State Shooting

a_nonamiss writes "The Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting today on new forensic analysis by audio scientists Stuart Allen and Tom Owen on a recently discovered audio tape from the Kent State shootings. The analysis suggests that four shots from a .38-caliber pistol were fired 70 seconds before the National Guard opened fire on a crowd of student protesters, killing four and wounding nine others. The alleged shooter, student Terry Norman, was hired by the FBI to take photos of the protesters. It has been known for some time that he had a .38-caliber pistol on his person the day of the shootings, but he has always claimed that the gun was not fired during the protest, a claim that was backed up in sworn testimony from authorities at the time."

Comments

Cause and Effect

[Knave75]

70 seconds seems like a substantial delay between an action and a provoked response

Re:Cause and Effect

[reboot246]

Yeah, that's as slow as the reactions in a soap opera.

Re:Cause and Effect

[a_nonamiss]

Definitely a fair point. However, if someone starts waving a gun around and firing shots, that's a good way to whip up a crowd of angry people into a fury, where the guardsmen might have legitimately felt threatened. 70 seconds is probably too long for him to have been directly responsible, but just about the right amount of time to have been a crucial catalyst.

Re:Cause and Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

70 seconds seems like a substantial delay between an action and a provoked response

Not really. It sounds like just about enough time for the chain-of-command to relay an order down to the troops to clear out the area with force.

Re:Cause and Effect

[D'Sphitz]

But feeling threatened is no excuse to start picking off uninvolved, unarmed people hundreds of feet away at random. "Someone in the crowd may have a gun, so shoot them all to be safe"

Re:Cause and Effect

[multisync]

It sounds like just about enough time for the chain-of-command to relay an order down to the troops to clear out the area with force.

\

Indeed. From TFA:

The audio tape also contains what Allen and fellow forensic acoustics expert Tom Owen believe is a command ordering the Guardsmen to prepare to fire ... Terry Gilbert, a Cleveland attorney who is advising Canfora, said their primary interest is the apparent order for the Guard to fire, but that the new revelations about the confrontation and pistol shots "add an interesting dimension because of the role the FBI might have played in the chain of events."

Re:Cause and Effect

[john82]

My brother was a student at Kent State and there the day of the shooting. He had always insisted that the guards did not fire first.

Re:Cause and Effect

[john82]

Remember that May 4th was not an isolated day. The tension had been building for several days. It actually started three days earlier on May 1st. The stand-off between "students" and various law enforcement orgs included throwing bottles, rocks and bricks at law enforcement. Btw, the "students" weren't all enrolled at Kent State.

So it wasn't just a case of the Guardsmen opening fire, for no reason, on peaceful demonstrating students. Should the Guardsmen been there at all? Probably not, but that was the decision Gov Rhodes made when the Mayor of Kent asked for help controlling the situation. Just understand that the "students" were part of what happened. It's not as black and white as it's been portrayed.

Re:Cause and Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

kill yourself, fascist

Re:Cause and Effect

[mspohr]

Looks like the FBI fired first.

Re:Cause and Effect

[X0563511]

It doesn't mean it was HIS .38 firing. That's hardly an uncommon caliber.

Re:Cause and Effect

[Spewns]

kill yourself, fascist

It's funny how this is marked troll but what he's responding to isn't. Society is doomed. (Yes, I just determined that by the mod behavior on Slashdot.)

Re:Cause and Effect

[multisync]

It doesn't mean it was HIS .38 firing. That's hardly an uncommon caliber.

More from TFA:

Some witnesses claim they saw Norman fighting with several students and waving or pointing his gun

TV footage shortly after the shooting shows Norman running toward a cluster of Guardsmen and police, pursued by a man who yells that Norman has a gun and has shot someone. The TV film shows an emotional Norman hand his pistol to a Kent State patrolman and describe an assault by protesters.

The TV reporter and sound engineer say they saw a Kent State detective open the pistol's cylinder and heard him exclaim off-camera that it had been fired four times. Officers' written statements contended it was fully loaded and unfired.

The new analysis of the audio recording lends credibility to existing evidence that Norman fired *his* gun. It's no longer just a case of his word against that of a bunch of hippie protestors, and warrants the further investigation that is now taking place.

Re:Cause and Effect

[Nerdfest]

Han shot first.

Oh, sorry, wrong conversation.

Re:Cause and Effect

[dpilot]

Grew up in the area, had friends that (later) went to KSU, was pre-HS at the time.

My father had a friend at work who had a daughter going to KSU. A few days before this got so bad, she called her dad, telling about what she heard from the apartment above. (thin walls, thin floors, cheap college rental) She heard the students there calling all over the US, lining up people to bring in to help with the protest. She was scared - her father picked her up and brought her home.

Re:Cause and Effect

[Suki I]

Looks like the FBI fired first.

In the article it says that photographer was free-lance and sold photos to the FBI after events, not an FBI employee.

Re:Cause and Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows that Han shot first.

Re:Cause and Effect

[DesScorp]

Looks like the FBI fired first.

Based on what, besides your paranoid conspiracy theories? The photographer wasn't an FBI agent, he essentially took a free lance job from them. And this tape doesn't necessarily prove that HE was the shooter, just that someone fired 38 caliber bullets before the National Guard opened fire.

People here keep assuming that it was some federal conspiracy, when it's more likely it was the work of some radical students. This WAS the era of the SDS and Weathermen, after all. It's not like there weren't any students that were willing to, oh, kill people to achieve their political objectives.

Re:Cause and Effect

[WCguru42]

That goes double for people implying they're planning to use "second amendment remedies" if their candidates don't win.

Let then. No where in the second amendment does it give people the right to kill others, simply the right to bear arms. If a bunch of people show up with arms bared and start shooting they could all be thrown away for reckless endangerment, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, murder, manslaughter, etc.

Re:Cause and Effect

[Lord Ender]

At some point, the soldiers selected targets and fired on them. No matter what the "tension" or "provocation," those men placed their cross-hairs on people who were obviously not a threat and executed them.

I would love to hear, in the soldiers' own words, how they picked their targets.

Re:Cause and Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on what, besides your paranoid conspiracy theories?

No, a weighting of *all* of the evidence.

The photographer wasn't an FBI agent, he essentially took a free lance job from them.

But he *was* employed by them.

And this tape doesn't necessarily prove that HE was the shooter, just that someone fired 38 caliber bullets before the National Guard opened fire.

Only if you look at it in isolation.

1. Before the Guard opens fire, a man chases Norman towards the Guard, screaming that he had just shot someone.
2. Norman gives his .38 to a Guardsman, who inspects it.
3. The Guardsman exclaims that the gun had been fired four times (overheard by two neutral witnesses.)
4. The Guardsman and Norman then swear that the gun had not been fired.
5. Analysis shows that a .38 *had* been fired four times.

Now it's a pretty simple exercise to show that the Guardsman and Norman were lying. Unless you're just gonna stick your head in the sand and cry "lalalalalal I can't hear you!"

Re:Cause and Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

My brother was a student at Kent State and there the day of the shooting. He had always insisted that the guards did fire first.

Re:Cause and Effect

[X0563511]

I stand corrected. That's a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing to it (and this isn't CSI... the most probably answer is likely the real answer too)

Re:Cause and Effect

[AfroTrance]

If he above statements by the TV crew are true, the police covered up the fact that this guy fired four shots first. Why would the police cover this up if the shooter was just a normal student photographer? They would do the exact opposite, i.e. expose him as the shooter, which would semi-validate the National Guard's decision to open fire.

Re:Cause and Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

um... yeah, so what? I imagine someone printed up fliers too.

Re:Cause and Effect

[ultranova]

At some point, the soldiers selected targets and fired on them. No matter what the "tension" or "provocation," those men placed their cross-hairs on people who were obviously not a threat and executed them.

Protestors are always a threat to those in power, whom the soldiers serve. In the end, the US - or any other country - is no different from China. Fear keeps the people in line. Fear of being killed next.

Re:Cause and Effect

[ultranova]

I disagree. Sometimes people have to be shot and killed to teach future hippie dippies a lesson.

Don't worry, the hippie movement is dead as a doornail. And you can rest assured that any future Summer of Love will always be followed by a long, cold, dark Winter of Hatred. In the end, Flower Power couldn't overcome the evil in human heart. Nothing can.

Re:Cause and Effect

[KibibyteBrain]

A military force is not really trained to pick targets; they are trained to efficiently kill enemy combatants once given an order and to wait and act on further orders. They were given such an order before acting, and they pretty much responded the only way they were trained to respond.

This is just a fundamental problem in using law enforcement officers not trained for riots, much the less actual professional soldiers trained mostly for combat, as police when BS like this happens. Yet it seems like the USA we have a record of consistently using the wrong tool for the job when it comes to resolving crisis situations, or in this case more of situations politicians and citizens with outdated world views and value systems don't like, whether at home or abroad. And then we in hindsight blame it on the wrong tools chosen why they responded wrongly rather than the engines of society that stupidly selected them.

Re:Cause and Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

People here keep assuming that it was some federal conspiracy

That's hardly surprising. When presented with new information, people tend to make up a narrative that reinforces their existing prejudices.

when it's more likely it was the work of some radical students. This WAS the era of the SDS and Weathermen, after all. It's not like there weren't any students that were willing to, oh, kill people to achieve their political objectives.

Speak of the Devil...

Re:Cause and Effect

[commodore64_love]

>>>No where in the second amendment does it give people the right to kill others, simply the right to bear arms

No it's covered in the 9th amendment (rights reserved to the People) such as the Right to Self-defense when attacked. And the Right to alter or abolish a government when it becomes a tyranny. Plus the 10th which reserves power to the States:

Many State Constitutions include the right to overthrow the central government. Example: "All power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their peace, safety and happiness. For the advancement of these ends they have at all times an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think proper." - PA Constitution.

Re:Cause and Effect

[mabhatter654]

It's Cheney's (because Bush wasn't really in charge) legacy that "the Party" has become almost violently "with us or against us" in terms of the far right tail wagging the people in the middle to "choose sides"... there can be no "compromise"! I think the Republicans will split in 10 years or less. The "big media" is more "Republican" than ever... because owners and editors have always been conservative... it's just "man on the street" reporters that want sense of it all that are the "flaming liberals". Cheney's White House did a "cleaning house" job on the media under the guise of "security"... up to framing several men for treason to prove a point. The Party leaders knew any Republican was toast... after all they controlled both houses for 6 of 8 years Bush was President... they new the public had to let off steam, they are thinking War strategy, setting the President of the United States up to fail before he was even elected... they're dogs that need put down.

Re:Cause and Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

You're entirely correct and I feel completely disenfranchised politically by the parties. The vile far right cohort precludes me from rejoining the republican party. But where do I go? I'm sorry, but half of the Democratic leadership is wackos too -- and the minority far leftists are worse than the neocon fundies, imho.

We've come to this farking crossroads where the right doesn't want to help their fellow man and the left wants to force you to do it however they and the government see as being best. I want independent thought, self-reliance, private charity, and the old Yankee can-do spirit back, damn it.

Re:Cause and Effect

[techhead79]

What's to say he didn't have the mindset to reload it before handing it over to the Nation Guard?

Re:Cause and Effect

[moortak]

"up to framing several men for treason to prove a point" Who was framed for treason? One guy was charged, but hasn't stood trial yet and I;m unaware of any evidence that makes the charges look like a frame up job.

Re:Cause and Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

The National Gaurd did not shoot first... the rioters set fire to the National Gaurd armory first. They then assaulted firefighters who attempted to put the fire out... and then they were shot.

There is no real controversy. Kent State taught us a simple lesson: If you set buildings on fire then you will be shot; if you do not want to be shot then don't set buildings on fire. If you disagree... please feel free to test my theory out.

Really, why are we still bringing this up? Why does the liberal media try to glorify the violent, treasonous actions of the students involved? What alternate universe do people live in where the rioters are treated like heroes and those who maintain order and protect lives are treated as villains? Grow up, there are consequences for your actions and glorying these extremists only encourages others to disregard the lesson of Kent State and those emulate the violent, extremist actions. Actions have consequences...

Re:Cause and Effect

[Lord Ender]

They were not given the order to shoot students walking to class, but that is who they shot. How did they select those targets?

Re:Cause and Effect

[dbIII]

It appears from the little I've read that they were poorly trained new recruits with little in the way of orders and no clear rules of engagement. There was a panic and they shot the people they saw as a threat.

Re:Cause and Effect

[Vastad]

Kind of creepy that a Google Image search of "Terry Norman" shows only three very small photos that might be him and nothing else. Mostly just text devoted to him and his role but no idea what he looks like today. Wikipedia article says he was tracked down to Bangor, Maine in 2006.

Re:Cause and Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Reports I have read said that the ROTC building was set on fire on Friday and the massacre occurred on Monday. Half the students killed were over 100m away from the area where the shootings took place and were not taking part in any protest. The rest had merely convened at a place that put them in the firing line of an undisciplined force.

If you set buildings on fire then you will be shot; if you do not want to be shot then don't set buildings on fire.

Is that the punishment for arson? A yes or no answer would suffice. Also, is it the punishment for having nothing to do with an arson attack but just walking around ... 100m away?

Re:Cause and Effect

[maxume]

The last 3 decades have done an excellent job of demonstrating just how great a threat protesters are not.

Re:Cause and Effect

[RespekMyAthorati]

I disagree. Sometimes people have to be shot and killed to teach future hippie dippies a lesson.

In other words (in Cartmans's voice):
"I hates hippies!

Re:Cause and Effect

[TENTH SHOW JAM]

Every Country Has the Governement It Deserves. Sorry.

Could be worse. In a recent election in Australia, the people voted and the voice was heard. And the resounding sound of the people said together "meh". And nothing was done for 3 years...

Re:Cause and Effect

[mabhatter654]

saying the Government did "nothing" but keep the lights on and chairs warm... that's a "bad" thing???

The whole thing could have been planned.

[elucido]

I don't and will never trust an informant. And if it's an informant then did the informant do this because the FBI wanted to give the national guard the excuse to fire? It almost seems too convenient.

Re:The whole thing could have been planned.

[c6gunner]

Seems more likely that some idiot protesters accused him of being an "agent provocateur", attacked him, he panicked and pulled his gun.

Re:The whole thing could have been planned.

[Kreigaffe]

If the hatred, anger and vitriol found in today's leftist rally/riots can be taken as an example of what that crowd was like, I think it's more than just a little likely that's what happened.

I don't see how everyone's up in arms about him being an "informant". It doesn't seem anyone had any confusion as to who he was working for -- and he had every right to be there taking pictures and recording things, just as much as any of the protesters had the same right, or any other sort of reporter. But hey, that's how it goes -- it's OK to film incidents of "The Man" acting wrongly (and, it IS), but if you're filming incidents of "The People" acting wrongly they suddenly forget themselves and act not as they should with equal respect to everyone's rights but instead only in their own self-interest.

Re:The whole thing could have been planned.

[budgenator]

Your missing the atmosphere of the events, Everybody smoked pot and most at least claimed to use LSD on the student/flowerchild side of the fence, we were coming out of the summer of love and had just had our first Earth Day!. Domestic terrorism was a cottage industry ala Black Panthers, SDS and Weatherman, and they had all been infiltrated and sponsored by the KGB. J. Edgar Hoover was the director of the FBI and COINTELPRO was du rigor and the CIA had carte blanche both domestically and overseas. Nixon, our President was a sociopathic narcissist and slipping into paranoia. Now add in Norman who probably was told or thought he was some kind of private contractor for the FBI and may well have been. Hell he may have thought he was "coming in from the cold" when he ran up to the cops. It's very likely that some of the professional protesters or a KGB observer recognized him as an FBI agent or informer and fingered him. It's very conceivable that he was in danger of great bodily injury or losing his life and used the 38 in self-defense; even now he's just sort of disappeared without a trace.

70 seconds ???

[haus]

In a live fire situation 70 seconds may as well be next Tuesday.

Re:70 seconds ???

[moxley]

It's true. The average gunfight lasts mere seconds...now, what happened an Kent State was anything but average, but still...over a minute?

There are so many things that are wrong with what happened that day, from all of the evidence, it looks to me and many others like this was orchestrated...someone wanted the anti war college students to be fired on, likely within the FBI - cointelpro, etc.

Re:70 seconds ???

[Anonymous Coward]

In a live fire situation 70 seconds may as well be next Tuesday.

This was 40 years ago. The Ohio National Guard was equipped only with muzzle loaders then and 70 seconds was a quite rapid time to load and fire. Its a good thing they didn't bring in the trebuchets.

Re:70 seconds ???

[bcmm]

It's suspected that the Guard believed Norman's shots to be sniper fire. It could've put them on edge, ready to overreact to something else.

Re:70 seconds ???

[russotto]

It's suspected that the Guard believed Norman's shots to be sniper fire.

Sniper fire from a .38 Special revolver? Not likely. Doesn't even sound similar. It's more likely they fired because they were ordered to.

Re:70 seconds ???

[Anonymous Coward]

lets see how your live gun shot recognition works when you are surrounded by an angry crowd throwing rocks at you, that you were sent to control.

i suppose in your scenario it would have all gone like this...
guard: hey we have just been shot at, someones trying to snipe us
guard 2: no moron that is only a .38 special, nothing to worry about at all, it only stings a little.

Re:70 seconds ???

[leonardluen]

First definition i found for "sniper" - "a marksman who shoots at people from a concealed place"

I see nothing in that definition that indicates what style of gun they need to use. granted revolvers aren't accurate at long range but that doesn't preclude them from the definition above.

Re:70 seconds ???

[X0563511]

Indeed. Someone could even get silly and stick a 2x (or greater) optic on the revolver. There's a popular photo (and/or shop) of a kitten with one... I'm sure you've seen it.

Re:70 seconds ???

[Antique Geekmeister]

Go to a rifle or pistol range and close your eyes, and I'm sure you can distinguish the sounds of a small pistol from a high velocity, high accuracy rifle. Higher muzzle velocity, longer barrel, more explosive involved, etc. all make the sound different. But a few isolated shots across hundreds of feet of distance, in a noisy environment with angry protesters and loudspeaakers in action raising the noise floor, wearing a helmet? That seems extremely unlikely to allow such a clear distinction: the "sniper" could simply be further away than the pistol wielder.

Re:70 seconds ???

[sco08y]

It's suspected that the Guard believed Norman's shots to be sniper fire.

Sniper fire from a .38 Special revolver? Not likely. Doesn't even sound similar.

"Don't worry about those bullets coming from an unknown shooter, men, they're only 38's!"

Re:70 seconds ???

[X0563511]

.38 is hardly uncommon. How do we know it was Norman's that we (now) can hear?

Re:70 seconds ???

[Antique Geekmeister]

Optics on revolvers don't help for shots hundreds of feet away, they're just not that accurate. Even mounting one in a clamp to adjust the sights only buys limited accuracy at longer distances. (I've done this, working with a friend to calibrate his laser sights: it was fascinating to learn about.)

The kitten picture you're referring to is this one, I think: http://www.funny.co.uk/stuff/art_175-2815-Sniper-Kitten.html. It's not a pistol, it's a plastic toy. It is a very funny picture: if I'm not mistaken, that firearm is a model of the sniper rifle from Halo.

Re:70 seconds ???

[jedidiah]

Concealment usually implies distance.

Distance means you need a more accurate weapon.

That pretty much eliminates pistols. It also eliminates a lot of rifles too.

Re:70 seconds ???

[X0563511]

Bah. Damn brain getting confused. Well, that's no revolver :P

Still - even if the accuracy sucks it could still be considered sniping. Nobody said it had to be good... you could get lucky (or if your plan was to cause disruption... mission accomplished)

Re:70 seconds ???

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true. The average gunfight lasts mere seconds...now, what happened an Kent State was anything but average, but still...over a minute?

There are so many things that are wrong with what happened that day, from all of the evidence, it looks to me and many others like this was orchestrated...someone wanted the anti war college students to be fired on, likely within the FBI - cointelpro, etc.

Of course, look who's still making hay over what happened at Kent State 40 years ago.

Re:70 seconds ???

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, watch the buzzkill for the monday morning conspiracy theorists.

Re:70 seconds ???

[Anonymous Coward]

Sound similar? Just how well trained do you think the National Guard is?

Re:70 seconds ???

[couchslug]

There isn't much way to distinguish caliber that precisely (unless the same ammo is fired AT you from a distance day after day).

Further, .38 Special RIFLES have been available for many years before Kent State. It's an OLD (1899) cartridge. If you hear the report, and it's not outgoing, it's not unreasonable to assume it's incoming.

Re:70 seconds ???

[blincoln]

Optics on revolvers don't help for shots hundreds of feet away, they're just not that accurate.

Isn't that partly because of the typical combination of bullet size, amount of gunpowder, and barrel length in a revolver? My granddad had an S&W .22 Jet revolver which I believe came from the factory with an optical sight. It was intended for use as a "varmint gun" on farms. It looked like a full-size .357 or .44 magnum (long barrel, etc.), and the cartridge size was (IIRC) the same as a .357 magnum, but necked down to fit a .22 bullet, so it was almost like a pistol configured to fire 5.56mm rifle rounds. Supposedly it was pretty accurate at range (at least for a pistol), but the design had a problem with the cartridges jamming in the cylinder.

Re:70 seconds ???

[hairyfeet]

While there is no way in hell you could ever snipe with a snub .38, a long barrel .357 would probably be accurate to about 200 yards which gives room for concealment, so yeah, you could probably snipe with the right pistol. Of course you better have strong forearms because that heifer kicks like a mule. As for TFA it smells like COINTELPRO to me. You have to remember Hoover's FBI had NO problem with executing American citizens they considered...what's the word?...oh yeah uppity. For an example see Fred Hampton who they drugged THEN executed, just to make sure he had NO chance in hell. So would it surprise me? No. Hell would it surprise me if COINTELPRO is going to this very day? Not a damned bit, which is why I think eventually we are gonna have to take this country back from the snakes that have taken it over.

Re:70 seconds ???

[Antique Geekmeister]

Well, yes. If you make the barrel of a pistol 2 feet long, you start looking like Jack Nicholson as the Joker handling it. You'll increase the muzzle velocity and reduce the tumbling, so your maximum range will increase. Of course, since your hand always wobbles somewhat, even for a skilled shooter with a 2-handed grip, your grouping will be awful at significant distances, even if your bullets and barrel are the equivalent of a rifle's.

A quick search shows pages like this (http://home.inreach.com/marine/usmc7.html), which lists the effective range of a typical Marine side arm of about 25 meters, and similar pages show the M-16 as having an advertised effective range of about 550 meters for a point target. A 2x scope is great for shooting varmings: not so helpful for shooting at troops several hundred feet away.

Re:70 seconds ???

[Anonymous Coward]

Does any healthy male 15 - 30 not have strong forearms?

Re:70 seconds ???

[Kreigaffe]

There's plenty of people who can shoot near-MOA groups at 100 yards with a revolver. That's 300 feet. That's "hundreds of feet" in other words. There's plenty of people who can shoot more accurately at 100 yards with a handgun than an AK-47 is capable of shooting at 100 yards (of course, with deference to very accurate AKs -- some of them have been worked on and can shoot fairly well, but even the 'accurized' sniper-variant AKs that you can find being used to snipe US troops abroad tend more towards a 2" group at 100 yards).

Re:70 seconds ???

[AK Marc]

You assume accuracy when the situation didn't require it. Simply firing could have been sufficient, and firing into a crowd requires no accuracy at all.

Re:70 seconds ???

[Anonymous Coward]

You know squat about firearms and shooting.

Ed_McGivern did his long range shooting (man sized target at 600 yards) with a normal barrel length revolver.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_McGivern

"Reduce tumbling" ?!? Are you smoking crack?
Go look up the word "rifling."

Re:70 seconds ???

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the question more of *A* strong forearm, rather than the plural form? :)

Except y'know, maybe if he has a girlfriend. Or boyfriend, whatever floats his boat really.

Re:70 seconds ???

[wierd_w]

"Tumbling" == "End over end"
Rifling induces "Spiral", which gyroscopically reduces/eliminates "tumbling"-- Much like a properly thrown football.

appeal to authority fail.

Re:70 seconds ???

[RocketRabbit]

However a trained shooter with a handgun can make shots far exceeding 25 meters. I know several folks who can shoot a standard small bore bullseye with a standard police revolver from the 1950s (a .38 special) accurately at ranges exceeding 200 feet. The target is about the same size as a man's head. If you are satisfied with simply hitting a person somewhere, you can probably double that range after a few days at the range and some good instruction.

This is really not even that big of a deal. Looking up the effective range on the internet, and seeing what a trained, careful shot can do with a revolver are two different things.

Re:70 seconds ???

[Antique Geekmeister]

On a closed target range, with a high quality target pistol, yes. In real life, with targets at uncalibrated distances without an opportunity to practice at that particular location with that particular elevation.? Not likely. Between the lower velocity rounds, the relatively higher recoil of a lighter weapon even with varous stabilization technologies, and the greater effect of a human pulse and breathing on the position of a firearm held on the end of these multi-jointed objects called "arms", the smaller factors accumulate.

To assume that "a few days of practice can double that range" is to assume that "if it takes 2 men 1 1/2 days to dig a 20 foot trench, it takes 8 men 3 days to dig a 160 foot trench". Too many uncertainties and non-linearities accumulate to make such a guess useful. For example, bullet velocity drops sharply in the first few hundred feet of travel in some pretty non-linear ways. This makes angular forces, such as wind and gravity, have far greater effects. And very small angular factors at the moment of firing, such as the muscular tremors of even a very steady and trained grip, become more and more significant.

These factors apply to all range weapons, whether guns or bows or slings or thrown cow patties.

Re:70 seconds ???

[Antique Geekmeister]

Oh, AK-47's are very inexpensive, genuine assault weapons. They're considered complete crap for accuracy.

Can you name a single one of those people who can shoot a "Minute Of Accuracy" at 100 yards with a pistol? I'm hardly a frequent shooter, but I've never seen that tight a grouping with a handgun at that kind of range. In fact, I'd want to make sure the firing range had especially good roof and wall protection, to avoid problems with stray shots with a handgun at that range.

Re:70 seconds ???

[Antique Geekmeister]

Oh, yes! I agree. After all, just because you can use an Imi Galil to open a bottle doesn't make it a bottle opener. (Look it up: it was apparently a problem when they were first manufactured, so the manufacturer included a bottle opener in its later design.)

flowers to a gun fight

[dlt074]

hmm FBI employee shoots his weapon to get something started and then plausibly denys it. nothing to see here.

on that note. never take a flower to a gun fight. when an armed person(legal authority or otherwise) tells you to stop, leave, get out of his face, and you don't have a weapon. you leave, period. you don't just stay there thinking they are not going to shoot you because you are "peaceful". they don't know that and they probably don't care.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. Obey authority. Always. Because they will kill you if you do not.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

never take a flower to a gun fight

Nor should you throw rocks, bricks, and bottles at a group of people carrying rifles. If anyone provoked the shooting it was the students. Deadly force was probably not justified at the point it was used, but the confrontations had been pretty violent for several days leading up to the shooting.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. Obey authority. Always. Because they will kill you if you do not.

WRONG

He said don't go unarmed.

I bet you're against the Second Amendment being interpreted as an individual right, too, aren't you? Now do you see WHY there's a Second Amendment, and why it is an INDIVIDUAL right?

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends what your goal is. If your goal is to get out of there alive then sure. If your goal is to make a point, then no.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Seumas]

Government agents infiltrate situations or causes to instigate and manufacture threats, violence, or confusion in order to promote or convince the rest of the country to condone action against said infiltrated group? Tell me it ain't so?

Also, in other news, the sky is blue.

It baffles me how people just accept the stories they are fed without ever questioning them. It is downright sickening to see how people just open their heads and let things just pour in, unchecked.

Next thing you know, someone is going to suggest that governments spread stories through the media outlets or back actual actions -- either of which promote suspicion of and urgency in dealing with foreign threats to justify taking action on a national level -- from sanctions to blockades and tariffs to military action against them....!

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

Lovely. Conservatives murder hippie protesters and then use that murder to point out that it wouldn't have happened if everyone would have been armed. You forgot to mention that if taxes weren't so high, the government wouldn't have been able to pay for the Guard to murder the hippies. Really, it was their bad politics that lead to them being shot at since no conservatives were being shot at by the National Guard that day.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus you're off your rocker. So the Kent state students had it coming. How can you classify a clash between civilians and their government as a gun fight?

Does anyone know the exact moment that a police officer is authorized to use their weapon in a situation like this?

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Speare]

Two words: Tank Man. Or more generally, "resist oppression." Take your pick.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

SHOTGUN MOUTHWASH.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

Lovely. Conservatives murder hippie protesters and then use that murder to point out that it wouldn't have happened if everyone would have been armed. You forgot to mention that if taxes weren't so high, the government wouldn't have been able to pay for the Guard to murder the hippies. Really, it was their bad politics that lead to them being shot at since no conservatives were being shot at by the National Guard that day.

Huh? A crazy conspiracy theory about an abusive government is an argument AGAINST the Second Amendment being an individual right? When the entire purpose of that Amendment was to allow the populace to protect itself against tyrannical acts by the government?

"The EVIL CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT killed innocent unarmed people just so forty years later other EVIL CONSERVATIVES could support a claim that the Second Amendment is an individual right! It's a CONSPIRACY!!!!"

Ooooh-kay.

Even IF true, that's hardly an argument against the Second Amendment guaranteeing an individual right to bear arms. Hell, the more evil and tyrannical you make the goverment out to be, the MORE important that individual right becomes. You just stepped on your own crank with golf shoes, buddy.

And your irrelevant mental contortions are definitely amusing.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

on that note. never take a flower to a gun fight.

Don't tell Ghandi.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

He said don't go unarmed.

Or, how about don't get in a gunfight with unarmed people carrying flowers?

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

GP is also willfully oblivious to STATE part of Kent State. Meaning.. if taxes weren't so high, the "liberals" wouldn't be able to pay for public universities such as Kent State, and therefore there wouldn't have been a place for the hippies to be murdered. And we wouldn't also now have a system that all but requires a college degree to be competitive. While loading down much of the populace with debts at a time when income is typically lowest, and then burdened by taxes to pay for other people to end up in the same situation.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[cosm]

Conservatives murder hippie protesters

It is this polarization between parties that results in nothing being accomplished in America. Blanket statements like that are A) False, unless you can confirm that everybody that landed a bullet was a conservative, B) Begging the questions, for them to be murderers renders them shooters, for them to be shooters renders them conservative, for them to be conservative renders them against hippie protesters, round and round we go.

How about just saying that the Man fucked up. Screw party affiliation. If we are always blaming left or right, we will always get screwed up the middle by both. Stop viewing the world through the R-D filter and start viewing it as us (people) vs them (people we elect). Oh wait.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mouthwash smells like teen spirit.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[cosm]

Courtney Love would like it.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[jjohnson]

I don't think he's saying that the students had it coming. He's saying that, in a direct conflict between you and the machinery of the state, there are two outcomes: You fleeing, and you dead. Don't make the mistake of believing that, because you're peaceful, they won't shoot. As this story demonstrates, they'll do whatever they have to, to create a provocation that lets them shoot you.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

Or Gandhi.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[X0563511]

Indeed. It's hardly a peaceful protest if people are shouting and throwing dangerous objects about.

If you are throwing anything besides a flower, expect retaliation.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[X0563511]

There's a third option you missed: the machinery breaks.

It's happened before, and could happen again.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[sco08y]

And we wouldn't also now have a system that all but requires a college degree to be competitive. While loading down much of the populace with debts at a time when income is typically lowest, and then burdened by taxes to pay for other people to end up in the same situation.

The reason college is so expensive and ubiquitous is because liberals demanded student loan programs. These increased demand and demand elasticity, which have inflated the price of a college education.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the tuition bubble bursts, but I'm going to guess that you'll blame conservatives for that, too.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[coldmist]

Thinking About Freedom
Robert LeFevre
The Freeman, February 1983, p. 115

                Could I control others by a simple exercise of my own will I would have no reason to inflict control, punishment or death upon another of my kind. Since my wishes would control others, each and every person would gladly do my bidding. Unhappily, for me, this isn’t true.
                Every other person has the same kind of control I have and is as eager for me to act as he wishes, as I am to have him act as I wish.
                The result is conflict. And from the days of Plato to Marx, stretching backward and forward from those polarities, the pages of the human record run red with blood and echo with the cries of anguish emitted by those who, at the moment, found themselves under the sway of some human being not content with self-management; seeking always to manage others in a way nature has not bargained for.

It's not "man", in general, but men that want to have some "kind of control" and "is ... eager for me to act as he wishes".

Most men don't have such ambitions. For some reason (the ability to actually exert this power over others), politics draws these kinds of men out.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[HiThere]

Or how about noticing that "left" and "right" are pretty much media inventions. To make politics easy to explain using sports metaphors. Yay for our team!

What this was, was people in power manipulating a situation to disadvantage people without power, and masses of people accepting the explanation, because they didn't have much choice, and anyway only one side was really heard. (Different sides in different places, but still only one side.)

It was after this that it coincidentally happened that all the major publishers started being acquired by major corporations...which wasn't a directly profitable action, publishing being relatively unprofitable. But which did mean that those publishers wouldn't print anything that the major corporations didn't approve of. (At least nothing they strongly disapproved of. The control was, and remains, indirect. The management chooses the editor who chooses what to publish.)
In this context it's worth noting that demonstrations now get minimal coverage in any media. This despite the fact that one would expect them to be more newsworthy as that occur less frequently.

Note that this is not a unanimous group. To call this a conspiracy is probably incorrect. It's merely that people in a position of power have certain interests in common that are not the same as the interests of people who are not in a position of power. And they tend to act to forward those interests.

Another thing that happened at around this time was that the political process was nominally loosened by allowing the easier formation of political parties while simultaneously centralized by removing the requirement that broadcasting stations allow equal amounts of partisan campaigning by all parties. This made money the central requirement for being heard. (It had already become a major requirement.)

Also note that in the US the election system (primarily, but not entirely, the means used to count the votes) is so structured that only two parties have a reasonable chance to win an election. There have been only a few times when an incumbent party became so weak that it essentially abdicated it's position to an alternate third party. Even Teddy Rooseveldt wasn't able to overcome this bias. I *think* that Instant Runoff would be quite superior, and I'm quite convinced that Condorcet voting would be superior. And, yes, it's true that it can be proven that no fair voting system can exist, but this doesn't mean that some aren't better than others. And the majority rule system is about the worst. (Not as bad as minority rule, of course.)

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're missing the point of the protests we had in this country during the Viet Nam War.

Bring the flower. Then stand your ground.

Since WW2, which as far as I know was as "just" as a war can be, we've fought war after war and yet we've never actually been attacked. That crap has to stop.

Viet Nam didn't attack us, neither did Laos or Combodia. Grenada? Iraq? We're bombing Pakistan almost daily. The first Iraq war maybe, this current one was a con. 19 guys from Saudi Arabia commit a crime and we attack two countries?

The few people that have gone the non-violent peaceful route have changed the world. The problem is there's too many people hiding at home and not enough Ghandi's and Martin Luther King's.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Antique Geekmeister]

Your statement is very strange. The Kent State shooting contributed directly to the US withdrawal from Vietnam by showing the callousness of the Nixon administration and the unjustness of those calling protests "un-American". By remaining, and being shot, they actually helped end the war by exposing the criminal and callous behavior of those leading the war.

Shooting unarmed protesters has, repeatedly, triggered national changes of policy in favor of the people who were shot. Look up "Crispus Attucks" for an example at the core of the US revolution against British rule.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. If you aren't born into wealth you have no place at an institution of higher learning.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

It is this polarization between parties that results in nothing being accomplished in America.

That's the whole point of the system. It seems you view this as a bad thing.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[YrWrstNtmr]

Bring the flower. Then stand your ground.

And be prepared to go to jail (or worse) for your beliefs. Ghandi and MLK were.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Cwix]

Your right because everyone should be able to live off of 3 dollars an hour.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[couchslug]

It's worth pointing out that in those days, there were no non-lethal weapons that were very effective. A rifle and a bayonet deter only by credible threat of use, and when that doesn't work, the operator either loses the field or uses the weapons.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[klingens]

There's a third option you missed: the machinery breaks.

Are you prepared to bet your life on this option?

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[DesScorp]

First off, with that reply, it's no wonder you posted AC. It was truly cowardly.

Second, when it came to "hippie protestors" in the 60's, they were often joined by fellow protestors whose intent wasn't quite so peaceful..

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Omestes]

Try poking holes in THAT without utterly ignoring a basic economic theory called supply-and-demand.

Not going to every try to poke holes in that, or any other silly, simplistic political ideology. All of them are overly simplistic and fail to really;sum up the complicated mess that is reality; they only serve to self-justify people who have heavy personal investment in political dogmas.

But the basic economic theory called supply-and-demand is that, basic. Yes, the basics exist, but with enough caveats and addendum to fill and entire book, or library. Saying that JUST supply and demand can dictate anything is naive. There are an infinite amount of factors involved. Supply and Demand, as a stand-alone theory, is ridiculously overly simplistic. It ignore consumer expectations, prestige pricing, the entirety of the digital economy (unlimited supply), behavioral advertising, advertising based on instincts, the whole gamet of informal fallacies used in advertising, market coercion, monopolies, government interference, pubic image, etc...

Its like the basic theory of economics stating that people are rational agents acting in their own self-interest. Its so basic that it is nothing more than an idealized model. Its like population modeling a park-land, and deciding, for the sake of simplicity, that you'll only model bunnies and foxes.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[c6gunner]

Government agents infiltrate situations or causes to instigate and manufacture threats, violence, or confusion in order to promote or convince the rest of the country to condone action against said infiltrated group? Tell me it ain't so?

Idiot conspiracy theorist making up shit that isn't backed up by any actual evidence? Tell me it ain't so!

In other news, grass is green.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[c6gunner]

As this story demonstrates, they'll do whatever they have to, to create a provocation that lets them shoot you.

Right. Because the national guardsmen psychically sent a signal to a freelance photographer to make him bring a gun and open fire. Makes perfect sense.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[WCguru42]

The few people that have gone the non-violent peaceful route have changed the world. The problem is there's too many people hiding at home and not enough Ghandi's and Martin Luther King's.

People of strong will change the world. They utilize various methods, but they change the world. Look at the American Revolution, violent and not so violent men fighting for freedom changed the world. The influence that the United States has had on the world is undeniable and that can be attributed to both those who fought with guns and those who fought with politics and diplomacy.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[hairyfeet]

You know, I'm in the south and as pro second amendment as they come, but they have fully auto M16s, F series aircraft, and tanks. You got a rifle. You have NO chance in hell pal. The ONLY way you would be anything other than a nice bullseye if the shit hits the fan is if the National Guard turns and joins the people, thus handing out those nice tanks and stingers. Considering I have friends in the military and they take words like "Honor" and "The Constitution" VERY seriously, that is certainly a possibility, but don't think for even a second your rifle would help save your ass against even SWAT. Look at Ruby Ridge and Waco as examples.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh good! Now we have established your war of independance was a mistake, When can we expect all our back taxes on our tea then?

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[jjohnson]

No psychic signal is necessary. All you need is the "freelance" photographer's boss to say "get in a scuffle and fire some shots where the guardsmen can here you. Or you get another "freelancer" to pick a fight with a guy who has a gun. [I put "freelance" in scare quotes because the photographer's gig was to go to protests and photograph the people there, to sell to the police and FBI.]

When you throw a match on a pool of gasoline, you don't need to send a psychic signal to get the gas to ignite.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

Addendeum--

If the authority issues conflicting orders, as is usually the case when 3 officers come upon the scene, are hyped up, and shouting, (personallyl, I think they do this on purpose so that they can shoot you) do the most minimally threatening moves possible. Keeps your hands out, if there is a weapon (like a legal CCW or knife) on you, do NOT disarm even if they are yelling to disarm, go to your knees, and go face down, keep your hands out. Do not turn and face them. Get down. Do not try to disarm with just your thumb and your palm out. Officers are stupid, they won't recognize what you are going, and just blast you for the hell of it.

Too many cases in the US where a "good shoot" is some guy listening to one officer telling him to get rid of your weapon, and the others shoot you as you are "going" for it.

If they tell you to leave, leave. As in fast walk to the nearest place of cover.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

poking holes in a "why" is easy. Poking holes in the cause-and-effect is not so much.
You need to restructure your argument if you want someone to actually have a hard time. R

ight now a "the progressives said they do it for such and such a reason" is enough to deflate everything you just said.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[poopdeville]

Raising demand elasticity wouldn't hurt the consumer. In fact, higher demand elasticity helps the consumer. I strongly suspect that your economic theory here is just wrong. Higher education has become more necessary for the workforce since the G.I. Bill was passed (which indicates LOWERED demand elasticity). Indeed, the government student loan programs are all tied to being possibly conscripted.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[poopdeville]

That would be nice, but some things have to be done. And our two-party system ensures that thousands of things that don't have to be and shouldn't be done are included in our necessary bills.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Securityemo]

You only have to break a small part for a time long enough for people to realise that your cause is just. That is, if the common man would find your cause just.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

And what if some of the students had brought guns to the Kent State shooting? What do you think would have happened? The death toll would probably have been 10 times higher, with students shot in the back while fleeing the scene, we'd still be arguing who started the gunfight, and the protesters would be labeled "terrorists". Who would believe the testimony of a student who participated to a protest where some of his friends decided to draw their guns and shoot at the cops? Your argument in favor of the Second Amendment flies in the face of common sense and is an insult to the memory of every person who died there on that day.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[noidentity]

No, just because it's not worth the hardship if I resist. I have my life to live, and hell if I'm going to make any sacrifice for the freedom of strangers. It's not like anyone before me ever did for my own freedom. Or wait, hmmm...

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[sco08y]

Raising demand elasticity wouldn't hurt the consumer. In fact, higher demand elasticity helps the consumer.

Sorry, should have said that consumers have higher price elasticity. So they're willing to spend more because they can get more loans.

I strongly suspect that your economic theory here is just wrong.

This is just basic microeconomics, not some elaborate theory.

But, for whatever reason, politicians routinely ignore this stuff. Otherwise they'd never call for price controls, protectionism, etc. I don't pretend to understand why.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[sco08y]

I agree. If you aren't born into wealth you have no place at an institution of higher learning.

Depends, if you're willing to become a wage slave to pay off endless loans, you can still do it. You can pay them off quicker, though, if you follow the super-rich liberal example and don't pay your taxes.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[X0563511]

If the cause called for it, yes. I suppose I'm one of the few.

I have not yet seen a cause that did... yet.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I'm in the south and as pro second amendment as they come, but they have fully auto M16s, F series aircraft, and tanks. You got a rifle. You have NO chance in hell pal. The ONLY way you would be anything other than a nice bullseye if the shit hits the fan is if the National Guard turns and joins the people, thus handing out those nice tanks and stingers. Considering I have friends in the military and they take words like "Honor" and "The Constitution" VERY seriously, that is certainly a possibility, but don't think for even a second your rifle would help save your ass against even SWAT. Look at Ruby Ridge and Waco as examples.

How's the Taliban doing these days against those "NO chance in hell" weapons?

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[ScrewMaster]

but the confrontations had been pretty violent for several days leading up to the shooting.

Which means that the "authorities" can hardly claim that the student's behavior was a surprise. There was plenty of warning, plenty of time to think of a better solution. The situation escalated because a. somebody in power fucked up or b. somebody in power wanted it to look like somebody fucked up. Either way, it should never have been allowed to happen.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[ScrewMaster]

It's worth pointing out that in those days, there were no non-lethal weapons that were very effective. A rifle and a bayonet deter only by credible threat of use, and when that doesn't work, the operator either loses the field or uses the weapons.

I agree. So, given that this was not a legitimate military operation against a declared enemy, and was really an unnecessary, if not outright illegal, use of military force against the civilian population ... what were the real consequences of the operators losing the field? This was not a battle to be won.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[ScrewMaster]

Oh good! Now we have established your war of independance was a mistake, When can we expect all our back taxes on our tea then?

Well, I think perhaps you shouldn't hold your breath waiting. We're kinda short on cash right about now.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

some things have to be done

If that is the case, then a majority will deem it so.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[phantomfive]

Scott Rasmussen (who is hated by Republicans when his polls lean against them, and by Democrats when his polls lean against them) thinks the major division in Americans is not between left and right, but between the political class and average americans. He says people are tired of being governed by politicians united with business, and want to govern ourselves. I suppose he's right.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[mabhatter654]

that's exactly why Gandhi used that tactic though. You can't fight armed soldiers at all... they will just keep bringing bigger guns. They way of change is to make the people at the top out for what they really are.. make them CHOOSE to be men or monsters and make it clear to the public it's a CHOICE they made, not for necessity or security.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[moortak]

Yes those students not involved in any protest really needed to be shot. Assume for a moment that every negative thing you have ever heard about the protesters is true, does it justify firing your weapon in an uncontrolled manner on civilians?

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

Obey authority always? So you guys should still be British right? Going to revoke that independance declaration? If you always obey authority there wouldn't be an America....

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[RocketRabbit]

He's not saying it's right, he's saying that the doctrine does not include impotent threats followed by inaction.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Boronx]

I know this is a joke, but have you seen the interest rates on treasury bonds? We're rolling in dough if we want it.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[fyngyrz]

Well, I think perhaps you shouldn't hold your breath waiting. We're kinda short on cash right about now.

No, it's ok. We'll just borrow it from China, and England can use the money to buy more Chinese surveillance cameras for their streets, then the citizens will get drunk at roundball events and beat the living hell out of each other on camera, and they'll have justification to buy more cameras, and all we have to do to see the country implode completely is drink more tea. Yup, It'll work out fine.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[CrimsonAvenger]

You got a rifle. You have NO chance in hell pal.

This is certainly true if you go up against the Army alone.

If, on the other, hand, every third American was on your side (about the estimates of number of American households with one or more firearms), then the 100 million of you against the less than a million of them makes for much better odds for you surviving.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[ScrewMaster]

He's not saying it's right, he's saying that the doctrine does not include impotent threats followed by inaction.

I know he wasn't, I just meant that in the case of soldiers in battle, there are consequences to failure to prosecute. In this case, what would have been the consequences of the soldiers doing nothing, or packing up and leaving ... or simply not being there in the first place? Like I said, this was not a battle, and those students were not an enemy.

So far as threats go, what business did soldiers (even if "only" Guard troops) have being ordered to handle what was really a police matter? I've never had that question really answered.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Jiro]

This doesn't show how Gandhi-like tactics are successful, it shows how media manipulation and controlling the media (in this case by the left) can be successful. The media could easily have spun it the other way by pointing out that the protesters' rocks could maim or kill and that they even threw them at firefighters. I'm fairly sure that Gandhi's nonviolence didn't include hurling heavy objects at people's skulls.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

Or how about noticing that "left" and "right" are pretty much media inventions.

or FRENCH INVENTIONS!

dun dun dunnnn.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[bhiestand]

Overall I agree entirely with you. Two little nitpicks:

Or how about noticing that "left" and "right" are pretty much media inventions. To make politics easy to explain using sports metaphors. Yay for our team!

Eh, "left" and "right" are pretty useful terms for discussing political science. It's just that the media misuses them and the average American is so clueless they can't accurately state their own views on politics, much less understand the views of others.

Also note that in the US the election system (primarily, but not entirely, the means used to count the votes) is so structured that only two parties have a reasonable chance to win an election. There have been only a few times when an incumbent party became so weak that it essentially abdicated it's position to an alternate third party. Even Teddy Rooseveldt wasn't able to overcome this bias. I *think* that Instant Runoff would be quite superior, and I'm quite convinced that Condorcet voting would be superior. And, yes, it's true that it can be proven that no fair voting system can exist, but this doesn't mean that some aren't better than others. And the majority rule system is about the worst. (Not as bad as minority rule, of course.)

Are you talking about elections for the executive only? Are you talking about a party "winning" by gaining a majority in one or both houses? On this issue, I most favor either proportional representation or a two-vote system like Germany's.

Here's what I'd do if I were king for a day:

1. Establish two-vote system similar to Germany's, guaranteeing all parties with 5% or more of the vote proportional seats
2. Increase restrictions on lobbying... this is vague because I really don't have a good specific list in mind at the moment.
3. Eliminate campaign finance. Entirely.
4. Mandate all broadcast platforms (broadcast TV, radio, etc.) dedicate a certain % of time in each time block to political messages.
5. Divise a system to fairly apportion aforementioned broadcast time to candidates and parties.
6. Move the election day to a weekend or make it a mandatory federal holiday for all non-vital personnel
7. Follow Australia's example and make voting mandatory... like jury duty. How about a $75 fine for failure to vote, waivable if you can demonstrate hardship?

... and I don't want to hear any "OMG, WE CAN'T FORCE BROADCAST NETWORKS TO DO SOMETHING, YOU NAZI" from any political parties that advocate state-mandated censorship of nudity on broadcast television.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Anonymous Coward]

... when an armed person(legal authority or otherwise) tells you to stop, leave, get out of his face, and you don't have a weapon. you leave, period. you don't just stay there thinking they are not going to shoot you because you are "peaceful"...

I keep trying to explain this to Ghandi. But he just sits there.

He sure won't accomplish much that way. He'll probably get hurt. And nothing will change... because we all know that nothing ever gets accomplished through peaceful protest. What a waste of time and life.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Synonymous Homonym]

And, yes, it's true that it can be proven that no fair voting system can exist,

I'm sorry, and forgive my ignorance, but to the best of my knowledge it has only been proven at one time that no fair system did exist, not that it is impossible for a fair system to exist. In particular, I have not seen proof yet that least opposition election (where voters get a list of candidates and cross out who they do not want, and the candidate that has been crossed out the least times wins) is unfair, which is not to say that is isn't, but that I don't know.

Is it really the case that no fair voting system can exist?

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[HiThere]

No, I'm not talking about only the executive wing. I'm talking about ALL elective governmental offices, State as well as federal, legislative as well as executive. I'd say judicial too, but people don't usually know enough about judges to vote sensibly even now, and anyway those positions are nominally non-partisan. Do away with the parties and they'd be actually non-partisan.

Personally, I feel that the real basic flaw in the system is that it's controlled by groups of people who lust for power.

Despite the obvious flaws, I would favor an selection of office holders by random choice from qualified citizens. The qualifications should be fairly loose, perhaps no more than over thirty and graduated from high school. (Though obviously it should be more difficult to graduate from high school. One should at least be able write a paragraph of acceptable English on the current president and solve an algebraic equation of the first degree in one unknown.) This does, of course, mean that power should be more decentralized. With potentially lunatics being selected for every office, you don't want one person able to make disastrous decisions. A group of three is less likely to make such, even if they are also less likely to be unusually wise. There are many obvious problems with this answer, but it eliminates the limitation of the job to only the power hungry. Next you need rules that eliminate bribery...or at least make it actually quite dangerous rather than only nominally so. And recall would be an important option.

But I'm not really convinced that any system that systematically selects only the power hungry can possibly be even approximately either fair or honest. Still, the current system could be improved by allowing people to vote for the candidates they chose, without worrying about "throwing away my vote".

The terms left and right did, as another poster noticed, originate with the French parliament, but the current usage is more along the lines of "us vs. them". If you divide things that way, you trivialize important decisions, and ensure that bad decisions will be common. They are NOT useful terms, because they encourage oversimplification. Simplification is good, but oversimplification is bad, and leads to, at best, suboptimal decisions.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[shutdown -p now]

I'm sorry, and forgive my ignorance, but to the best of my knowledge it has only been proven at one time that no fair system did exist, not that it is impossible for a fair system to exist.

Not really.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[c6gunner]

It's truly sad that this kind of paranoid drivel is getting modded "insightful". But, what the hell, in the spirit of slashdot, allow me to contribute:

You're CLEARLY missing the big picture. What actually happened here is that space lizards from alpha centauri wanted to control the US government, and knew they could never do it while the US remained a dominant superpower. Therefore, they infiltrated both the FBI and the student protest groups, and arranged for a confrontation to occur. The resultant shootings directly lead to a US defeat in Vietnam, and have resulted in a decline of American influence ever since. Meanwhile the reptilians have continued to use false flag attacks in order to further subvert US dominance, and consolidate their grip on the US government. It's a well known fact that both George Bush and Dick Cheney were being controlled by reptilians - nothing else could explain their mindless, zombie-like stumbling through the middle east.

There. Now if past history is any indication, I should get modded +10 million "Insightful".

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[jjohnson]

Do you think that's a good rebuttal?

Read up on COINTELPRO. Read up on Fred Hampton, given barbituates by an FBI informant so he'd be asleep at the time of the police raid they'd planned, and then shot to death in his bed by the police. None of this controversial; it's all accepted history.

This isn't "JFK shot by CIA/KGB/FBI/Unions/Mafia/Cubans". This isn't moon landing or 9/11 truther conspiracies. This is all well-documented malfeasance by the FBI.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[c6gunner]

Do you think that's a good rebuttal? Read up on Reptilians. Read up on Alpha Centauri.

This isn't "JFK shot by CIA/KGB/FBI/Unions/Mafia/Cubans". This isn't moon landing or 9/11 truther conspiracies. This is all well-documented malfeasance by the FBI.

I agree, malfeasance is everywhere. Therefore clearly JFK was murdered by reptilians. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[jjohnson]

So in your mind the FBI and the U.S. government have never done anything wrong that could possibly have harmed its own citizens. No Tuskegee experiment where they deliberately left syphilis untreated to monitor its progress over decades. No recording Martin Luther King with his mistress so they could play the tapes for his wife and derail the civil rights movement. No MKULTRA, no Project SHAD, no human radiation experiments (in co-operation with McGill University's medical department, Mr. I'm-not-American).

That must be a nice world, full of unicorns and chocolate rivers.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[c6gunner]

So in your mind the FBI and the U.S. government have never done anything wrong that could possibly have harmed its own citizens

Ohh, nice logic! Tell me, has one of your siblings ever driven faster than the speed limit?

Yes?

Ok, then clearly you're the real JFK assassin.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[jjohnson]

Awesome. We've exposed the limits of argument by sarcasm.

Now, care to address the fact that there are real, acknowledged, well-documented conspiracies by the U.S. government to harm its own citizens, and that the existence of loony conspiracy theories like JFK's assassination and 9/11 truthers don't change that fact?

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[c6gunner]

Care to address the fact that there are real, acknowledged, well documented lizards living on the planet Earth?

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[jjohnson]

Sure, I'll accept that there are lizards on Earth. Got anything besides deflecting the question with snark?

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[c6gunner]

No, not really. Your whole thought process is flawed, and you're just not seeing it. I can't have a rational discussion with someone who thinks that "A occurred therefore X is a conspiracy" is a logical line of argument. You might reject the 9/11 conspiracy theories and the moon landing hoax, but you're using the exact same line of "reasoning" as they are. So yeah, I'm happy just to continue mocking you.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[jjohnson]

If you'd led with that instead of mockery, we might have had an interesting discussion.

I don't know that there was a conspiracy on the part of the FBI to instigate the Kent State shootings, but it's suspicious that 1) there were shots just prior to the guardsmen shooting, 2) those shots came from an FBI informant, 3) the FBI and other U.S. government agencies actually do have a documented history of not just monitoring "subversive" groups but instigating incidents from within them, and 4) the shots were covered up at the time.

I subscribe to the maxim "never attribute to malice that which can more easily explained by stupidity", and that's likely what the shots fired by the informant were. But that doesn't mean I'm willing give the FBI the benefit of the doubt after all they did under Hoover.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[c6gunner]

Your last two sentences are contradictory. The rest is full of unproven assertions. Again, the CT mindset is evident - string together a couple of "facts", toss in a logical fallacy, and you're off and running!

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[jjohnson]

Your last two sentences are contradictory.

No they're not. Believing in general that human stupidity explains more than co-ordinated malice doesn't contradict the specific case of an organization with a demonstrated history of malicious actions. I believe people in general aren't child molesters; that doesn't prevent me from being suspicious when a guy who's been in jail for child molesting is once again caught with his pants down around a little girl.

The rest is full of unproven assertions.

There's a spectrum of certainty that depends on evidence. For evidence of shots fired before the guardsmen fired, we have an audio recording that captured the shots prior to the guardsmen's, witnesses to his shooting, and witnesses to a LEO saying that four shots had been fired from the gun. That's decent evidence of #1.

For #2, we have Norman's admission that he regularly took photos that he sold to the FBI and local police.

For #3, we have voluminous documentation of COINTELPRO, including the FBI's admission that the program existed. We also have the final report of the 1976 Church Committee, a U.S. Congressional investigation into abuses by the American intelligence community, that concluded

Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that...the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence.

For #4, we have various denials that Norman fired the gun at all, including the official police report that he didn't, and denials that he was in any way connected to the police or the FBI.

So, does that justify thinking the FBI planned to have the guardsmen shoot the students by triggering them with an agent provocateur with handgun? No, even if you uncritically accept all four premises. But you can't be aware of the various conspiracies that have been real, like Watergate and COINTELPRO, and not be a little suspicious at how things worked out. And being suspicious doesn't put you in the "I want to believe!" camp. Refusing to be suspicious, though, does make you credulous to an absurd degree.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[jjohnson]

One little detail I just found supporting #2: During the Church Committee hearings, the director of the FBI, Clarence Kelly, admitted that Terry Normal was on the FBI payroll.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[c6gunner]

So, does that justify thinking the FBI planned to have the guardsmen shoot the students by triggering them with an agent provocateur with handgun? No, even if you uncritically accept all four premises.

You'd make an awesome prosecutor.

"Here's a bunch of details that may or may not be right. Even if you accept all of them, they don't prove that the defendant is guilty. But you should be suspicious!"

Whatever makes you happy, bro.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[jjohnson]

Why do I get the feeling that you'd be defending Nixon all the way through the Watergate Scandal, even after he resigned?

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[c6gunner]

Because you like to shoehorn people into nice, neat categories. Makes it easier for you to justify blowing them off.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[jjohnson]

"Blowing them off"? Reread our whole exchange, and you tell me who blew off who.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[c6gunner]

I dismissed your claims because they're not supported by the evidence, as you yourself have admitted. You blew me off because you think I like Nixon. I can't say I'm surprised that you don't see the difference.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[jjohnson]

I laid out my claims and said they justify suspicion, but not a conclusion. You snarked your way through without ever actually trying to argue anything.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[c6gunner]

Hardly. I laid out a bunch of claims which also justify suspicion. That you refuse to be suspicious of our Reptilian Overlords is your failing - not mine.

On a more serious note - the entire discussion has been me showing you exactly why your argument stinks, while you continually missed the point. I wasn't trying to get you to admit that your conclusion is baseless, so much as to reexamine the way you look at evidence. Yet I somehow succeeded at the former while failing at the latter. Ah well, such is life.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[jjohnson]

You may think you've shown me, but you haven't. You continually drew absurd conclusions from unrelated premises, while I was trying to demonstrate that my premises weren't absurd or unrelated. Rather than argue that my premises are absurd or that they are, in fact, unrelated, you just keep demonstrating the same thing.

So, let's say I'm as slow as you seem to think I am. Please explain why my premises are no good and not related to each other in a way that justifies my conclusion about suspicion.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[c6gunner]

I've already explained this to you - the basis for your argument is past precedent - essentially "the government did X therefore they also did Y". That is not a logical argument. The rest of your claims are sheer conjecture - you're saying "this is possible, therefore this happened". Once again, not a logical argument. And since you've already admitted that your initial claim is bullshit, you already understand that the "evidence" you've presented doesn't come close to meeting the burden of proof, yet you continue to argue. Why? Are you just a stubborn fool with nothing better to do, or are you unable to maintain a consistent line of thought for more than 2 minutes?

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[jjohnson]

the basis for your argument is past precedent

Yes it is, to this extent: The FBI had, prior to the Kent State shootings, a history of routinely violating the civil rights of Americans, up to and including the use of informants as instigators to illegal activities. This is settled history; there's nothing conspiracy minded about it. In the particular case of the Kent State shootings, an FBI informer was present, and there's some pretty good evidence that he did things that contributed to the shooting.

You're right that this doesn't prove that the FBI instigated the Kent State shootings. But put the argument in a general form:

1. X is a sufficient cause for Y
2. F has a history of X
3. Y happened.
Therefore, it's reasonable to ask if F Xed.

Where's the fallacy in that? You're arguing that, when someone has a history of something, and that something occurs again, it's completely illogical to ask that someone if they did it. If I have a history of smashing up my car while drunk, and my car gets smashed up again, you wouldn't ask me if I was drunk again?

Are you just a stubborn fool with nothing better to do, or are you unable to maintain a consistent line of thought for more than 2 minutes? ... says the guy who keeps responding.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[c6gunner]

The fallacy rears it's ugly head when you start making statements like " As this story demonstrates, they'll do whatever they have to, to create a provocation that lets them shoot you".

Of course, baseless insinuation is almost as bad / evil / stupid, but it's not necessarily fallacious. If you had left it at insinuation, I would have had less cause for complaint.

However, even if you HAD stuck with just insinuation, you'd still be making a "hasty generalization" fallacy. It's asinine to say that because a government, which has existed for several hundred years and is composed of millions of individuals, once had a group within it which did X, therefore Y was most likely carried out by similar individuals in a similar organization of the same government. You can justify absolutely any argument / conspiracy theory using such flawed logic. You're treating a massive organization as if it were one individual - a foolish thing to do under any circumstances.

So, to sum up ... as I've already pointed out, your entire argument rests on the same type of flawed thinking which is behind every other conspiracy theory in existence. You apparently understand this, but are unwilling to admit it. That's fine. I don't think we need to carry on any further.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[jjohnson]

you'd still be making a "hasty generalization" fallacy. It's asinine to say that because a government, which has existed for several hundred years and is composed of millions of individuals, once had a group within it which did X, therefore Y was most likely carried out by similar individuals in a similar organization of the same government.

If you'd started with this, I would have agreed that my statement was logically unsupportable hyperbole. Instead, you wanted to be an e-peen waving prick, which is why it took us this long to get here. Next time, try starting here.

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[c6gunner]

Eh. The other approach was more fun. I've caught some kind of bug, and spent the whole day in bed, so thanks for keeping me entertained. Cheers!

Re:flowers to a gun fight

[Seumas]

I'm not an expert on history, but I know enough that there are documented historical events in which governments (many governments, around the world) have instigated events and swayed support through subversive involvement. That isn't a conspiracy theory. It is documented, historically referenced fact.

However, does that mean that everything that occurs is evidence of yet another such manufactured event? Certainly not.

You need to apply critical thinking and also question authority in all situations. Skeptics question everything. Including other skeptics.

Was this Hoover's rogue FBI?

[elucido]

If it was Hoovers blackmailing rogue "evil" FBI, the same FBI that was doing cointel pro and using urban warfare tactics on the weathermen and black panthers, this is an FBI that could have easily incited this. They call them agent provocateurs. Their role is to incite violence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_provocateur
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVNu9XWQob4

Re:Was this Hoover's rogue FBI?

[jedidiah]

That's not the problem. The problem is that 70 seconds is an eternity when it comes to modern firearms.

Re:Was this Hoover's rogue FBI?

[Anonymous Coward]

The national guard had to reconcile the thought of shooting into a crowd of students against what they were told to do.

Re:Was this Hoover's rogue FBI?

[mundanetechnomancer]

if i was the guarding over a field full of puppies and kittens, and i believed that one of them had fired a weapon at me. it would take me all of 5 seconds to return fire. 70 seconds is an eternity.

Re:Was this Hoover's rogue FBI?

[ooshna]

Thank god finally a reason to link to this. Opening song of The Adventures of Pete and Pete. That song is Hey Sandy by Polaris. Here are the lyrics.

Re:Was this Hoover's rogue FBI?

[Ihmhi]

So if you hear a gun but you can't remotely figure out where exactly in a large crowd it was fired from, you would just open fire on the crowd?

Re:Was this Hoover's rogue FBI?

[AkiraRoberts]

I'm frankly not sure about the relation, really, but you should get some credit for linking that since a) Pete & Pete rocks and b) that is one of the catchiest (and lyrically incomprehensible) songs I've ever heard.

Re:Was this Hoover's rogue FBI?

[ooshna]

Its based of the song Hey Sandy by Harvey Andrews.

Re:Was this Hoover's rogue FBI?

[AkiraRoberts]

I had no idea. Wow. That is a genuinely useful bit of obscure trivia.

Re:Was this Hoover's rogue FBI?

[ooshna]

One more bit of trivia. Donkey Lips was in a Amp Energy Drink commercial.

Employee or Informant?

[elucido]

Which is it?

Re:Employee or Informant?

[Suki I]

Neither. The article says he would sell pictures to the FBI after events. Freelance photographer.

Not a direct provocation, but...

[Securityemo]

The article states that there is video evidence of Terry Norman being chased by someone claiming he shot someone, running away and handing his gun to an officer that opens it and states that it's been fired 4 times. This before, as the article calls it, "the volley". The most empathetic suggestion would be that Terry was attacked physically, then answered with shooting. This wouldn't have been a direct provocation to open fire, but it would have increased tensions quite a bit, obviously. In no way would he be directly responsible for triggering the massacre.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[a_nonamiss]

I am far more bothered by the fact that a) Mr. Norman was on the payroll of the FBI at the time and b) authorities (may have) lied under oath about the fact that Mr. Norman discharged his weapon during the protest. This implies that the FBI was at least indirectly involved in the massacre and directly involved in the cover-up.

I'll give you that Mr. Norman probably didn't directly trigger the massacre, although shooting a gun in a crowd of angry people probably didn't contribute to happy peaceful feelings at the protest. However, the government at the time seems to have actively and knowingly participated in a cover-up. This bothers me a lot. It should bother everyone. A lot.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[Securityemo]

Ja, maybe you are right. Not to be surly, but we outside of the US sort of take for granted that all US cops are gung-ho people who "do whatever it takes", and cook up their own solutions and conspiracies to solve everything.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[bcmm]

The article states that there is video evidence of Terry Norman being chased by someone claiming he shot someone, running away and handing his gun to an officer that opens it and states that it's been fired 4 times.

Read more carefully. While the officer was seen opening Norman's gun by a camera crew, it seems they weren't filming at the time. The reason the new analysis is interesting is that it contradicts the FBI's claim that that gun was not fired, while matching up well with eyewitness accounts ("oh my God, he fired four times") which were made by people with no knowledge of the tape.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[honkycat]

True, though the people who made the tapes may well have had knowledge of the eyewitness accounts, so it's not as convincing as two completely independent conclusions. It's possible that those doing the audio analysis were influenced (whether consciously or not) by what they were looking for.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[Oligonicella]

Then you, like some people here, take it for granted wrong by a huge percentage.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[jedidiah]

Spend any time with the justice system and you will see this for yourself.

It's not just Hollywood nonsense. Cops actually act like this. It's probably not limited to American cops either.

Cops won't even make their lies terribly believable. They benefit greatly from the respect they get from most people.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[CrimsonAvenger]

Not to be surly, but we outside of the US sort of take for granted that all US cops are gung-ho people who "do whatever it takes", and cook up their own solutions and conspiracies to solve everything.

You've been watching too many cop shows on TV.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[Securityemo]

And presumably because we only hear about U.S. policework through incidents like this.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[publiclurker]

Citation needed:

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[YouWantFriesWithThat]

when a police officer in my town testifies against another police officer for crimes committed while on duty in open court, not as part of a plea bargain, i will change my opinion on that.

in other words, as a citizen confronted with the continued silence by 'good' cops on the crimes of the 'bad' cops one must assume all cops to be 'bad'. because if one cop decides to cave in your skull you cannot count on another cop to ever act as an agent of the law on your behalf, quite the opposite, in fact.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[c6gunner]

a) Mr. Norman was on the payroll of the FBI at the time

[citation needed]

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[a_nonamiss]

Happy, to oblige, from TFA.

Norman was on campus the day of the protests, wearing a gas mask and and a .38-caliber pistol for protection. He was photographing demonstrators and said he regularly sold the photos to the FBI and the Kent State police department.

(Emphasis is mine)

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[AK Marc]

So it's only 99% of the time and not 100% of the time?

I've never met a cop that didn't separate the world into two camps, cops and criminals. And anyone that is "clean" just hasn't been caught. You might assert such cops exist, but I've never met one.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[ScrewMaster]

Ja, maybe you are right. Not to be surly, but we outside of the US sort of take for granted that all US cops are gung-ho people who "do whatever it takes", and cook up their own solutions and conspiracies to solve everything.

{sigh} much as I always enjoyed Clint Eastwood in his role as Dirty Harry, it always bothers me when people outside the U.S. treat those films as documentaries.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[TheoMurpse]

It's not just Hollywood nonsense. Cops actually act like this.

The fathers of two of my good friends growing up were cops. I grew up knowing a lot of cops. This was in the 80s-90s. Not a single copy I knew (but one sheriff) was at all like this. They were all good dudes.

This "all cops are power hungry maniacs" meme looks ridiculous to anyone who doesn't live in NYC/LA/Detroit/Chicago and actually knows some.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The fathers of two of my good friends growing up were cops. I grew up knowing a lot of cops.

You were practically family. You don't know how these men acted on the job. You don't know what little things they let slide. You don't know what went into their pockets. You don't know who they beat up. And we don't know either.

Every now and then, we do find out a little of what goes on, and then we find out that an awful lot of "good" cops knew about what the bad cops were doing and said absolutely nothing. While that doesn't necessarily make the good cops bad, it means I am going to have to treat every cop as bad or as someone who will protect someone bad. Which is sad, but that's the way it is. I'm supposed to teach my kids to trust police, but I don't trust them myself.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[ScentCone]

You were practically family. You don't know how these men acted on the job. You don't know what little things they let slide. You don't know what went into their pockets. You don't know who they beat up. And we don't know either.

Right. You don't know. But you're sure they did. So who's doing the stereotyping, here, out of ignorance?

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not stereotyping out of ignorance. As someone who is not "practically family" (in the example above), I maintain an outsider's scepticism. This scepticism has arisen as the result of confirmed cases of police brutality/corruption/ineptitude time and time again, as well as confirmed reports that these crimes have taken place with the knowledge of "good" co-workers time and time again.

To repeat what I originally said, this is a sad state of affairs. I wish it wasn't so. Since it is, however, I can never truly trust police.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[sixsixtysix]

then we find out that an awful lot of "good" cops knew about what the bad cops were doing and said absolutely nothing. While that doesn't necessarily make the good cops bad

actually, it would. bad cops only exist because good cops don't want to cross the thin blue line. if the good guys were doing the right thing, the baddies would lose their jobs. it is that simple.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[c6gunner]

You say you're happy to oblige, but then fail to do so. Are you confused about what the phrase "on the payroll" actually means, or what's the problem, exactly?

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised that they didn't just make up a story about Muslims living in caves, who fomented the violence because they didn't like US liberties and freedoms.

Re:Not a direct provocation, but...

[kalirion]

Yes, all cops are corrupt, all Muslims are terrorists, and all conservatives are warmongering closet homosexuals.

Actual story

[Sara Chan]

Here is a direct link to the actual story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "Kent State tape indicates altercation and pistol fire preceded National Guard shootings (audio)"
--it should have been in TFS.

Does this mean...

[mswhippingboy]

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young will need to revise their lyrics?

Re:Does this mean...

[multipartmixed]

They're Neil's lyrics -- and why would he need to revise them? She's still dead on the ground.

And this Terry fellow could very well be described as a Tin Soldier. ...that said, I'm still not sure what the President's orgasms had to do with that shooting.

Re:Does this mean...

[uvajed_ekil]

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young will need to revise their lyrics?

And Kent State will have to revise everything it has taught every freshman since 1971. Seriously, I had a professor who had been retired for years, and pretty much made a career out of talking about the shootings because he was there.

Re:Should Have Shot Them All

[Anonymous Coward]

Should have shot all of the traitors.

Except where would Obama get his advisors?

if you think shooting "traitors", such as those college kids, is acceptable, then shouldn't you be shot now for your opposition to Obama?

nice logic!

FBI response to information requests

[tomhudson]

The alleged shooter, student Terry Norman, was hired by the FBI to take photos of the protesters

Reporter: We want to interview Terry Norman. Where is he?
FBI Liazon: He's deceased.
Reporter: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. When did he die?
FBI Liazon: Tomorrow.

Re:FBI response to information requests

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "Liaison", from the french.

Re:FBI response to information requests

[tomhudson]

I "was" going to write Lizard but changed it (mostly) - my bad!

-- Barbie

Great when the truth finally comes out...

[dtjohnson]

It may have been 40 years ago but it was a major event in US History that still reverberates today so it's wonderful when the truth of what happened is finally, finally revealed. The protesters wanted to believe that the guardsmen opened fire for no reason. The guardsmen wanted to believe that the protesters were trying to shoot them. In the end, the shootings were provoked by Norman who should be tracked down and prosecuted to the extent possible. Maybe, someday, the truth will also come out about the other major shootings from that era: JFK (1963), RFK (1968), and ML King (1968).

Re:Great when the truth finally comes out...

[Blakey Rat]

In the end, the shootings were provoked by Norman who should be tracked down and prosecuted to the extent possible.

It might be interesting to re-interview him, but I doubt a prosecutor could convince a jury that it was his gun based on this evidence. They'd need a much stronger case.

Re:Great when the truth finally comes out...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the end, the shootings were provoked by Norman who should be tracked down and prosecuted to the extent possible.

Really? You see enough evidence here for that? "Same caliber, must be guilty". Let me guess, you are also the type who thinks, "perpetrator was black, defendant is black, must be the guilty one, case closed"

 

Re:Great when the truth finally comes out...

[a_nonamiss]

There's a whole hell of a lot of circumstantial evidence that Norman was likely at least a catalyst for the shootings, but I agree with you, there isn't enough real evidence to even bring charges, let alone try to prosecute.

What caliber was used on the students?

[schwit1]

What did ballistic forensics say was the caliber of the bullets that killed the students? Won't this show if the .38 pistol was used?

Re:What caliber was used on the students?

[kevinNCSU]

No one, the Ohio National Guard included, is debating whether the guard opened fired and killed protesters. This is unequivocally true. The question here is whether sometime before the guardsmen open fire if someone else in the crowd fired shots contributing to the shooting by either riling the crowd towards violence or causing the guardsmen to feel threatened and thus clear the area with violence or both.

Re:What caliber was used on the students?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>feel threatened

William Schroeder's entry wound was in the lower back, the exit wound was in his shoulder.

In other words, he was lying down, facing away from the Guardsmen. Hitting the ground is just what his ROTC training would have called for.

Anyone who can "feel threatened" by someone lying face down dozens of yards away is more than just a coward who can't be trusted with authority, he's insane in a way that means he can't be trusted with firearms.

It's been forty years. Time to stop making excuses for the Guardsmen, who also wounded someone for making an obscene gesture at them.

Re:What caliber was used on the students?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because he was hit doesn't mean he was a target. Use your head.

Re:What caliber was used on the students?

[kevinNCSU]

Any Guardsmen that can intentionally pick out, hit, and kill a target lying prone 100 yards away in the middle of an angry crowd with an M1 Garand should be reassigned to Delta as a Sniper. I wasn't making excuses for the guard I was simply explaining what the debate was about, but Jesus, use your head. It's insanely unlikely that the guardsmen that made that shot was intentionally aiming for him. That in no way excuses their actions, but lets not assign specific intention where it's incredibly unlikely.

Ohio Gov. James Rhodes still a criminal

[Ice Station Zebra]

For ordering the Ohio National Guard to be at Kent State. Maybe I'll go spit on his grave today.

Known for years

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been known for years that the national guard did not fire first. Yet liberals and liberal TV channels keep showing the same old documentaries which are lies.

no firearms != unarmed

[ChipMonk]

Rocks, bottles, bricks... It happens all over the world, and it happened in Kent. Ever been hit in the face with a thrown rock? It won't just leave a bruise; you WILL require surgery, and pray to God you don't have a fractured skull or spinal column (the likely result if the rock busts through your teeth into your mouth).

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[publiclurker]

So you think your fear entitles you to shoot everyone on sight, just in case. You wouldn't happen to be one of those looser who needs to pack a gun with him everywhere to compensate for his lack of spine, would you?

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[nbauman]

Ever been hit in the face with a thrown rock? It won't just leave a bruise; you WILL require surgery, and pray to God you don't have a fractured skull or spinal column (the likely result if the rock busts through your teeth into your mouth).

This sounds as if you were hit on the face with a thrown rock. Were you?

I actually researched this once, in the context of the Israeli soldiers killing Palestinian rock-throwers and justifying it with the claim that stones were "lethal weapons."

No Israeli soldier was ever killed by a Palestinian throwing a rock at him.

As it turned out, Slate had an article on the more general subject ("Getting stoned: how many police officers have been killed by rocks?"), which reported 3 police officers killed by rocks, 1 of them thrown, since 1792, and none in the last 70 years (out of 18,983 fatalities). Police departments teach that a rock isn't deadly beyond 50 feet.

I can't imagine how a policeman wearing riot gear, which includes a helmet and face shield, could be killed by a thrown rock.

(Actually, I was hit in the face myself with a thrown rock, by a neighborhood kid who was pelting my house with stones. He broke the window I was looking through. I had a minor cut from the glass, but no serious damage. I caught the kid and brought him home to his parents, who were profusely apologetic and fixed the window.)

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes I have, and no I didn't. Not saying that a thrown rock can't do what you're claiming, but you're kind of describing a worst case scenario.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[sumdumass]

Well, I know anecdotal evidence means practically everything and Slate's research department is so thorough and concise that it's useless to argue against it, even after the writers expand on it and take things into their own context to prove a point that supports your view of Israel and Palestinian rock throwers.

Anyways, I was hit in the head with a rock once when I was 14. It was at camp and someone was throwing rocks over the side of a hill totally clueless that someone else may have been down hill. Well, as it turns out, the first rock he threw struck me in the back of the head slightly down from the top from a distance of about 75 feet and probably 45 foot in elevation. It took 16 stitches to to close up the wound/laceration, I was knocked off my feet and ended up falling another 10 or 15 feet downhill before another person grabbed me, and I suffered a Class II Hemorrhage which required a short stay in the hospital. We were taking a shortcut back from then horse stables and in an area that was posted as off limits because of how steep and dangerous it was.

If someone was attempting to do that on purpose, I would feel justified in attempting to shoot them as if I wasn't with people i was with and at a place where I could get reasonable medical attention in a short period of time, I could have bleed out and died on the spot. In my case, after about the third rock came over, everyone started yelling and then the kids throwing them paused and looked over the edge of the hill to see what was going on. They then ran and got the camp counselors who notified the camp nurse who was also a trauma rated paramedic. I also don't care about your personal instance of not getting injured when hit with a rock in the past as it says nothing about the seriousness of getting hit with a rock, just the seriousness of when you got hit with a rock.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[D'Sphitz]

At least half of the deceased had nothing to do with the protest, and were simply walking between classes as they were gunned down. Go ahead and defend that.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[arthurpaliden]

Was hit in face with a rock. Lost an eye.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[Anonymous Coward]

You wouldn't happen to be one of those looser ...

And the moron reveals himself with the classic "looser" line. What if he's "tighter" instead of "looser"? Loser.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[nbauman]

the first rock he threw struck me in the back of the head slightly down from the top from a distance of about 75 feet and probably 45 foot in elevation.

Interesting. When I researched cases of people being seriously injured or killed by rocks, the few cases that I found were of people being hit by rocks that were dropped or thrown from an elevation. Vandals seem to drop rocks or paving stones from overpasses onto passing cars, which sometimes does a lot of damage, because the rocks can be much heavier, and have more kinetic energy from the fall, than anything than the vandals could throw level.

Nonetheless, I still maintain that it's almost impossible for a policeman or soldier in riot gear, wearing a helmet and face shield, to be killed by a demonstrator throwing a rock, and I believe on weaker evidence that they probably wouldn't be seriously injured either. It's as dangerous as a baseball game.

In most jurisdictions, cops are allowed to use deadly force only to defend themselves against deadly force. So in Kent State, Israel or anywhere else, cops should be told in their training that, if they're wearing riot gear, rocks are not deadly force, and it would be excessive force to shoot stone-throwing demonstrators. If they do kill a demonstrator, they would be guilty of homicide or murder, though juries often let cops off.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[ChipMonk]

If a fuel tanker had overturned on a campus street, what would the school have done? Notify the authorities, help secure the area, and pass word to the departments, so they could inform their students about the danger.

That they didn't do so in this case, so the school shares the fault with the members of the mob who were trying to use by-standers as human shields.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[publiclurker]

And what if alien spacecraft has anal probed everyone who insisted on coming up with lame excuses and even lamer hypothetical situations for the shameful behavior of the thugs you are trying to make excuses for? then you would really be screwed, and you little manhood enhancement would be of no help at all.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[sribe]

I can't imagine how a policeman wearing riot gear, which includes a helmet and face shield, could be killed by a thrown rock.

And yet, just a few years ago, a policeman in Boulder CO, in full riot gear with helmet and all, had his skull fractured by a thrown rock. Rocks are dangerous.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[Anonymous Coward]

Its all fun and games until... umm... yeah... sorry mate.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[sumdumass]

One of the problems with all or nothing attitudes like yours is that you don't seem to want to look beyond the apparent immediate.

What I mean is, suppose your right and a single rock being thrown can't seriously harm someone in full riot gear. I bow hunt and have found myself chasing a wounded deer through the woods in order to put it down because it didn't bleed out our I somehow missed my mark and didn't place a critical shot. Now how this connects is that the wounded deer is not capable of running (it's main defense) like it normally would which gives me an advantage in seeking it out and performing the final blow. So you take a wounded police officer or whatever and now nonthreatening things become seriously threatening things.

But moreover, when you allow a group of people to throw things, you don't know that it's just rocks and not plague infested puss bags or makeshift bombs, grenades, or whatever else that could be more serious even in your eyes, until after the fact which is not any way to protect your law enforcement or yourself.

Now I'm not here to defend the national guard in their shooting or the Israeli defense forces, I'm here to say that throwing rocks is more serious then you portrayed and whether you want to believe it or not, you can kill someone by doing it. I can see from a tactical perspective where allowing rocks to be thrown can deteriorate into a dead soldier or LEO pretty quick when something seriously more dangerous enters the arena.

You also have to remember that when Kent State happened, it was still legal to shoot a suspect that was only fleeing. It wasn't until the mid 1970's that the supreme court changed that causing the situations we know today. So when looking at the instance, you have to sort of view it from the perspective of the time or you won't get an accurate view of it.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[Anonymous Coward]

I find myself unable to defend the protesters for endangering their classmates in this manner. When you make a decision to provoke those who are heavily armed and trained for war rather than law enforcement, you tend to have very predictable results. Oddly the US made the same mistake with the protests that they did with the war. Rather than quickly ending things with overwhelming force they sought to be proportional in their response which proved to be the bloodier option in the end.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[publiclurker]

Well, not everyone gets off on killing a bunch of foreigners all at once for no legitimate reason. The powers that be at the time, and apparently you do, but the general public is better than that.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[Anonymous Coward]

"I was hit in the head with a rock once when I was 14"

Well at least we now have a plausible explaination for your comment history.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[Anonymous Coward]

Was hit in face with a rock. Lost an eye.

Sucks. Now, if you'd had the option at the time, would you have shot the rock-thrower (assuming it was a deliberately thrown rock) dead?

A life for an eye?

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did the government send men trained for war when they should have sent law enforcement if it wasn't to obtain the result they did?

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, just a few years ago, a policeman in Boulder CO, in full riot gear with helmet and all, had his skull fractured by a thrown rock. Rocks are dangerous.

Alternatively "helmets are defective". Unless it was a boulder. In Boulder.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[Anonymous Coward]

Was hit in face with a rock. Lost an eye.

Sucks. Now, if you'd had the option at the time, would you have shot the rock-thrower (assuming it was a deliberately thrown rock) dead?

A life for an eye?

Of course not. Of course I'd have let him throw a second rock into my second eye! After that, of course, I'm not sure exactly what you think I should let him do. Perhaps bludgeon me with a long metal rod?

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[Mathinker]

I find it interesting that you're posting this on more or less exactly the tenth anniversary of the Ramallah lynch of two unarmed Israeli army reservists.

In light of this other "evidence", I suspect you are totally correct that a handful of people throwing stones are not a real threat against a much larger number of properly equipped soldiers, but I am skeptical about your generalization that a very large number of stone throwers could never be a real threat against a small number of properly equipped soldiers.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[TENTH SHOW JAM]

So you choose a pipe that shoots lead at supersonic speed as defence?

Defence would be a hockey mask. A gun is a weapon not a shield.

(And that is the correct spelling for Defence you cheap and nasty spellchecker.)

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[nbauman]

First, October 9 is not October 12. This "coincidence" reflects what's going on in your mind. I had completely forgotten the Ramalla incident.

Second, that Wikipedia article you linked to is another piece of propaganda by volunteer and paid Likudniks. It doesn't mention that the killings were provoked by the killing the night before of the Palestinian Khalil Bade, and the mob thought that the IDF reservists were members of the IDF group responsible. The killings of the reservists were horrific, like all killings, but so were the IDF killings that started it off. If you don't want a cycle of killings and revenge, don't start.

But the Israelis do start cycles of killings and revenge. The Israeli government has continually been provoking retaliation by the Palestinians to sabotage the peace process (and avoid the problem of having to evacuate the illegal settlements).

Gideon Levy had a piece in Haaretz listing the times that Hamas stopped firing missiles, and the IDF responded by killing Palestinians, which led to Hamas firing missiles again.

Third, I'm talking about what happens in the real world. The Israelis have never cited a case in which IDF soldiers were killed by people throwing stones. It may be theoretically that a huge number of people could kill a soldier even if he was wearing riot gear (baseball players get killed by baseballs), but that's not the way it happens. It's disproportionate force -- a crime -- to shoot and kill someone who is throwing stones at a soldier wearing riot gear, in Kent State, Israel or anyplace else.

Finally, don't wave the bloody flag at me. The deaths of innocent Palestinians outnumber the deaths of innocent Israelis by 10 to 1. I've read too many B'Tselem and Amnesty International reports of the IDF killing innocent Palestinian children (like Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish's daughters and niece, which seems to have been scrubbed from Wikipedia) to be shocked at two more deaths, especially of soldiers.

You're defending the Israelis. I'm defending the rule of law. There are international laws that prohibit disproportionate force and the killing of innocent civilians, and it's equally wrong for the Israelis and Palestinians to violate international laws. The Israelis could save a lot of Jewish lives if they would follow international law and evacuate their illegal settlements.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[EricTheO]

Was hit in face with a rock. Lost an eye.

I was shot in my right eyelid by a Rifle BB-Gun and didn't lose my eye. I closed my eyes when I noticed I was looking straight down the barrel of the gun held by a "friend" about 30 feet away. Tore my iris and had minor interior bleed, but no major lasting effect.

Re:no firearms != unarmed

[Mathinker]

> But the Israelis do start cycles of killings and revenge.

Aren't cycles, well, cyclic? I find it interesting that you think you know where the circle starts. How did you figure that out?

And you also have all the answers to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. How wonderful!

> You're defending the Israelis.

No, I was attacking your argument. There's a difference. It's obvious to me that there's enough "yecch" in the extended conflict there so that no side gets to feel righteous. You, on the other hand, seem to believe otherwise, it seems?

It pays to know older people

[Suki I]

From an older friend who was around then and later was in the military, including the National Guard:

The Guardsmen waited until being given an order to fire. That wait causes a delay. This tape is not new, it has been around, used in various trials and news specials about the incident since 1970.

He is working on a blog post about it now.

Re:It pays to know older people

[Anubis IV]

The copy of the tape was found in 2007. Have there been "various trials and news specials" in the last 3 years about an event that's 40 years old?

Re:It pays to know older people

[Suki I]

The copy of the tape was found in 2007. Have there been "various trials and news specials" in the last 3 years about an event that's 40 years old?

Huh? Not that I know of in the past 3 years. Other copies of the same tape have been in use for 40 years. I hope that eases your confusion. He got the post finished here.

Re:It pays to know older people

[Anonymous Coward]

It is like finding your old bootleg BETAMAX copy of the Seinfeld season one and declaring the new evidence solves mysteries.

cointelpro

[sixsixtysix]

my guess is that the shooter was hired by the fbi's cointelpro unit and purposely fired the shots in order to get the desired response of overzealous national guardsmen.

Should we be optimistic?

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to say "It's been 60 years, things have changed, our country has changed" but sadly I really feel that our country is still that oppressive of the population, and still executes it's secret schemes in the background. And the agencies supposed to protect we, the population, are still more loyal to the government than they are to the people they should be serving. Things haven't changed. It scares me to think that my government, police and military would most likely shoot students again if the same situation occurred again.

Sorry if I sound pessimistic, but with all the secrecy about everything involving the government or the authorities today, and the regular abuses of the FBI we hear about (and then more secrecy to keep the truth away from us), I can't be very optimistic.

Re:Should we be optimistic?

[moortak]

Considering the police reaction 32 years later on the same campus I have little room for optimism.

Another agent provocateur event

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasn't at Kent State, but at a shitload of other demos, and I can state with 100% certainty that them using undercover agent provocateurs to incite violence was common as anything, and I would bet it goes on to this day. They are always looking for an excuse to go third world medieval on demonstrators, and if they have to manufacture the event, they do. I even know a cop who fucking quit after they kept bugging him to do similar acts and he kept telling them it was wrong, just plain wrong.

Fucking pigs

only takes 12 seconds

[Alan R Light]

This is not correct. Regulars can reload and fire a volley every 12 seconds.

Granted, militia can't be held to the same standards as regulars. These would have been farmers who didn't train with firearms every day, and who would have been hesitant to engage in combat as their presence was required at home. Even so, 70 seconds would have been plenty of time to fire at least 2 volleys.

In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Kent State alum (and James Gang and Eagles guitarist) Joe Walsh has announced that he will write a new album (or four, depending on his boat payment) based on this new evidence. Families of the victims will be given a 5% off coupon off to purchase at Walmart.

hey, neocon asshole

[Anonymous Coward]

It was my volunteer unpaid "job" of sorts as an organizer back then to run security. We emphasized "non violence" and after a few demos it was obvious as shit to me that they ALWAYS infiltrated groups and had agents who wanted to instigate violence, even trying to get people to do ultra violent stuff. I caught them at it numerous times, it became easy. They were either pigs, a lot of pigs are dual badged, local then they get fed money and some title on the side, or military pigs, or some poor sap who they had busted for something like drugs and gave them the option, cooperate or face decades in jail. This shit goes on.

Here is the pigs mindset, hard evidence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

this one takes the cake, all those oath swearers...still fucking swine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

In other words, fuck you, you are consistently an asshole here, and you have no idea what you are talking about

Stuart Allen AGAIN?

[Anonymous Coward]

He was in the papers not too long ago claiming he heard the Nat'l Guard being ordered to fire, when most folks listening to the tape said they heard nothing--even his super-duper remastered at-Inner-Ear-by-Ian-MacKaye-from-Fugazi* version of the tape. Now he's found four GUNSHOTS that were so unintelligible they were missed the other hundreds of times the tape has been played and analyzed, and not only that, he's managed to tell us what caliber the gun was, all from a very lo-fi tape recording?

*Ian is a competent recording engineer and Inner Ear is a very nice studio (I've supervised tape restoration there), but for a forensically important tape like this, I would expect someone with more relevant credentials than "roadied for Black Flag" and "was a clerk at Yesterday and Today" to be put in charge.

Wow, talk about ambiguity

[Hutz]

OK, so you have a 1970s era cassette duplication of a recording made from a window (where - how close to any of the actions). There is no meaningful accounting of the duplication process of the tapes provenance - other than that it was found in an archive by one of the Students who was wounded that day -- there's a nice CSI chain of evidence for you.

The "scientists" have "enhanced" this questionable audio to pick up all these sounds. Now let's remember that enhancing in this case means making things sound more or less as they think fits - there is no science - it's all subjective.

In all of this fine analysis, I don't see, hear, or read anything that even vaguely attempts to provide meaningful links between the sounds on the tape and the placement of any of the people. So who was outside the window? Who is saying these things.

How about this -- This analysis includes the quote, "Hey, stop that man! I saw him shoot someone! Stop him! Stop him! He's carrying a gun." But there is nothing in the historical record to indicate anyone was shot 70 seconds before (and somewhere else) from the main 13-second Guard fire.

So what exactly is this - other than conjecture, speculation, insinuation, and possibly fabrication?

Recently discovered?

[Internetuser1248]

TFA is unclear on this, I was wondering what exactly was meant by 'recently discovered'. I did some research while typing this and found the answer. I thought I might as well provide it in case others were wondering. An audio student recorded the events from his window. The tape was found this year in a library archive and analysed by sound experts. Why this tape was not more carefully studied directly prior to the actual events is not clear, but the only two possibilities I can think of are a cover up, and that the audio quality was too low to learn anything from the recording until modern digital signal analysis techniques reached their current sophistication.

Re:Recently discovered?

[Hutz]

Actually, the tape was well known and was used in the original investigations. This is a copy that was made by plaintiffs lawyers and then placed in an archive.

There doesn't seem to be much information I could discern as to where on the campus the recording was made (a dorm window). Nor does a 20-year-old cassette copy of a 40-year-old reel-to-reel make me put much faith in the information that was "revealed" through unknown audio processing.

Low slashdot number

[sauge]

It is interesting how low the subscriber number is for a lot of posts on this subject. Assuming the lower the number, the older the subscriber - generational topics can be identified.

Just mumbling an observation is all....

Old teacher retelling events that happened upto...

[ooshna]

and including the shooting.... Bill Arthrell the teacher that changed my views on life and of politics, He showed me you need to stay informed and to know your rights.

Re:Old teacher retelling events that happened upto

[ooshna]

I actually just found that link searching for his name. I finished watching the interview and I must say it really is worth watching. I know it's a /. no no to respond to your own post but I really believe people to watch this.

Kucinich is Now the Next Wellstone.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Stay off of small aircraft, Dennis.

At least he's not a Senator - like they'd let someone join that club, who tells the truth at least 20% of the time.

Bush and Congressional Control

[jscotta44]

Dude, you need a better history or news organ if you think that the Republicans (not that they are much better than the Democrats anyway), controlled both houses for the eight or even six years while Bush was president.

Re:Bush and Congressional Control

[mabhatter654]

Umm... Republicans were majority (all be it close for several terms) for 6 Sessions in a row. It's the same Republicans that beat up Clinton, the same ones Cheney ruled with an Iron Fist when Bush was elected. For the first 6 years of Bush's Presidency there was an uncontested Republican control of BOTH the Executive and Legislative branches.

see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_States_Congresses

Re:Should Have Shot Them All

[Anonymous Coward]

In case you don't know any of them, there are a lot of people, in the US at least (and I would guess everywhere) who "reason" using a system that doesn't include the Golden Rule. They're never the traitor, because the current President is a Democrat, and they believe Democrats are bad. The usual idea that you would place yourself in the other's shoes, or that people that disagree with you actually have the same rights, is not reflexive. This is why politics and religion have to be considered impolite topics of conversation in this country. The Golden Rule ends where your religion, political party, or locality ends. Generalization to all human beings is interpreted as pointy-headed, liberal, fancy-pantsy hand-waving.

Secular morality hasn't really taken root with the common folk yet. It took me quite a while to comprehend that, as it seems self-evident, and did from as far back in childhood as I can remember. The same people who don't actually believe it will even say it to their children, when what they really mean is that you should treat others as you'd like to be treated, provided they share your values and opinions. But actually omitting the last bit from your philosphy, and treating everyone that way, is still controversial to many Americans.

Many things that Republicans (in particular, but not exclusively) say only make sense when you keep in mind that they don't consider you equally worthy to be an American. As a non-Christian, there are a non-trivial minority of Americans who don't believe I really should be enfranchised or free to speak.

American cops might be bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

And we in America assume cops in every other country are 10x worse.

Which is - for the most part - true.