Talk:Kent State shootings

Missing reliable source

In two different portions of this article, it is stated that 4 million students protested these shootings. However, the adjacent footnotes confirm information stated subsequently -- none are the source for this number. This needs a reliable source, especially because that would put those protests to spot #5 in List of protests and demonstrations in the United States by size. That list seems to be impaired by recentism, with only 6 entries before 1980 -- but that's another issue & not relevant to this article. -- 03:16, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Done Added reliable source, NPR Radio/AP article. https://woub.org/2020/05/03/may-4-1970-national-guard-kills-4-students-at-kent-state/ P37307 (talk) 17:52, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

Four of the survivors have since died

John Cleary passed away on October 25, 2025. 2601:18A:8181:E00:968:3364:D234:C4AB (talk) 16:08, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Partof header

I still wholly reject the premise that we cannot add "part of the Kent State Shootings" because it was not planned as part of some broader military campaign. That is not a logical arguement on Wikipedia, as there are plenty of events described in the infobox as part of a broader movement whether motivated by or in reaction to it. The protest itself was part of the student strike, and the shootings themselves were an event that happened in reaction to the protest. So this absolutely was part of the student strike. GOLDIEM J (talk) 16:03, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Was there a Sniper?

Articles from the era indicate that there was no proof of a sniper. https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/06/archives/ohio-guard-finds-no-proof-of-sniper-but-officers-say-troops-at-kent.html https://aadl.org/node/85238

A more recent article (2010) also revealed the the OHNG was given the order to prepare to fire: https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2010/05/new_analysis_of_40-year-old_re.html ~2026-30658-1 (talk) 20:53, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

The President's Commission on Campus Unrest (aka the Scranton Commission) found the following:

"Jerome P. Stoklas, a photographer for the campus newspaper, the Daily Kent Stater, was taking pictures of the demonstration from the roof of Taylor Hall with a camera equipped with a telephoto lens. Most of the camera, lens, and tripod were painted black and might have given the impression from a distance that Stoklas had a rifle. Stoklas had no firearm." ~2026-30658-1 (talk) 19:37, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Edit warring over lead sentence

— Note: An editor has expressed a concern that editors have been canvassed to this discussion.

Contact with concerned editor follows WP:APPNOTE Tvoz/talk 00:40, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

Only if it is "neutrally worded with a neutral title, clear in presentation, and brief". This is patently not. Surtsicna (talk) 01:01, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

Surtsicna has begun an edit war to change the lead sentence of this article to their preferred version that omits the title of the article. More importantly, it omits the title of the redirect Kent State massacre and some of the key references that support the title of the article. This is disruptive because the alternative title is proposed here in Talk and in edits quite often (I believe there's currently a section discussing this in Talk right now which is quite common). It's also disruptive, of course, to edit war over something without even attempting to discuss the issue with other editors. ElKevbo (talk) 15:18, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

No war has been declared. There is no requirement that either the article title or redirects appear in the lead sentence. In fact, no such descriptive names should be crammed into the lead per MOS:LEAD. Overloading the sentence with repetition–Kent State shootings or May 4 massacre were the shootings of Kent State students on May 4–does not help readers. Surtsicna (talk) 17:28, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

To the contrary, the guideline you're citing explicitly says: "If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence." Your proposed sentence - which indeed has been added by you edit warring - makes the victims of the shootings the subject which violates the guideline.

Please self-revert your proposed change to the status quo ante until we can reach consensus. You don't get to personally dictate the contents of this article over the good-faith objections of other editors. ElKevbo (talk) 18:08, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

MOS:LEADTITLE: "If the article title is merely descriptive—such as Electrical characteristics of dynamic loudspeakers—it does not need to appear verbatim in the first sentence." Then there is MOS:AVOIDBOLD:

If the article title does not lend itself to being used easily and naturally in the first sentence, the wording should not be distorted in an effort to include it. Instead, simply describe the subject in normal English, avoiding unnecessary redundancy.

The 2011 Mississippi River floods were a series of floods affecting the Mississippi River in April and May 2011, which were among the largest and most damaging recorded along the U.S. waterway in the past century.

Major floods along the Mississippi River in April and May 2011 were among the largest and most damaging recorded along the U.S. waterway in the past century.

Therefore, we ought to avoid unnecessary redundancy. Surtsicna (talk) 18:22, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

I disagree and I continue to object to your having shoved your preferred version of the text into the article by initiating an edit war. ElKevbo (talk) 18:25, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

On what basis do you disagree with the guideline? How does repetitiveness help readers? Surtsicna (talk) 18:46, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

You're not nearly as clever as you think you are by accusing me of "disagree[ing] with the guideline." We disagree on how it should best be interpreted.

You've edit warred to change the article to your preferred version and are now accusing me of disagreeing with a guideline. It's clear that you are not interested in sincere collaboration so I am done interacting with you. Congratulations on forcing your preferred version of the article into being! Best of luck maintaining the article; I am removing it from my watchlist so I no longer have to interact with you. ElKevbo (talk) 21:22, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

Wow. Surtsicna (talk) 21:50, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

Absolutely not. ElKevbo is correct and this change is wholly inappropriate and without consensus. This is not how it works. You don't get to change it in this major a way without consensus. Please stop now. ELKevbo, I hope you come back as you've always been a voice of reason here. Tvoz/talk 02:55, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Kindly provide arguments instead of resorting to personal attacks. Explain why it is inappropriate. Explain why the cited guideline should not apply here. Surtsicna (talk) 03:02, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

ElKevbo made the arguments and your response was to continue your edit war. The norm for intros is to start with the title. In this case in particular, there have been many many discussions about the title and we reached consensus to have it as we had it - especially including the references to "massacre", a particularly contentious matter. You removed that crucial item, you removed citations, you basically ran roughshod over years of work among editors with different points of view and didn't even attempt to discuss it here on talk. The driving force of Wikipedia, I assume you know, is consensus. Yes, perhaps our hard-won compromise first sentence is repetitive, but that "problem" is far from the top of the issues that we all address as editors here. It allowed us to achieve stability and acknowledge that people see this issue differently. Let's see what other editors think and meanwhile why don't you look in the talk archives. Edit warring is never the answer. Tvoz/talk 03:55, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Firstly, please do not canvass. That is disruptive. Secondly, it is demonstrably not true that I did not discuss. This is the discussion. That you failed to see it, as you admitted on ELKevbo's talk page, is not my fault. Surtsicna (talk) 15:59, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Further - guidelines are guidelines and it is hard-wired into the MOS that sometimes they are to be ignored or tweaked to fit a particular situation. In this case, the parenthtical references to two alternate titles are necessary, not redundant. Tvoz/talk 04:23, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

The guideline you're relying on doesn't really apply here since "Kent State shootings" is a well-established title of this topic and is not merely a descriptive term. It and the other redirects, are terms used in countless sources and attached to other related things, including the National Historic Landmark "Kent State Shootings Site". In addition, it's also not a case where the title "does not lend itself to being used easily and naturally in the first sentence." The part of the guideline you mentioned exists to give editors flexibility when needed; in most cases there's no reason to avoid using the article title (and well-established redirects like "May 4 massacre" and "Kent State massacre") in the opening sentence. Those exceptions typically have very clear and obvious reasons (such as the 2011 Mississippi River floods) that do not exist here.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to improve the lead or proposing some major rewrites, but I didn't see the changes made as improvements to the flow, readability, or understanding of the text. Further, having the article title and the two most common "alternate" names in the opening sentence helps readers know they are in the right place since many will come from the redirects, plus it clearly defines what the topic is immediately. Those additional titles are also included because of the initial controversy of what the article should even be called, which is common when a topic has more than one well-known title. --JonRidinger (talk) 04:49, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, @JonRidinger. It is much appreciated. I am not convinced that "Kent State shootings" is or should be treated as the proper name of the event. What I see in the archived talk page discussions is assertions that "Kent State massacre" is a much more common name, which points to "Kent State shootings" not being the proper name but one of many possible descriptive terms. I am much less convinced that we need to list two alternative descriptive terms before we finally tell the reader what happened. This event is called many more things, including Kent State murders, Kent State killings, May 4 killings, May 4 shootings,, etc. We should not be cluttering the lead sentence with multiple descriptive terms. Surtsicna (talk) 16:20, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Please look through the archives here. We have discussed the title of the article multiple times, and statistics were provided for each title. It's not a matter of what we "feel" but what statistics show in helping determine the title and suitable redirects based on WP:CRITERIA. "Kent State shootings" has been shown to be the most common and is used in a number of major secondary sources (a major one being the National Historic Landmark listing), while "Kent State massacre" and "May 4 massacre" have significant usage. There are additional names, but none have the widespread usage of those three. Again, mentioning the other two alternate titles is standard on Wikipedia because Kent State Massacre and May 4 massacre are redirects that receive a decent amount of traffic. It's very common in topics with multiple established titles to have alternate or former names listed in bold in the lead. We do the same for sports facilities when the naming rights sponsor changes. It not only reflects the reality that the topic is well-known by other names, but is a practical courtesy for readers who came to the article via an older or alternate name. On this article specifically, having the other two names in the opening sentence was also seen as a compromise since many editors very strongly felt that the article should've been titled "Kent State Massacre" or "May 4 massacre". --JonRidinger (talk) 18:59, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Please provide a link to the discussion(s); I do not see these statistics. What I do see is that, on Google Books, Kent State murders gets 125 hits, Kent State massacre gets 124 hits, Kent State killings gets 119 hits, Kent State shootings gets 118 hits, May 4 shootings gets 26 hits, May 4 killings gets 10 hits, May 4 massacre gets 5 (five) hits.

On Google, Kent State killings gets about 19.300 hits, May 4 shootings gets about 6.150 hits, May 4 massacre gets about 5.100 hits. Surtsicna (talk) 21:40, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

The very first header on this talk page is "Talk:Kent State shootings#Article name". That discussion started in 2018, then was "reopened" in 2022, 2023, and 2025. The earliest discussion is at Talk:Kent State shootings/Archive 1#Shootings vs Massacre and is from 2004-2006 and there was a later discussion in 2007 can be found at Talk:Kent State shootings/Archive 2#Massacre.

Google hits are one way we examine proper titles and WP:COMMONNAME, but are not an absolute. In a basic Google search, "Kent State shootings" is not only significantly higher (305k) than any other term, but shows up, as I mentioned in the "Article name" section above, as the title on a number of prominent secondary sources like Britannica, BBC, History.com, PBS, and Kent State University itself, among many others. For reference, "Kent State massacre" generated 95.1k results, "Kent State killings" generated 20.9k, and "May 4 Massacre" generated 9.4k. Those are raw results, not necessarily the number of instances each term is used, which is why they're a guide but not an absolute in determining the common name.

You can also look at the Pageviews tool to see how specific redirects fare over a period of time, which tells us what people are generally looking for when they come to the article. For instance, in the past year, the Kent State shootings article has received 1.2 million views, and 1.199 of them came from "Kent State shootings". The second highest source of traffic was "Kent State massacre" at 8,858 views, followed by "Kent State Shootings" with 8,134, and Kent State Massacre" with 1,258. "May 4 massacre" ranked 19th. Since the vast majority are coming via the main title, it can be surmised that's an accurate title. A high count from a redirect would suggest that a rename should be considered. ––JonRidinger (talk) 23:09, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

The article title is of no interest to me. I have never mentioned that matter. You hold that "May 4 massacre" is an established name with a significant usage, more widespread than Kent State murders, Kent State killings, May 4 killings, or May 4 shootings. That does not appear to be the case judging by Google results, Google Books results, or Pageview tool. Surtsicna (talk) 00:11, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

Why individual pages for non-notable victims?

We don't see separate individual pages for non-notable people who perished in other shootings, or victims of 9/11 plane crashes, or people who died in the World Trade Center unless they had some other notoriety outside of their death. So why are there individual pages for the 4 victims of the Kent State shootings when they have no notoriety outside of that? Wikipedia isn't meant to be "in memoriam" site; it's an encyclopedia, which means the people in it must have done something of notoriety on their own rather than just be a victim. Those 4 pages should be nominated for deletion immediately, and whatever facts that are pertinent to them outside of the shootings or as a result of them should be included in this page. PhilMaglassup (talk) 02:05, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

That's a question you would need to ask in a formal deletion request (WP:PROD) for each article, not discuss here. That said, while you're welcome to put together a PROD, I'd recommend against it. They most definitely have the qualifications for WP:N and WP:BIO (specifically WP:BASIC: "People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." and WP:BLP1E: The significance of an event or the individual's role is indicated by how persistent the coverage is in reliable sources.") based on the simple fact that they're mentioned almost yearly and in dozens, if not hundreds, of sources that mention the shootings, plus additional sources that give background on them. Details about their lives outside of right around May 1970 really aren't relevant here since this is about the shootings themselves, not biographical details about the victims. Indeed, their backgrounds are often discusses since 2 of them weren't even involved in the protest that day. Further one of the reasons to support separate articles for individuals is when the article on the event is already large, which this one is. --JonRidinger (talk) 04:03, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

"killing 4, wounding 9 unarmed students"

Hi,

Did students at that university carry guns, in general?

Did they carry guns on that day?

Were there armed students at all?

---

I mean, in a normal context students are unarmed. This is the default assumption.

Talking about "unarmed students" means (in any human language construct) that there were unarmed students, too. Justifying to some extent whoever deployed the troops, as well as those troops who started to shoot at the students.

Of course, interpreting this massacre is a strategical battle between humanists and power fans, and power entities. That is, those students are being attacked even today, on a daily basis.

Anybody saying "unarmed students" is offending the students -- the righteous ones, who were against that horrible war, and the corrupt government.

---

How would the meaning of this sentence change without the "unarmed", like this:

"killing 4, wounding 9 students" ?

Would anybody think that they were armed?

I mean, who wins with this offensive insert "unarmed" ?

The students or the troops and those behind them?

Just a thought...

Peter

--peter.josvai (talk) 08:31, 3 August 2026 (UTC)