[Steely Tom]

I don’t recall anyone saying that the Kent State Four “provoked” the attack.

[TheDon]

It is the same as blaming a rape victim saying she was asking for it.

[katana]

Steely, I don't think you meant to imply any equivalency between the Ohio National Guard and ISIS wannabes, but one day after the 45th anniversary of the event it may be good to take a look back at what the left considers an unprovoked massacre. I was a high school student living twenty minutes away from the KSU campus and for us it was one of those "I remember every detail of where I was and what I was doing at that moment" when word reached us. We were getting ready to watch a baseball game back behind our building.

The National Guard shootings at Kent State were the result of a week of simmering and outright violence committed by a) leftist radicals who burned down the on campus ROTC Center and b) a wildcat Teamsters strike during which the guardsmen, most of who were about the same age as the KSU students, had spent 48 sleepless hours guarding truckers who were defying the strike and getting shot at from freeway overpasses.

On May 4 a group of screaming and rock throwing protestors pushed the guardsmen, sent on campus to prevent more riots and carrying bayonetted M1 Garands, down a hill. When the guardsmen fired they were shooting uphill and some of the bullets carried cross campus striking uninvolved students. So some of the "Four" were innocent bystanders and the whole incident was tragic.

But to say it was "unprovoked" is not exactly correct and in no way can one equate the guard and their actions with terrorists attempting to massacre dozens of people over an irreverent middle-finger-to-your-murdering-pedophile-false-prophet cartoon event.

[Arthur McGowan]

Even though they did.