Kent State Shooting

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The Shots That Won’t Be Forgotten As the 61 shots which were fired by the National Guards, 13 of the 61 bullets struck 13 protesting students, leaving nine of them wounded, and the remaining four students dead. Mary Ann Vecchio, a fourteen-year old runaway, saw the body of Jeffery Miller, a student of Kent State University, fell to her knees holding him and cried out in agony, even though she never knew him (“Four Students Killed At Kent State by National Guard, May 4, 1970.”) On May 4th 1970, students from Kent State University gathered together to protest against President Nixon’s decision of deploying American troops to Cambodia in order to complete an invasion. As the students began their protest, they began to turn from peaceful protesting into an unfriendly demonstration which caused the National Guard to step in. The students began to rile up, they began to threaten the guards by throwing rocks, and yelling obscene remarks to them. The National Guard felt they had no choice, but to fire their weapons, causing the four students to be killed (“Kent State Shootings- Timeline.”) Although the shooting was a tragic event, the whole event could’ve been avoided if the students would have left the Guards alone, and if the National Guard didn’t feel the need to shoot the students out of self-defense. Richard Nixon, who was president of the United States, addressed the issue of how the students of Kent State who were protesting his decisions were the ones who caused the event to happen. Nixon said one word which was the gasoline that burned the students “fire” to continue the protest, “You think of all these kids out there. I say kids. I have seen them. You know these bums, you know, blowing up the campus”, (“Report of the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest.”) Nixon didn’t realize when he addressed the students as “bums”, which was seen as the reason why the
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