Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Some mob control methods really work- - - -

There was rioting and the ROTC building on Kent State campus was burned. Some students tried to stop the fire fighters from putting the fire our.

https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/kent-state-shooting#section_5

Warning shots land somewhere, and so are a bad idea in general.

I used to know a few of the Guardsmen at Kent State. They all, to a man, would say they were way in over their training, and the situation for them was getting worse by the minute. No one argues that firing into the crowd was a good idea, but that’s what happens when you give scared kids guns and not specific rules of engagement. Bad stuff always is the result.

Back then, the Guard was under funded, under trained and less professional. I have no doubt that some of them thought they were in danger (fast forward to today’s “protests” and some of the people that I personally have trained are out there, and they’re afraid) and thought firing into the crowd was prudent and necessary.

The best thing to ever happen to the Guard was the first Gulf war, and the second best was the second Gulf war. It forced big Army and big Air Force to create one standard for training and proficiency and to train up the Guard to Meet that standard, using weapon systems in common with the Active components.

Only the Guard is called out with police powers for crowd control, the Active components can’t due to Posse Commentates. It’s hard to train for, and crowd control is more like trying to tame gorilla warfare than it is like policing. It’s all versions of chaos when the aggressors (the crowd) are the very people who the Soldiers have sworn to protect, and the Guardsmen and Guardswomen are from the same communities as the crowd, and in many cases are the same young age as the crowd. It is full with peril and all decisions will be second-guesses by people who were not there, an have no concept of the disorder involved.

All the worst parts of the fog of war, and family feuds.

No one with any sense sees Kent State as anything other than a failure across the board.

But, it’s also wrong to lionize the crowd and hold them blameless, while vilifying the Soldiers, most of whom were kids themselves.

Another Anti-Constitution, Anti-American, Big-talking, fascist [bleep]. Nothing new around here.

Mayor Richard J. Daley gave police the authority "to shoot to kill any arsonist or anyone with a Molotov cocktail in his hand ... and ... to shoot to maim or cripple anyone looting any stores in our city."
Methods: Rioting, race riots, protests, looting, a...
Date: April 5, 1968 – April 7, 1968
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States; 41°5...
Death(s): 11

It's time for some mayors to say the same thing in their cities, or be removed.

It sent a message and the message was received.

Ordering cops to “shoot to kill” is not only idiotic, it’s unconstitutional. It’s not a capital offense to have a Molotov cocktail.

And “shoot to kill” is asinine in almost all cases of crowd or riot control. Name a case where someone was shot by police in a riot and it turned out better for the police or city.

Shoot to stop. “Your honor, he was doing ______, which put others’s lives in danger and I shot him to stop that harm.”

If you’re shooting for any other reason, you’re part of the problem and displaying gross dumb fuqueitide.

If some of you youngsters haven't heard of Kent State and the Vietnam protests it is the fault of the teaching system. I was in high school and had the "benefit" of the news media. Later, in '74, I came home from work and sat down to see the TV news and saw an article about a black man that was stabbed many times, died, and during the whole article there was a cartoon of a revolver in the upper corner of the screen. That was confirmation that as far as news media, we are screwed! So I don't know if we got the whole facts of the Kent State Riots. Or not? Be Well, Rustyzipper.

Your post should be deleted until you list race of killed.

Often overlooked is the fact those rioters burnt down the city of Kent the night before the shooting. You throw a rock I throw lead.

Stupidest comment I've ever read.

I suppose if BLM burned down the nearest city to you, it would be justified for the military to come out to your house and shoot your wife, who had nothing to do with it.

For the record, no one burned down the city of Kent. "They" burned down the ROTC building. The perps were later caught and turned out not to be Kent State students.

Where they shouldn't have been? 100 yards away? Someone throws bricks that far?

Some Christian you are. Hmmmph!

For the record, the subsequent legal proceedings established that it was the Guard, not the students, who were at fault.

May 4 1970 I was a senior in HS about 30 miles east of Kent State. At 10:30 I was sitting in study hall with three friends deciding to skip school the rest of the day and drive to KSU to see what was going on. Two of the guys I was talking to were enrolled there for the fall semester. Around noon we got on the road in my very spacious '57 Plymouth and headed west. At about 12:45 we got to exit 33 Hartville/Kent and were stopped told to cross the hwy 43 bridge and head back to Youngstown to cause trouble there. The shootings had already occurred but we had no idea.
When I got home that night my father was watching the news and we were talking about it when news footage flashed on the screen and there was the old "57 Plymouth at the top of the off ramp getting told by a Summit county Sheriff to get my azz home. There was a lot of WTF were you thinking? Couldn't tell the truth because back then if I wasn't thinking with my Johnson, I probably wasn't thinking at all. Side note. My cousin dated one of the girls that was shot,when they both attended Boardman HS, in a Youngstown suburb.
Fast forward- I graduate, got a job in a garage and went about my business until 1972 when I was convinced by a friend to become a deputy sheriff.
May 1975 brought about talk of an anniversary march at KSU. Several Sheriff's departments sent deputies to assist the locals in case things got ugly. We were grouped with a local LEO and we patrolled the campus perimeter. At one point he said let me show you something and headed away from campus to a farm where we met with a group of Ohio NG. As we were leaving the local guy said "don't worry about them shooting anyone today, they weren't issued any live ammo."
This past May, fifty years later I look back and think about all of it and how these shootings may have had some impact on the duration of the war that ended the lives of many of my friends. I also wonder today what history will say fifty years from now. I doubt anything good will come of this years events.

A dark day in our history by any account. Tragic

to say that these riots were peaceful just shows your were not there and that you believe the twisted stories printed. did the students put flowers in rifle barrels? your bet, they would put a flowers in a barrel and then throw a brick at the guard or cops. whole bricks. not rocks.

this was not a simple chanting crowd. at times there were thousands of protesters- OSU probably had 5 to 10 thousand at any given time. it looked like a football game with 80,000 had just let out.


i witnessed a greyhound bus get rolled onto its side by the nice students. it was full of cops and as they crawled out they were getting hit with bricks pried up from the street.



to judge these events from what you read is not fair. anyone involved in trying to control this would have been aware of the danger and knew of people who got hurt.

We need more people like you teaching in school and college so the perps won't be afraid to break the law.

Why then did the NG get off? For some reason some of the facts have been lost over the years.

When you are genuinely in fear of your life, and you shoot to defend your self, that’s not “getting off.”

And, you’re right, maybe I should be teaching constitutional law. That way the rioters would understand escalation of force and disparity of force, the assumption an “unarmed” but much larger force can cause you mortal danger, and a one can react to the mob as if they pose a mortal danger

Maybe then people on the inter webs would quit acting like a mob who burned down a building the day before, and we’re actively throwing bricks at the Guardsmen became peaceful over night when they had time to rest up in their jammies and drink some chocolate milk?

Revisionist history much?

Every one of you sound like an idiot.

Read a book or two.

It's easily explained.

The last time I tried to explain Graham vs. Connor on this website, The Duck of Dumb cited the 8th Amendment.

LOL