Talk:Timothy McVeigh

Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Timothy McVeigh article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3: 90 days

This page is not a forum for general discussion about Timothy McVeigh. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about Timothy McVeigh at the Reference desk.

A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on June 11, 2015.

Biography: Military

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by the military biography work group (assessed as Low-importance).

Crime and Criminal Biography: Serial, mass, and spree killers Top‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Crime and Criminal Biography articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Crime and Criminal BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Crime and Criminal BiographyCrime-related articles
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by the Serial Killer task force (assessed as Top-importance).

Terrorism High‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Terrorism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles on terrorism, individual terrorists, incidents and related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.TerrorismWikipedia:WikiProject TerrorismTemplate:WikiProject TerrorismTerrorism articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Oklahoma Mid‑importance

	Oklahoma portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Oklahoma, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of Oklahoma on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.OklahomaWikipedia:WikiProject OklahomaTemplate:WikiProject OklahomaOklahoma articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

New York (state): Western NY

	New York (state) portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject New York (state), a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of New York on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.New York (state)Wikipedia:WikiProject New York (state)Template:WikiProject New York (state)New York (state) articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject Western New York (assessed as Low-importance).

United States: FBI Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject FBI (assessed as High-importance).

Tulsa Riots[edit]

I understand that the zeitgeist right now is compelling. There is significant support for it among this community. But if we are going to alter wikipedia across the board to suggest that the Tulsa Massacre was the "deadliest act of domestic terrorism," we need some solid sources, not a single NYTimes article which gives a broad and speculative casualty range. If this is an actual statistic, then it should be stated continually. But it has to be vetted like everything else. Diewelt (talk) 13:51, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, should not be changed without definitive evidence from reliable sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Beyond My Ken (talk • contribs) 22:15, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Its a tough one. I think the evidence is pretty strong that there may well have been at least 150 dead. The problem is, with the way race was structured in America at the time, they just where not counting. And thats a problem for an encyclopedic source like wikipedia. Which has me wondering if theres a way to acknowledge thats a possibility without engaging in original research or unsuitable sources. Duckmonster (talk) 08:37, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

White suprematist and far-right views[edit]

TM’s racist and far-right beliefs are touched upon in the lede of the Oklahoma city bombing, yet they are absent from the lead of this article. Seeing as how it has been decided that TM was in part motivated by these beliefs, they perhaps should be mentioned in the lede of this article as well. Thoughts?SinoDevonian (talk) 00:23, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have any problem with calling McVeigh far-right (and I absolutely condemn his murders), but it's not clear to me there was any racial motive or animus for what he did (mostly white people were killed in the bombing). Merely possessing the Turner diaries doesn't mean he held any of the racist beliefs espoused in the book. I have books on my shelves about WWII, that doesn't make me a supporter of Nazi ideology. 57.135.233.22 (talk) 09:21, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah but you don't have books on your shelves that describe your terrorist attack in surprisingly similar details. I assume you're not selling books with Nazi ideologies at gun shows and giving them to friends either right? You don't have photocopies of specific passages from this book highlighted when you're arrested for crimes either I'm guessing.

This info all comes from the citation used in the Turner Diaries wiki entry when connected to McVeigh. Specifically it is found on page 3 of the article and is actually being said by the defense (McVeigh's side).

I think it's fair enough just from that to label his as far-right. I wouldn't exactly say being inspired by a book written by neonazis to be a normal thing.

[1]https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,986240-3,00.html 128.193.154.110 (talk) 19:01, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

He commited the attack for libertarian reasons. Everything else is white noise. CalfRaiser150 (talk) 11:33, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's really amazing that people who share McVeighs far right ideology today have been able to scrub his ideology and motive from this "encyclopedia". 24.128.188.103 (talk) 16:49, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Info Box : Partner(s)[edit]

Might I suggest changing “Partner(s)” to “Co-Conspirator(s)”? I know I’ve had a drink or two, but I read “Partner(s)”, then read the names Michael and Terry, and thought “huh, didn’t know he was gay.” 72.85.172.91 (talk) 03:17, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Christian terrorist[edit]

I changed the type of terrorist in the lede from domestic to Christian, and added a reliable source supporting the assertion that the OKC bombing was an act of Christian terrorism due to the perpetrators' ties (possibly indirect and circumstantial, granted, but ties nonetheless) to Christian Identity. Those changes were reverted and I disagree with that decision. Groupthink (talk) 02:37, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Given this is a topic that is spanning several talk pages[2][3][4] it might make sense to raise this at NPOVN where we could discuss this in one place. Otherwise I'm sure we will end up repeating our selves. Springee (talk) 11:12, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You need to show the connection as relgious, not political, motivation. As noted elsewhere (and duly noting Springee's comment), there is no specific religious tie to CI. The only tie to it is coordination with one CI group based on political, not religious, motivations. And there is no reliable source that I have seen that ever drew such a conclusion. It's purely WP:SYNTH. ButlerBlog (talk) 13:11, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I looked up the author, Ackerman, and searched about for corroborating details. The "link" to CI is weak, and fringe. The only other claims that McVeigh and his actions were religious terrorism come from unreliable sources. We don't put fringe theories into the encyclopedia, and we particularly don't 'rebrand' someone as a religious extremist when their actions were (per reliable sources) politically driven (even if there are religious undertones). Fails NPOV. Meets WP:FRINGE. There's also a sense of WP:RGW when a drive to relabel several other articles is taking place at the same time. Vastly better sources (emphasis on plural) are required to completely restate the motives of these people. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 20:25, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

description[edit]

may we please add in addition to 'is a domestic terrorist', is a 'white supremacist' or a 'neo-Nazi', b/c McVeigh was a 'white supremacist'. Monkeylady999 (talk) 22:14, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

He is primarily notable for being a domestic terrorist, and his motivation for his actions was anti-government extremism. The lede is a summary of the article. His white supremacist and neo-Nazi tendencies are noted in the body, but they are secondary to the actions he is notable for. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 22:28, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

k, thanx for clearing that up. Monkeylady999 (talk) 01:27, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]