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: 30 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.

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
	This article is supported by the military biography work group (assessed as Low-importance).

Crime and Criminal Biography: Serial, mass, and spree killers / Terrorism 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
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).
	This article is supported by the Terrorism task force (assessed as High-importance).

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
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)
???	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
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).

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

White suprematist and far-right views

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]

Christian terrorist

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

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]

Semi-protected edit request on 22 May 2024

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

In the intro, change "the deadliest domestic act of terror" to "one of the deadliest".

In truth, the bombing was not even the deadliest act of terror in the history of Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Race Riots killed more people. 184.145.139.223 (talk) 10:16, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: the cited source describes it as such and so does the FBI. M.Bitton (talk) 16:22, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]