Reagan was wise enough not to call out the Guard and start killing the student protestors like the Ohio Guv did a couple of weeks later.
They weren’t really student protesters as much as radical agitators daring the lead to fly and too self confident in their belief that they were “untouchable”. The events at Kent State proved they weren’t. They could, and did, bleed like any other delusional rabblerousers. In short, they got what they “asked for”. Then, like spoiled babies, they ran and cried when responded to by force and their noses were bloodied. They played a dangerous game and paid a price. Lucky for them, not more were whacked.
The protests over Cambodia like Kent State would come around six weeks after this.
Nixon announced the Cambodia incursion April 30th, the protestors got shot on May 4th at Kent State.
Months afterwards my steelworker uncle took my father and I out to his backyard in Ohio and looked across at his neighbors property, the home of one of the dead protestors. My uncle expressed his utter contempt for the family.
The hardhats (construction workers) were disgusted with the anti-war protestors as left wing extremists. In New York City on May 8th they came out and stormed City Hall to raise Old Glory to full staff. The liberal Republican mayor, John Lindsay, had ordered the flag lowered to half staff in honor of the dead protestors.
I happened to arrive in NYC that evening as a child and remember seeing the anti-war protestors marching into Times Square from my hotel room 20 stories up. They carried four coffins to signify the dead protestors.