Kent State graduate celebrates by strolling campus with her AR-10
Source: USA Today
A woman's photos celebrating her recent graduation from Kent State University have stirred up a social media uproar thanks to the unusual accessory she chose for the occasion — a high-powered, semi-automatic rifle.
Kaitlin Bennett, 22, wanted to make a statement after graduating so she shared pictures of herself on campus with an AR-10 slung over her shoulder and holding a graduation cap emblazoned with the words "come and take it."
"Now that I graduated from @KentState, I can finally arm myself on campus," Bennett, who earned a degree in biology, tweeted Sunday. "I should have been able to do so as a student — especially since 4 unarmed students were shot and killed by the government on this campus."
Bennett was referring to the infamous 1970 incident at the university in which Ohio Nation Guardsmen opened fire on student protesters, killing four and wounding nine. She was also voicing a wide-held belief that the Second Amendment was intended as means for Americans to defend themselves against the government.
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Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/05/16/kent-state-rifle-graduation-photos/616449002/
= new reply since forum marked as read
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That what? She'd have shot back in 1970? Sure thing sister. What a wasted space. What? The Army didn't want you? That's where you play w guns. Not where folks are striving to be intellectually better. This is gun porn for dt voters. YAWNING. Glad she's off campus and in the real world now. Im not sure but I don't think you can be a cop w a Biology Degree. maybe some remedial courses before those student loans kick in. 
Another wannabe Tomi Lohren(SP) Hope i spelled it wrong.
And I would make sure her and people like her wouldn't get references. 
If so, I'm sure that would go over well on any college campus...
One might also wonder if she intends to open-carry at her upcoming job interviews and then at her future jobs....
Washington Post, "The story behind the viral photo of a Kent State graduate posing with her cap- and a rifle," 5/17/18
EXCERPTS-
If Kaitlin Bennett had been allowed to carry a gun at Kent State University while a student, she wouldn’t have carried an AR-10 rifle. She would have carried her handgun instead.
But the 22-year-old said she chose to pose with the rifle for her graduation photos Sunday because it made for a stronger symbol:
That, as a non-student, she could at last arm herself on the northeast Ohio campus. To Bennett, the photo was the culmination of her years as a conservative student activist, during which she advocated for students to be able to carry concealed weapons on the same campus where, almost 50 years ago, the Ohio National Guard opened fire into a crowd of unarmed students protesting the Vietnam War, killing four and wounding nine.
“I believe that if the government has it, we should have it. Machine guns — any weaponry,” Bennett told The Washington Post on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after her graduation photo went viral, garnering more than 3,200 retweets and 1,000 comments on Twitter. “To make sure the government can’t go against the citizens,” she said. “We should be able to protect ourselves against a tyrannical government.”
Bennett, who was raised by a Republican family in Zanesville, Ohio, knew her photo would provoke backlash. She’d found herself at the center of controversy on campus plenty of times before. Just three weeks ago, she co-organized an open-carry demonstration that invited nearby residents to bring their firearms to the university...
In her hand is her black graduation cap, marked with the rifle cutout and the words “COME AND TAKE IT.” The historic slogan dates back to the Revolutionary War and the Texas Revolution against Mexico, she said, when Texan rebels fashioned a flag with the phrase over the image of a cannon as a sign of their defiance.
Aliah Kimbro, a 19-year-old Kent State sophomore, told Refinery 29 that it was hard for her as a black woman to support Bennett, knowing her own gun rights “aren’t safe anywhere.” “To see that tweet, ‘Come and take it,’ as if lives weren’t taken on that campus due to gun violence, just shocked me,” Kimbro told Refinery 29. “Kent became an open-carry campus in the last year and there were many protests from that, the incident of May 4 not forgotten.”
Since posting the photo, Bennett said she has also received death threats. "I’m not nervous, because everyone knows that I’m armed,” she said. “I don’t know why they would threaten an armed person.”
As president of the university’s chapter of the libertarian media outlet Liberty Hangout, she’s used to being attacked, said Bennett, who was also formerly president of the Kent State chapter of Turning Point USA, a conservative organization. She said conservative students on campus have in the past been assaulted and said that in April someone swung at one of Liberty Hangout’s cameramen, breaking his equipment...More..
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-story-behind-the-viral-photo-of-a-kent-state-graduate-posing-with-her-cap-%e2%80%94-and-a-rifle/ar-AAxnWX1?li=BBnb7Kz
He also emphasized the 1970 tragedy, but things didn't work out for him fortunately.
