In 1970, 28 guardsmen fired approximately 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds murdering four unarmed Kent State University students and injuring another nine during a protest over Americans bombing Cambodia. Forty-eight years later, Kaitlin Bennett posed with an AR-10 rifle and a mortarboard cap reading “come and take it” on campus in honor of her graduation.
Now that she has graduated and is no longer a student, Bennett was expressing her freedom to carry as the campus prohibits students, faculty, and staff from carrying deadly weapons. Bennett’s photo has sparked both support and outrage online, and has ignited a conversation about #CampusCarryNow, a movement encouraging college students the right to openly carry on campus.
Since the photos’ debut on May 13, Bennett has appeared on Fox & Friends, stating her motivation for the photos was to “take a jab at the insulting policies that Kent State has regarding arming their students.” She continued, “It’s unacceptable that they allow guests to carry but not students.”
Bennett is the director of Kent State University’s Liberty Hangout a grassroots libertarian media outlet, and claims a discussion on gun rights on campus at this group was a deciding factor in why she chose to take the photos. Bennett had notified the university that she was going to be taking the photos and was escorted by a campus police officer throughout the photoshoot.
“I was not expecting the blatant racism that’s been thrown at me,” Bennett told Fox & Friends’ correspondent, Steve Doocy. “They’re saying I have white privilege for going out on campus with my AR-10.”
Regardless of Bennett’s legal right to express freedom of speech by taking the photos and her right to bear arms by possessing the AR-10, the question remains whether or not this was a wise move from an ethical or meaningful standpoint.
First things first, Bennett absolutely has white privilege in being able to safely take these photos. While someone like Bennett is able to be escorted by a campus police officer to express her opinions on gun control, protestors in Ferguson and Baltimore put their lives at stake to protest police brutality.
Historically speaking, gun rights are rooted in white privilege. In the times of Colonial America, almost all English colonies passed legislation forbidding women and slaves to own guns and prohibited the sale of guns to native peoples. This was not a matter of safety, it was a means to keep people disenfranchised and allow white men to maintain power.
In terms of gun rights today, Philando Castile was shot by police in 2015 while following proper procedure and announcing he had a legal handgun in his vehicle. Despite being a legal gun owner, the NRA (who is always the first to speak up whenever gun rights appear to be “infringed upon”) remained silent and did nothing in response to his death.
White privilege is having the NRA come to the rescue while black men are murdered for following proper and legal protocol.
The other major piece of this puzzle is where these photos were taken. The Kent State massacre was not an instance of unarmed students without the opportunity to defend themselves. These were students protesting in favor of peace.
Even if Kent allowed students to carry weapons on campus during 1970, the students that were senselessly murdered would not have been the type to carry a weapon.
In 2014, Urban Outfitters received a massive amount of backlash for selling a distressed Kent State sweatshirt that appeared to be blood-soaked. The universal response was one of outrage as they felt the design was in poor taste.
According to Bennett, the decision to pose with the AR-10 was merely symbolic. “On campus I would never carry an AR-10 for self-defense,” she said to Fox & Friends. “There’s so many people who aren’t getting it — it’s just a photo shoot.”
How lucky she is to live in a world where someone that looks like her can walk in public with an assault rifle on her back and it be “just a photo shoot.”
Here’s a look at what the internet is saying:
This article appears in May 16-22, 2018.
I will bet no one catcalled her while she was carrying that AR. Something to think about.
This is all too perfect and all too well coordinated to be the work of a harried college student on graduation day. The giveaway is Kaitlin Bennett saying Kent State University is a school in which the government shot four unarmed students 48 years ago — a theme that fits the NRAs rhetoric that its members need guns to protect them from our government. The other giveaway of NRAs handiwork is the perfectly placed COME AND TAKE IT message on the graduation cap — great artwork there. So is the perfectly slung AK-10 over Kaitlins back — menacing looking, yet in sharp contrast to her white attire. All these, as well as the extraordinary production quality, point to the work of professionals — not the lone effort of an overwhelmed college graduate.
I wonder how long it will take for the Twitter flamewar to attract a dozen instances of the gun-fetishists favorite non sequitur, “‘AR’ doesn’t even stand for ‘assault rifle,’ it’s ‘Armalite Rifles,’ OMG!!”
Long blonde hair,a little white butt-twitcher summer sundress, a good figure, and that white, white skin. I’d like to see how far some fat black chick in overalls and cornrows would have gotten before she was cuffed and dragged away by her feet.
Did she walk on the Commons, where the May Fourth shootings took place? That’s a national historical place and also a national landmark. To some people, it is a lot more than that…it’s a crime scene and sacred ground. If this bitch had played her little game there, it would have been the equivalent of what pissing on gravestones at a military cemetery would be to a veteran.
And yeah, this had to be a stagedeve nt. She was only a pawn in their game, parroting what she was told to say about “four unarmed students.” I’m willing to bet she doesn’t know jackshit about what happened in 1970…she just thinks…and acts…like she does.
Oh, and BJ, maybe you should be forgiven for being too young to know your recent American history, but the Kent Four did not die at a protest over the “bombing” of Cambodia. That was routine at the time. It was over America widening the Vietnam War by INVADING Cambodia. Big, big difference. Every story I click on has your byline. THey sure are putting you to the test. Or is everyone else just on vacation?
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“In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes.” : Andy Warhol
Scene has deleted multiple comments from this article that were critical of this piece.
That does it for me. Goodbye Scene.
Maybe they finally woke up to the fact that you’ve been using multiple anonymous names to piss on their website for a long, long time.
This might be a golden opportunity to say Good-bye Spamming Troll, but we both know that ain’t gonna happen, because you don’t have much of a life.
See you around the campus!
Sorry Grizzle, still here with redpills.
Two hours…what took you so long?
Maybe they can’t block you as easily because you’re posting from a phone.
But they sure as hell can delete you if you’re reported. They have, and they will.