On Monday, February 17, gun-rights advocate Kaitlin Bennett (also known as the “Kent State gun girl” for her graduation pictures featuring weapons) stepped onto the Ohio University green and was quickly met with protest.
Bennett claimed on Twitter that she wanted to ask Athens students “President’s Day trivia questions” but that “leftists at @ohiou started a riot” when she and her friend Joel Patrick entered the campus, arguing that this was due to her being a Trump supporter. She tagged President Trump in her Tweet, asking him to “strip funding from universities like this that harbor terrorists.”
Accompanying Bennett’s multiple Tweets about the incident were videos of Ohio University students shouting and chanting at her, throwing drinks at her car, and flinging toilet paper at her. Many students and visitors shared videos of the event on their own social media accounts and recounted the experience.
Terence Checkett–a Lakewood High School senior who witnessed the protest while at a prospective student event–is one such visitor.
“It was crazy being there but I don’t think that protesting her arrival was bad,” he says. “She’s acting like she’s all innocent. But she constantly harasses people and I think those at OU saw that and were fed up.”
Tracy Galway relayed these events on the Facebook page “You know you went to OU if…” as they were described by her friend, David Rismiller. Rismiller claimed that he Bennett confront a group of LGBT students and asked them “why they thought queers should have special rights.” He also recounts the question that she asked a young African American student: “Do you ever thank white people for the fact that you aren’t a slave?”
It was only then, insists Rismiller, that the young woman “pulled out [her] assault weapon and walked around campus with a crowd of students following her.”
Bennett continues to discuss the situation on her social media and has even said that she would return to Ohio University to “bring an army of gun owners for an open carry walk through campus.” Bennett has also written that “haters pay the bills,” suggesting that she only benefits from positive and negative attention.
