"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."
Kaitlin Marie tweeted "Thanks to all who have sent me death threats for taking a picture. You're the biggest advocates for gun rights. You proved exactly why people carry."
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.
Kent State University was recently ranked the safest college campus with more than 10,000 students in Ohio and the 25th safest in the country by the National Council for Home Safety and Security. A university spokesman, Eric Mansfield, said in a statement that the university has a full-time, certified police force of more than 30 sworn officers who protect the campus. The officers are visible, well-trained and on duty 24/7 to protect students, staff and faculty.
Bennett called the university out on Twitter for touting their safety ranking, and wrote that her cameraman had been assaulted "for supporting the 2nd amendment."
"The presence of a firearm would have deterred this assault," she wrote.
Bennett isn't the first student this graduation season whose graduation photo with a gun has gone viral. In April, Brenna Spencer of the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, posted a photo where she wore a "Trump for Women" T-shirt with a handgun in the waistband of her jeans while standing outside a Tennessee museum. She told ABC News that she wanted the photo to "show who I am as a person."
Bennett, who graduated Saturday with a bachelor's in biology, plans to pursue a job in the field. But she also plans to stay in Kent, Ohio, and continue her activism on campus and her involvement with Liberty Hangout.
She said many people have attacked her for suggesting students should carry rifles on campus. But that's not what she intended to do, she said. While she plans to buy an AR-style rifle for herself in the near future, she would use it primarily to practice target shooting in her family's expansive back yard, because the rifles are "super fun, and easier to shoot."
"On campus I would never carry an AR-10 for self-defense," she said. "There's so many people who aren't getting it - it's just a photo shoot."