On an average sunny autumn day, students and parents can often be seen walking on the Kent State University campus checking out the facilities or visiting family. But on Saturday, they were joined by a group of about 30 people legally carrying various kinds of firearms. They were shadowed by a small group of student protesters carrying signs and flowers and a retired professor sharing the university’s harrowing history.
The people with firearms were participants in the Kent State University Open Carry/Firearm Education Walk organized by Cincinnati resident Jeffry Smith, who has led five such walks on the campuses of other state universities including Bowling Green, Ohio State, Miami of Ohio and the University of Akron.
Smith, a University of Cincinnati alumnus, said the aim of the walk was not to intimidate, but to engage with anyone who wants to talk about the issue of schools allowing students to open carry.
“I would like these walks to create dialogue that would otherwise not exist about [colleges allowing students to open carry]. Most people, if given the choice, would probably say no, but I believe they should at least have the choice,” Smith said, noting that Ohio state law allows open carry, while it is prohibited in the respective colleges’ codes of student conduct.
“It is to promote campus carry and secondly to interact with people about gun rights and privileges in Ohio. Everybody here enjoys that kind of conversation. You’re not necessarily going to change anyone’s mind, but the fact that you had a civil dialogue between two parties with different perspectives may give one party or the other a perspective they didn’t have before,” Smith said.
The group gathered around noon in the parking lot near the Student Center to talk gun rights, admire each other’s firearms and talk to assembled professional and student media.
As they gathered, a small group of student protesters stood at the memorials of the May 4, 1970, shooting victims with signs and flowers. The group of about 10 held signs that included the names of the victims, the first line from Neil Young’s May 4th tribute song Ohio and “Peace > Dogma.” Others chanted a quote attributed to May 4th victim Allison Krause, “Flowers are better than bullets!”
Raising awareness
As the participants waited for their stuck-in-traffic leader, they admired each other’s firearms and talked to the media.
Darrel Appleby and his two young sons, Joel and Daniel, made the drive up from Beach City to participate in the walk to raise awareness.
“To make people aware of something they should be aware of but they’re not — their right to self-defense,” Appleby said.
“A lot of people seem to think that you’re going to stop a bad guy with a gun by throwing a book at him or by locking yourself in a room,” he said as his son tried to finagle a cookie from his father.
Appleby said he has been trying to push the issue of allowing teachers to arm themselves in his local school district of Fairless.
“You get these weirdos and whack jobs that want to come in our schools and butcher our kids. You get the ignorant ones that want to say, ‘Hey, guns aren’t the answer!’ Well, then why are the cops showing up with guns?” Appleby said, saying that teachers armed with only “books and shoes and staplers” are unlikely to stop a school shooter.
Ryan Freeman of Akron sported an AR-15 rifle across his chest.
“It’s about engaging people ... Since we can’t conceal carry on campus we’re going to open carry to raise awareness that it’s not as dangerous as people make it out to be,” Freeman said.
Upon his arrival, Smith, who was sporting a 45 and a 10mm handgun and a Tavor bullpup rifle, offered a few instructions to the group reminding them of safety, and then they walked to the historic pagoda on campus to meet Professor Jerry Lewis, a 50-year veteran sociology teacher who was on campus during the shootings and a scholar and author of three books about the tragedy.
Lewis, in his 80s, gives frequent tours of the shooting and memorial sites and was asked by Smith, who was 11 when the shootings happened, to give the group the tour. Lewis took the armed group on the tour, eventually meeting up with the group of protesters waiting at the site of Jeffrey Miller’s memorial. The groups’ interaction was minimal with mainly a few flowers being offered to the walkers.
For the protesters, the presence of guns on Kent State’s campus was inherently problematic.
“I feel that it’s very disrespectful for them to be bringing guns to a site where students were shot,” said student Alyssa Gage, co-chair of the May 4th Task Force.
“If we’re to take anything from our history as a university, as an identity, as a society, it really needs to be said that as soon as you bring weapons on campus, as soon as you pull out a threat, you ruin the chance for peaceful dialogue,” student Liz Schmidt said.
Right to demonstrate
At the end of the tour the participants asked Lewis several questions about the events, including how Lewis felt about giving the tour to “a bunch of gun-totin’ guys like us.”
Lewis, who said he still had survivor’s guilt and gave tours in part because he promised the mother of May 4th victim Sandra Scheuer that he would tell the story, admitted to some ambivalence about speaking with the participants.
“I believe everyone has the right to protest nonviolently and everyone has the right to demonstrate nonviolently … ultimately Jeffry and his group have the right to hear the story just like everyone else,” Lewis said.
Afterward, the participants milled amongst each other with plans to take a few photographs, and perhaps take a brief walk downtown before lunch, while the protesters stood nearby, signs and flowers in hand.
Schmidt, who was carrying a bushel of small flowers quietly walked up to Smith and handed one to him as he turned to look at her.
“Thank you,” he said.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.