Robert “Beto” O’Rourke thinks only the government can be trusted with “assault weapons” and he recently made his pitch at the same place the government literally gunned down four innocent citizens in 1970.

O’Rourke visited Kent State University last week to argue in favor of eliminating private ownership of “assault weapons,” effectively making the government the sole owner of “instruments of terror” like the ones used to kill of students protesting the Vietnam War at the school nearly 50 years ago.

“It’s not enough to stop selling AR-15s and AK-47s. When there are more than 10 million of those potential instruments of terror, we must mandate that every single one of them be bought back – back home, off the streets, out of our lives – no longer a threat to every single one of us,” O’Rourke shouted to the crowd.

A couple hundred showed up to hear him speak, and they roared in approval.

O’Rourke delivered his spiel in roughly the same spot National Guardsmen opened fire on students during a far bigger rally to protest the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, killing four students and wounding at least eight others.

“The burst of gunfire came about 20 minutes after the guardsmen broke up a noon rally on the Commons, a grassy campus gathering spot, by lobbing tear gas at a crowd of about 1,000 young people,” the May 4, 1970 Times story read, according to the Washington Examiner.

Dean Kahler told WKSU in 2013 that he was a freshman at Kent State when he witnessed the traumatic ordeal that left him in a wheelchair for life.

“There was a few people with a bull horn talking about the ‘isms’ of the day. Communism, capitalism, socialism, racism, sexism, environmentalism. And I was thinking, ‘What the hell does that have to do with getting us out of the war in Vietnam?’” Kahler said.

Kahler said National Guardsmen threw tear gas canisters and rocks at the students, who returned the favor as he attempted to stay out of the melee. Moments later, he tried to make a dash to the student union and it didn’t go so well.

“I saw them turn, very deliberately, lower their rifles and start shooting,” Kahler said. “Some were shooting up. Some were shooting down. Some were shooting at us. You talk about a terrifying feeling is bullets hitting the ground around you and all of sudden you get hit.”

The Examiner pointed out the obvious in an editorial.

Highlighting one of the most high-profile examples of government forces killing unarmed citizens to advocate for the disarmament of citizens by government forces is probably not the smartest route for a gun control advocate to take.

Nevertheless, he persisted.

When a few folks apparently attempted to spotlight the irony of O’Rourke’s gun grabbing remarks at Kent State, the failed senate candidate twisted that to fit his narrative, as well.

“Yesterday, people brought assault weapons to our rally at Kent State – where 4 students were shot dead in 1970,” O’Rourke tweeted without context. “I told them nobody should show up with an AK-47 or an AR-15 to seek to intimidate us in our own democracy. We need to buy back every single one of them.”