Welcome to big-time politics in the age of Twitter, Lauren Pierce! The president of the University of Texas College Republicans became an Internet celebrity on Wednesday after taking to Twitter in response to the arrest of White House shooting suspect Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez:

“Y’all as tempting as it may be, don’t shoot Obama,” she wrote. “We need him to go down in history as the WORST president we’ve EVER had! #2012.”

Gregory J. Krieg of ABC News’s The Note blog jumped on this ill-advised attempt at partisan humor almost immediately, and described Pierce as “giggling” when he spoke to her for comment. College Republicans vice president Cassie Wright also backed her up, telling Krieg, “I don’t really see anything wrong with it.”

Pierce attempted to explain further in an interview with Reeve Hamilton of the Texas Tribune. “I was essentially just saying any kind of assassination attempt is just stupid,” she said. “It’s not going to do anything.”

Pierce, whose Twitter bio further identifies her as an intern with both the Tea Party activist group Americans for Prosperity and the David Dewhurst for Senate campaign, told Hamilton she didn’t plan to erase the tweet. But she eventually did just that, while also tweeting out a three-part mea culpa, including this below:

Pierce also chose to lock down her account by making it protected.

Ironically, according to her LinkedIn profile, Pierce’s position at Americans for Prosperity is “Social Media and Youth Outeach Intern.”