Brussels Gunshots bring only bad news in America. This time a young rightwing activist was shot and killed while speaking at a big university south of Salt Lake City, Utah. His name was Charlie Kirk, and he was unfamiliar to me, but he seems to have been a principal at Turning Point USA, an organization which was active in voter turnout among young conservatives in the 2024 presidential election. He seems to have been a well-known figure in conservative circles, sufficient to have commanded a college speaking tour. As of this writing, the shooter has not been comprehended, though videos show someone lying on a roof about 200 yards away and running after the gunshot. A kill shot at that distance is seen as something that a hunter of average, but not exceptional skill, could accomplish, which likely is a reasonably large pool in Utah, though the killer home state is unknown.
California Governor Newsom and former presidents Obama and Biden all condemned the violence and called for more responsible dialogue and less political division. President Trump, predictably, in expressing grief over the killing, pointed fingers at boogeymen on the “radical left,” who are equally unknown, if they exist at all except in his imagination, and, as usual promised to get them and “their funders,” turning the dial of irresponsible rhetoric past boiling. The Times’ report listed a half-dozen instances of extreme gun-related violence this year already. Despite Trump’s attempts to provoke even more violence, this seems to be who we are now and have been for some time.
What really causes all of this?
Despite Trump’s mouth working faster than his mind, there’s no evidence of a leftwing militia, armed and dangerous, as there is on the right in many areas. Demonizing politics is his thing, but it’s not constructive in looking for solutions.
Knowing this could be within any hunter and most former military gun range qualified veterans makes it hard to say that the proliferation of guns in the United States is the cause of these tragedies. Nonetheless, making guns of all shapes and sizes so easily accessible and so lightly regulated, if regulated at all, makes flashpoint so much quicker than it needs to be. If our legislators doesn’t take steps to protect children from guns, we could hope that they might take steps to protect themselves from guns, but it’s unlikely.
The internet and social media with all of their black holes are certainly factors in provoking extremism and normalizing violence in putting words into action. These are matches that light the fires among the unstable and anonymous, looking to define themselves some way among the vast population.
We turn over rocks looking for how to stop politically inspired violence, but even when all points of the political spectrum find consensus that these actions are horrid and indefensible, all we hear is the shouting without much hope for solutions. When these kinds of incidents become usual, as they are now, it’s impossible to blame bad apples. These actions speak to a sickness in our society that has to be recognized and resolved. Isn’t it time for that?