Living to defend the gun, creates the chance you will be slain by one

A right-wing influencer and an integral part of the Trump propaganda machine, Charlie Kirk, was shot and killed at a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University

Before I begin, Political violence, or any violence for that matter, is unacceptable regardless of where it originates. I unequivocally condemn the brutal and senseless murder of Charlie Kirk, as should everyone, irrespective of their political affiliation.

Yesterday, the President of the United States chose to sit behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office to address the nation and speak to the alleged political assassination of Charlie Kirk, a man who played a significant role in delivering young voters to help him win the White House. As I write this, the perpetrator has not been arrested, so it is true to say that the ensuing feeding frenzy from the right is, at this stage, without foundation as to the motive for the attack. It is merely their truth that they are feeding to anyone who is prepared to listen and propagate their messaging.

Charlie Kirk’s death has been seized upon by the right as a prime opportunity to sow yet more division and hate in what is already a completely fractured society. In his address, Trump proceeded to anoint Charlie Kirk a political martyr. He insinuated he died at the hands of a radical left-wing terrorist assassin. It was a very carefully crafted address designed to walk a tightrope, lighting a fire under his base without overt references to retribution. He left that to his foot soldiers on X and Fox Entertainment.

If you have seen the footage of the shooting (which I would not advise), you will have deduced that there seems little doubt Kirk would have died within minutes at the scene. It suggests to me that it was no coincidence his death was announced not by a doctor at the hospital, or a spokesperson for the family or Turning Point USA. The announcement of his death was made first on a Truth Social post by the president, followed by a politically choreographed moment in which he could not pass up the opportunity to be the centre of attention, by paying tribute to a man he portrayed as a right-wing fallen hero.

It sickens me that this is what America has become. The people deserve better. As I stated in a post on X following the shooting, there is not one single point on which I agreed with Charlie Kirk. But nobody deserves to be murdered for their political beliefs, and I would fight to defend anyone’s right to express them. To be brutally honest, I found Kirk to be morally repugnant. A peddler of misogyny, homophobia, and an unapologetic racist, who spent his time after dropping out of college attempting to poison the minds of young people with his white Christian Nationalist agenda that remains antithetical to Christian teachings.

Putting my feelings aside, Charlie Kirk was a human being who had left behind a wife and two small children. Their last memory of a father and husband should not be his body jolting from the impact of a high-velocity round to the neck, and subsequent arterial bleed, draining his life in a horrifying river of blood pooling on the ground. Nobody can unsee that, nor did he deserve to lose his life in such a brutal manner.

Kirk fervently believed that the numerous gun deaths in America each year were an acceptable price to pay for the preservation of Second Amendment rights. In his own words:

“…. I think it’s worth [it] to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

It’s long been said that God has a strange way of delivering messages, and in a twist of irony, Kirk became a martyr to his belief in the right to bear arms. He certainly did not become a martyr in the eyes of those now suffering at the hands of a convicted felon whom he helped elect—a man eulogising him for his own political gain. Even in death, Charlie Kirk will become an instrument of social repression.

The flag outside the White House flew at half mast not out of respect, but as an act of theatrical politics. Let’s not forget that a couple of weeks ago, two young children died while they prayed in a Minneapolis catholic church. There was no address to the nation to mark the passing of eight-year-old Fletcher Merkel and ten-year-old Harper Moyski. It took 2 weeks for him to speak in person about it because their lives held no political benefit to a narcissistic tyrant.

Moments after the shooting, there followed grossly irresponsible words from both Republican lawmakers and Fox commentator Jesse Watters, who stated to his audience:

“We’ve got trans shooters. You’ve got riots in L.A. They are at war with us, whether we want to accept it or not. They are at war with us,” …. “What are we going to do about it? How much political violence are we going to tolerate? And that’s the question we’re just going to have to ask ourselves.”

These statements were made without any evidence relating to the as-yet-unidentified shooter or the motive surrounding the attack. This inflammatory language may well result in acts of retribution as we see the right stoke the fires of political vengeance. I’m sure Trump is already planning to maximise the political narrative value of Kirk’s death with a made-for-TV funeral event to cement his martyrdom.

These are dark times, and I have to be honest, I will not shed a tear for Charlie Kirk. The truth is, America will be subjected to slightly less Christian Nationalist propaganda with his passing. He will be no martyr to the women he denigrated or to the people of colour he espoused were of inferior intellect, or the gay and transgender communities he claimed were a disease. He will be no martyr to the Jewish communities he claimed to be, “pushing the exact kind of hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them,’ as well as orchestrating the dilution of white power in America.

Neither will he be a martyr to the immigrants whom he painted as subhumans, soon to displace white Americans, in his promotion of the so-called Great Replacement Theory. These are the communities who could be forgiven today for singing ‘Ding dong the witch is dead’, though many of them won’t, because they are not of the same mindset as their torturer.

There is little point in discussing gun control, because Charlie accepted that he and the likely 40,000 other Americans this year appear to be an acceptable price to pay for the right to bear arms. Guns remain the primary cause of death in children and teenagers. There have been 146 School shootings to date in 2025 and 300 mass shootings. Tragically, over 50% of gun deaths are suicides, so the claim that the US is the greatest country in which to live certainly didn’t ring true for over 20,000 Americans in 2024 who decided to take their own lives.

The claim by the right that it’s not the guns, it’s all about mental health, just before they cut mental health support to support Billionaires instead, represents a mental health episode in itself. You would have to be mentally ill to believe that it is acceptable in any world that 40,000 deaths from guns are nothing to be concerned about.

It’s difficult to obtain more recent data on the cost of gun violence in the US. Still, according to a report by Everytown Research in 2022, the associated costs of gun violence three years ago were estimated to be $557 billion. They note:

[The] staggering $557 billion figure is five times the nation’s budget for the Department of Education, which funds preschool through college for millions of Americans.¹ If shooting tragedies were prevented from occurring in the first place, the vast funds spent in the aftermath of gun violence could be directed toward beneficial and productive investments such as educating the next generation.

I think it is safe to assume those who state America has a stupidity problem are not wrong, but what they are missing is that this is not stupidity, it is the consequences of bought and paid for legislators who have, for a price, declared gun manufacturers a protected species at the expense of children, teenagers and the vulnerable. It represents an unconscionable dereliction of duty in service of greed and political self-enrichment. I could go on, but it makes me feel sick just thinking about it.

Even beyond the absence of reasonable gun controls, we are living the results of a broken society and a failed political process. There can be no excuse for Democrats becoming Republican Lite and abandoning the working class in pursuit of right-leaning middle-class voters. This must be about getting back to ‘people first’ politics and not the pursuit of self-enrichment, which seems to have become the new norm. This should serve as a stark warning to every American: unless politics can overcome division and hate, this is your new tomorrow, where the weak will be left to fall by the wayside as greed rules the day. I’ve said it many times, this is a moment in which to be brave and bold and deliver a vision of hope directly to the American people, instead of just waiting for Trump to fall on his face, as seems to be the intention right now. Democratic activists need to have their voices heard. A leadership change is the only way forward, and time is running out.

History will not remember Charlie Kirk as one of the good guys. To me, he was Trump’s Josef Mengele, experimenting on the minds of young students up and down the country, delivering indoctrinated young people into the MAGA cult.

Charlie Kirk is said to be a man of ‘deep faith’, so I hope that on his journey to meet his maker yesterday, he didn’t attempt to debate his way into heaven, because I’m sure St Peter explained to him that, because of fraud, waste and abuse, spaces were limited. I’m sure St Pete respectfully quoted him Matthew 25:40 ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me’, before pulling the trapdoor lever.

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