How should I feel when the bad man dies?
Charlie Kirk was shot and killed yesterday, and the world has gone mad. Between the grief of his supporters and the glee of his critics, there is a complete lack of nuance in reactions to the news.
What am I supposed to feel about the murder of a bad man? Does his death mean we can’t criticise his life? Where is an acceptable moral landing point in this jumble of conflicting feelings? I don’t claim to have the answers, but it’s 3am, I can’t sleep, and I need to process my thoughts.
First and foremost, his murder is horrendous. I do not condone it in any way shape or form. However, I’d like to look at the bigger picture.
If today is the first time you’ve heard the name Charlie Kirk, he was a conservative far right commentator. He is most well known for debating students on issues such as reproductive autonomy, LGBTQ+ rights, Christian nationalism and of course, gun control. Falling into a similar category to Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder, he produced a high output of well funded content espousing his world view and politics to millions of viewers. He founded Turning Point USA which encourages conservative politics in schools and colleges and was a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, the state of Israel and the ‘war’ (reader, it is a genocide, not a war) in Gaza. He was married with two young children, and was killed by an as yet unidentified shooter at a speaking event at Utah Valley University. This is an incredibly brief look at his life, however any news article will tell you who he was – the purpose of this article is to work out how we feel.
I first became aware of him a couple of years ago when I saw the infamous clip of a debate on abortion rights during which his opponent showed him an ultrasound scan and asked “do you truly believe this is a human being?” Kirk firmly replied “without a doubt”, failing to observe that the scan was of a dolphin fetus.
I’ve seen a lot of his debates and vehemently disagree with almost every word that ever came out of his mouth. I believe he made the world a much worse place. But I’ve seen a lot of discourse saying ‘he deserved it’. I wouldn’t go that far, I don’t believe that anyone has the right to judge death as a fate for a human being. However, I will say that his death is poetic.
Charlie Kirk didn’t believe in empathy. In 2022, he said
“I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage.” [1]
This epitomises his political views. He didn’t want to understand the trauma of women whose reproductive rights were stripped away from them. He didn’t care to feel the pain felt by ostracised minorities, the fear felt by trans people as he stoked hostility towards them. He refused to empathise with the parents of children killed in school shootings, because he cared more about his right to carry.
By his own words, Kirk believed that the number of deaths by gun violence in the USA were acceptable. In 2023, he said
“It's worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.” [2]
What he is saying here, is that his right to own a gun was more important than someone else’s right to live. And that someone is most often a child. America has an utterly horrifying and frankly ridiculous number of school shootings on a regular basis. One of the most awful things about the news coverage today is that there was a school shooting in Colorado only 4 minutes after Kirk was killed, and yet it’s not even front page news. [3]
In the end, his life was ended because someone else had the right to own a gun. A situation which, when it happens to another nameless child, is apparently acceptable under conservative politics. I wish he had survived the attack, and maybe he would have learnt that deaths from gun violence are not connected to liberty and freedom. I wish he could have grown as a person and father. But he didn’t, in a large part because of the glorification of the ‘right’ to own a gun in America.
As hard as it is to grapple with the moral implications of his murder, we also have to watch with fear as world leaders respond in their own terrible ways.
Trump said that it is “a dark day moment for America” and promised a crackdown on “political violence.” [4]
Interestingly, no such crackdown was suggested or promised when Democrat Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered and Senator John Hoffman and his wife were shot in June. What is that thing called empathy again? It doesn’t appear to apply to people on the opposite side of the political spectrum...
Keir Starmer noted that “We must all be free to debate openly and freely without fear – there can be no justification for political violence.” [5]
Once again, hypocrisy of the highest order given that Palestine Action has been proscribed as a terrorist group here in the UK. So much for political freedom and safety when we can’t protest against genocide without fear of being arrested.
And Benjamin Netanyahu described Kirk as a “lion-hearted friend of Israel” dedicated to “speaking truth and defending freedom.” [6]
This man has no right to speak of freedom when he is forcing Palestinians out of their homeland and murdering all those who remain. Praise from his mouth is worthless. Israel killed 72 people in Gaza yesterday. [7] At least. Not to mention all those who are starving, dismembered and bereaved. Are their lives not worth global outcry?
It is a dark day, but I feel that the darkness comes less from the bullet in Charlie Kirk and more from the thousands of bullets which threaten the children of both Palestine and America – whose deaths go unnoticed by comparison.
Just before he died, Kirk was asked “Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” to which he responded “Too many.” [8]
I’ll leave the facts here to speak for themselves. Scapegoating trans people for the crimes of cis white men is, as always, despicable.
This was followed up with “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?” to which Kirk immediately felt the need to try to scapegoat again, saying “Counting or not counting gang violence?” [8]
Violence was his last word. I’ve seen people say that he was some great political bridge builder because he engaged in debate. But just because your personal brand of oppression isn’t physical in nature doesn’t make it any less violent. He vocally supported Donald Trump, a rapist. He vocally supported Netanyahu’s genocidal regime. He vocally supported ICE raids. He vocally supported stripping women and LGBTQ+ people of basic rights to dignity and autonomy. He vocally supported gun ownership. And his vocal support meant something. He had power, a platform, funding.
I don’t care that he encouraged debate. He was also violent.
I don’t believe anyone has the right to say that he deserved what he got. One of my core beliefs is that humans should not kill each other (simple, but somehow radical when it comes to protesting genocide). In a trolley problem scenario, I struggle to pull the lever. Would I kill Hitler as a baby? Probably not. This kind of philosophical question is just that, philosophical and not practical.
If Charlie Kirk was a bad man, is the world a better place without him? No. Any political movement is a hydra machine, cut off one head and three more will sprout. And any political assassination is a sobering sign of deep unrest, a warning for bad times coming. I would hope the death of a prominent Republican will make those in power see reason and bring about gun reform, but that is only a dream.
I feel pain for his wife and children, for his parents, for anyone who is affected by his death.
But all of the responses from politicians, celebrities or anyone with a platform which only mention their sadness and condolences are missing the point. We need gun reform, and a society which must, above all, value life.
I feel the most pain for the world. For what he contributed to it.
No one ‘won’ today. Everything is terrible. But don’t let his death colour your view of his life, words and actions. We need to learn from his life and death, and make the world safer for everyone.
References
2. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxqnkwerj7o
8. https://apnews.com/article/charlie-kirk-conservative-activist-shot-546165a8151104e0938a5e085be1e8bd
9. https://apnews.com/article/charlie-kirk-conservative-activist-shot-546165a8151104e0938a5e085be1e8bd
