I am going to be blunt. The Charlie Kirk shooting at Utah Valley University is a tragedy, and I oppose political violence. I also think he was despicable, and what he stood for was despicable. Both things can be true. I feel for his wife and their two young children. I will not pretend his work was harmless, or that his rhetoric did not make the world worse.
What happened at Utah Valley University
On September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk was shot during a public event at Utah Valley University in Orem. Witness audio captured a question about mass shootings; Kirk responded with a talking point about whether to count gang violence. Seconds later, a single shot rang out. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. The incident triggered a large law‑enforcement response and an ongoing manhunt/
Officials say the attack was targeted. Investigators recovered what they believe is the weapon, a bolt‑action rifle, in a wooded area near campus. UVU closed temporarily as agents canvassed the area and asked the public for tips, saying they have good video of a suspect believed to be college‑aged. Early briefings indicated the shot came from a roof or elevated position and traveled a longer distance.
The headline detail is simple and grim. The Charlie Kirk shooting ended with a young father dead and a campus in shock. Political leaders from both parties condemned the violence. The response from some right‑wing figures has already tried to weaponize the moment. That is part of the problem I want to talk about.
Where grief belongs
Kirk, an Illinois native, married Erika Frantzve in 2021. They had two small children. ABC News reported that she shared a Bible verse as the story broke, and that the family had not released more details at the time. I feel for them. Any family torn by a sudden killing deserves space and support, even if I will not sanitize what he did in public life.
I oppose vigilante violence, and I still won’t sugarcoat who he was
I will say it as clearly as I can. I oppose vigilante violence. It is not justice. It is immoral. It is strategically stupid. And I have no sympathy for him. Saying that is not a celebration. It is an honest read of his record and the harm he did.
Kirk built a career on propaganda, culture‑war bullying, and demagoguery. He pushed election‑fraud myths after 2020 and helped transport supporters to Washington for January 6, first boasting of “80+ buses” then walking that back. He later pleaded the Fifth in a congressional deposition. He spread COVID vaccine misinformation. He dismissed climate science. And in recent years he pivoted into Christian nationalism and argued against church‑state separation after once saying he supported it. None of this is rumor. It is documented.
The quote that tells you everything
In April 2023, at a TPUSA Faith event, Kirk said it plainly: some gun deaths are “worth it” to keep the Second Amendment. He compared the toll of shootings to car crashes and called the trade “rational.” That line was not taken out of context. It is transcribed, recorded, and verified. Snopes
Here is my answer. No, it is not rational to treat preventable deaths as the price of liberty, especially when the liberty you are talking about is the ability to carry tools designed to kill. And no, you do not get to base policy on an imagined list of “God‑given rights” that you cannot demonstrate and then announce that the blood is a fair deal. That is not reason. That is ideology dressed up as reason.
If you want philosophy, this is where Hume’s point matters. You cannot get an ought from an is. Kirk did worse. He tried to get an ought from a made‑up is. He asserted a divine grant, then jumped to policy and waved away the bodies as the cost of doing business. That is not an argument. It is a shrug.
The facts about gun violence
Now look at the facts that are not in dispute. In 2023, 46,728 people in the United States died from gun injuries. About 58 percent were suicides, roughly 27,300 souls. Homicides accounted for 17,927. Someone was killed by a gun about every 11 minutes. Firearms remain the leading cause of death for children and teens in America. These are CDC numbers summarized by researchers at Johns Hopkins and Pew. You do not get to hand‑wave any of it.
As this story unfolded, another shooting hit a Colorado high school. Two students were wounded and the suspected shooter, also a student, died of a self‑inflicted gunshot. Families hid. Police locked down the campus. The cycle repeated. This is our normal. It should not be.
Why the Charlie Kirk shooting was predictable, and why it still isn’t justified
None of this was surprising. That is not the same as saying it was justified. It was not. The ground has been tilled for years by pundits who monetize outrage, politicians who wink at dehumanization, and media ecosystems built to reward escalation. Analysts and reporters warned that political violence is becoming normalized, and that leaders are playing with matches in a powder keg. They were right.
And Kirk helped build that ecosystem. He elevated conspiracies. He turned up the temperature at rallies. He erased lines between church and state, citizen and soldier, fact and talk‑radio fiction. He taught young followers to mock, to dismiss, to never concede. He was not alone. But he was loud, prolific, and effective. The Guardian
His record, briefly, and why sympathy ran dry
A quick, sourced run‑through.
• He addressed the Republican National Convention and became a key youth proxy for Trump, then leaned into Stop the Steal after 2020. He personally promoted bus trips to Washington on January 5 and deleted the tweet amid the backlash.
• When the House January 6 committee questioned him in 2022, he repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than answer even basic questions. The transcript shows it. GovInfo
• He misled audiences about vaccines and pandemic policy. Fact‑checkers documented his claims and why they were false. FactCheck.org
• He denied or distorted climate science. Scientists reviewed and debunked his claims. Science Feedback
• He pivoted from calling for church‑state separation in 2018 to saying there is no such separation, and he wrapped his politics in a Christian nationalist frame. Reporters traced the shift.
Is it any wonder many of us have no sympathy left for the man, even while condemning the violence against him
How the reaction already proves the point
Within hours, the tragedy was hauled onto the usual tracks. Tributes and prayers poured in. Then the spin. Blame the other tribe. Propose medals. Float new laws in his name. Pretend your own rhetoric is a call to peace while you label opponents as enemies of the people. This is the dance. It does not honor the dead. It does nothing for his kids. It only keeps the outrage machine fed. ABC News
Strategy, morality, and the cost of talking points
The Charlie Kirk shooting will be used to argue for more guns in more places. The same people who call mass death a “price of freedom” will point to this killing and say the answer is more armed guards and more rifles. They will not ask whether this logic has helped. They will not ask why the country with the most guns has the most gun deaths among its peers. They will not sit with the statistics about suicide, or the reality that children and teens are most at risk. Those numbers make their story collapse.
What I want, and what I refuse
I want less blood. I want the rhetoric dialed down. I want leaders to stop excusing cruelty as clarity. I want a politics that can argue hard without turning people into targets. And I will not lie about who Charlie Kirk was. He was a propagandist, intellectually unimpressive in debate, and morally bankrupt in his chosen project. He sold a story that hurt people. He made the culture crueler. He helped train a generation to sneer at evidence. That work does not deserve a soft focus now.
I will not call this justice. It is not. I will not praise a shooter. I won’t. But I also will not pretend that a life spent spreading lies, inflaming rage, and normalizing harm suddenly becomes dignified because the life ended in public and awful fashion.
What happens next
As of today, the investigation continues. The FBI and state officials say they have recovered a high‑powered rifle, tracked the suspect’s movements on campus, and are working around the clock to make an arrest. UVU has closed while evidence is gathered. There will be press conferences. There will be fundraising emails. There will be more takes like this one, many less honest. There will be more kids in America ducking under desks. That last piece is the part we actually control.
If you want a principle to hold onto, try this: reject violence for speech, reject propaganda as politics, and reject the lazy habit of treating dead Americans as content for your tribe. The Charlie Kirk shooting will be sold as a reason to harden everything, to hate more, to accept more blood as the “cost.” We can choose to do the opposite.
Bottom line
I am not celebrating his death. I am not mourning his work. I feel for his family. I will not pretend his record deserves respect. He was despicable, and everything he stood for was despicable. We owe it to his kids, and to thousands of other kids, to stop accepting preventable death as normal. The way out is not revenge. It is policy and a culture that values truth more than a team jersey.