Charlie Kirk Did Not Deserve to Die

America Desperately Needs a Re-Set Before It's Too Late

Charlie Kirk’s horrific assassination which occurred Wednesday in Utah should serve as a wake-up call for America. Because we’re descending into a very ugly, very dangerous, very scary nation.

It’s safe to say that, politically, I disagreed with Kirk on everything. I also believed him to be a very divisive and dangerous fringe right-wing influencer with matching rhetoric. But Charlie Kirk was first and foremost a human being. He was a husband and father to two young children.

Charlie Kirk did not deserve to die.

Just like all the other Americans who did not deserve to die at the hands of cold-blooded murderers in this growing epidemic of gun violence. These include politicians, movie and concert-goers, those praying in a church or synagogue, or little children and their teachers in a school.

And speaking of schools, Kirk‘s assassination overshadowed yet another school shooting that same day, this time in a Colorado high school.

I have murder in my family. My late wife was brutally murdered. I hate murder and I hate murderers. Especially those deranged monsters who see it as justifiable response to political or any other differences.

I had naively hoped that in the hours and days following Kirk’s shocking death it would not be shamelessly politicized. But, unfortunately, the United States president and other prominent Republicans both on Capitol Hill and in the right-wing media ecosystem already have done just that, drawing conclusions as to who was to blame before the assassin had even been been caught, and his identity and motives revealed.

The day after the shooting South Caroline Rep. Nancy Mace said "it sounds like the shooter was a tranny or pro-tranny.” Sounds like? From what? She had zero evidence or any rational basis to make that unconscionable, hateful, transphobic claim, yet that didn’t stop her from throwing red meat to the rapacious MAGA base..

And Trump himself suggested that the assassination was the result of a “radical left group of lunatics out there, just absolute lunatics”. He condemned “radical left political violence” for having “hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.”

So much for being the Consoler-in-Chief. And for waiting for the facts.

And now that the suspect has just been apprehended we will soon likely learn more about who he is, what his social media postings have been about, who he may have supported politically, which party affiliation, if any, he has, and other critical details which may reveal his motives for the assassination.

So far what we have learned is that the killer’s parents are registered Republicans and, according to his grandmother, “My son, his dad, is a Republican for Trump,” Debbie Robinson said.

And the assassin himself is neither a registered Republican or Democrat, and is an inactive voter. Regardless, I hope those on the right will stop spreading misinformation and lies…including and especially that being recklessly spewed by Donald Trump.

The political temperature in this country right now is at inferno levels and must be appreciably lowered or we will unfortunately continue to experience more and more violence.

And after deadly shootings like this there’s the requisite hope that this time just might be the inflection point that finally inspires our elected leaders in Washington to act to address this violent epidemic. But I’m not holding my breath.

Lastly, people need to stop saying “This is not who we are”. Because it’s exactly who we are…who we’ve become. But, those in power, and we the people who elect them, can change all that so that perhaps one day we can truly be who we think we are and who we’d like to be.