Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University rally just prior to his assassination

Today, at Utah Valley University, Charlie Kirk was shot and killed by a sniper as he was carrying out yet another college campus rally and taking questions from the crowd of about 3,000 on religious or political issues, participating in his signature “Prove Me Wrong” campaign. He was shot once in the neck and likely died immediately. He was 31 years-old and left behind a wife, Erika, and two young children.

Charlie Kirk was a conservative firebrand. He founded Turning Point USA in his teens, quitting school to focus his efforts on building what has become the largest and, many would argue, most effective political organization recruiting and energizing the youth of this nation to a political cause. And that cause was Donald Trump’s America First agenda. Trump himself said that Charlie Kirk helped him win the 2024 election by helping him win the votes of millions of young Americans.

Kirk would be invited to a college campus, usually by one of the conservative groups at the college or university, then arrange a tent and tables filled with conservative literature on the main square of the campus. He would then put out a sign such as, “America is the greatest nation in the world,” or “Abortion is the killing of innocent human life,” along with another sign challenging anyone who thought differently to “Prove Me Wrong.” (I should say that I made those examples up. I tried to find actual examples from Kirk’s “Prove Me Wrong” campaign but today, naturally, all of the news is focused on his assassination.) Kirk, I have heard, told those gathered that, if they disagreed with his statement, to come to the front of the line. He would then engage the student or faculty member in a lively or sometimes heated debate on the subject.

Now, most of what I wrote above is by reputation and what I’ve heard or read in the news reports. I had little actual experience with Charlie Kirk or his methods or campaigns. I rarely chose to listen to the plethora of YouTube videos of Kirk in action. But everyone who knew who Charlie Kirk was knew he was a political conservative who was prepared to push Trump’s agenda to its farthest limits among the young people in the country. That was his focus and, it seems, he was true to it and especially effective in persuading young people to hop on to Trump’s political bandwagon.

What Kirk’s assassination represents is the next example of the decision by an extreme and inglorious sub-section of our political theater to rely on violence to make their point and press their own cause. Examples are almost too numerous to count, sadly:

August, 2012 – A man enters the vestibule of the Family Research Council offices in Washington, DC and shoots a security guard, who happily survived. The man was stopped by other security guards. The man said he was motivated by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s placing the FRC on its list of hate groups and his plan was to kill people in the building.

June, 2017 – A man aims his gun at Republican Congressmen as they practiced on the baseball field before the annual Congressional Baseball Game, where Republicans and Democrats play against each other for charity. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) was critically injured. The gunman was killed, but his apparent motive was anger at the GOP agenda.

May, 2020 – riots take hold of multiple cities across the U. S. after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Department officers. Hundreds of businesses were destroyed, mostly minority-owned. Across the country, reports are that 19 people were murdered during the riots and as many as 36 were murdered in actions related to Floyd’s murder, sometimes months later.

October, 2020 – 13 men are arrested for participating in a plot to kidnap Democratic Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmere, with the goal of using violence to overthrow the state government.

Jan 6, 2021 – Trump supporters overrun the U. S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the count of the Electoral College, which would formally affirm the election of Joe Biden as President of the United States. One woman was shot dead by Capitol police and one Capitol police officer died of two strokes suffered the next day, while four other Capitol police officers died of suicide in the following months. The saddest part of this story, in my mind, is that the FBI had information that an attack on the Capitol Building was planned and that they informed the Capitol Police about that fact. Yet, no actions were taken to protect the Capitol Building against such an attack. Why would the FBI and the Capitol Police refuse to prepare for an attack on the nation’s Capitol Building that they knew was coming? That doesn’t make sense to me.

February, 2022 – Louisville mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg, a Democrat, was the target of a shooting at his campaign headquarters. Greenberg was unharmed and went on to win the election for mayor. The assailant was captured and is in prison.

May, 2022 – After the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision was leaked in May, 2022, hundreds of acts of vandalism and violence were committed against pro-life pregnancy centers and Catholic churches over the following months, and even into the next years, including firebombings at pro-life clinics and, in one case, a man driving his car into the doors of a Catholic Church while people were inside.

June, 2022 –  A man threatened to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The man was carrying a gun, a knife, and zip ties when he was apprehended near Kavanaugh’s home.

October, 2022 – Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, is attacked and injured in his San Francisco home by a man with a hammer who later said he was drawn to right=wing conspiracies by “Gamergate.”

July, 2024 – A man attempts to assassinate Republican candidate for president and former President of the United States, Donald Trump at a political rally in Butler, PA. Trump is nearly killed as a bullet missed his head by millimeters and instead grazed his ear. The assailant was killed by Secret Service agents.

September, 2024 – At the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, FL Secret Service agents noticed a man pointing a gun at the golf course where Donald Trump is playing golf. They fire at the man, who runs but is apprehended. This is ruled a second assassination attempt on Trump.

September/October, 2024 – the DNC office in Tempe, AZ is shot up on three different occasions in September and October. The first two incidents involved a BB gun, but the third involved a firearm.

Spring, 2025 – In multiple locations, anti-Musk activists set fire to Tesla cars in protest against Musk aligning with President Donald Trump’s political agenda.

March, 2025 – the Republican party headquarters in Albuquerque, NM was firebombed with the phrase ICE=KKK spray-painted on the side of the building.

April, 2025 – A man firebombed the home of Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of PA in hopes of assassinating the governor and his family for what he supposedly had done to the people of Palestine. Shapiro is Jewish.

May, 2025 – Two young staffers of the Israeli Embassy are shot in front of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC as their assailant shouts, “Free Palestine!”

June, 2025 – A man fatally shot Melissa Hortman, the top Democrat in the Minnesota House, and her husband, Mark, in their home. The same man shot and wounded another Democratic lawmaker, state Senator John Hoffman, and his wife Yvette, in their home a few miles away. It seems, ironically and contradictory, that his cause was support for the pro-life movement.

October 10, 2025 – Charlie Kirk, conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, is assassinated during a rally held at Utah Valley University while Kirk participated in one of his “Prove Me Wrong” campaigns.

Looking over this list, and it is a partial list, one will note that the incidents of political violence include both those representing the left and those representing the right. In other words, both sides have their loonies. But is it only loonies who are participating in political violence? Consider the number of protests that turn into violence riots, often lethal, across the country, including those back in 2020 in response to George Floyd’s murder where hundreds of businesses were destroyed and 19 people murdered, and those more recent protests where ICE agents were violently attacked. Would these rioters have surprised their neighbors by their actions because they seemed such calm and reasonable people last week? The people who attacked the Capitol Building on January 6, would they have been considered extreme by their neighbors a couple of days prior? These people, if you encounter them on any given day during the day, would likely seem the most reasonable and stable-minded people, until the sun goes down and you bring up the subject of politics. Then they turn into screaming banshees of political extremism. Why does politics do this to people? Even professional journalists can hardly hold back. Matthew Dowd implied that Charlie Kirk was responsible for his own killing because he expressed what he believed, but what he believed was hate. Jesse Watters followed up by declaring, “They are at war with us!”

How can we be a country when those who think differently from each other want to kill each other? There has been so much violent political rhetoric over the last ten to fifteen years, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. There are those out there who are easily influenced. When your political opponent is described, not simply as a political opponent, but as “scum,” “vermin,” “animals,” “weird and creepy,” “Hitler,” and “fascist” then that raises the temperature of any political debate. “These people aren’t mere political opponents, they’re vermin. What do we do with vermin? We eradicate them.” Or, “This man isn’t simply a Republican, he’s a fascist. What do we do with fascists? We remove them from office any way we can and, if necessary, we assassinate them.” When you are convinced that the guy or gal on the other side of the aisle is an existential threat to democracy, to your way of life, to the very foundation of the nation, then it can be easy to justify violence against them, especially if you’re already leaning a bit toward extremism.

Is it possible that the man who murdered Melissa Hortman has convinced himself that he’s saved his state of Michigan from a horrible future? Is it possible that the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, or arranged for his assassination, regards himself an American patriot and hero? Not only is it possible, I would say it’s nearly certain. You have to believe that your actions will make a big difference in order to go to the extreme of assassination. You have to believe that you know more than the will of the people. The people have elected this person to political office, but you know better. You know who they really are, because all of the people on your side of the political aisle have told you so. And only you have the courage to do something about it. It depends on you. Only you. And the millions will cheer you when you act.

This was the thinking of John Wilkes Booth when he planned and carried out the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He thought the South would be inspired to rise up again. He thought he would be declared a hero throughout the South. The opposite happened, and Booth couldn’t believe it when he read the papers while on the lam in northern Virginia. Finally, when he was shot by federal troops, with his dying words he declared how useless his act was.

Where will we go from here? The greatest country in the world is suffering a string of political violence by extremists who seem to believe that their acting against this particular person will change the direction of the country. In this one case, I hope the assailant is right: I hope the person who murdered Charlie Kirk will change the direction of the country from one that is polarized, disheartened, and myopic to one where the different political positions, and there are far more than just two, are willing to respect each other and commit themselves to truly listening to each other. Our country is filled with far more people with hearts of tenderness and openness to others than it is filled with crackpots who think they can change the world with a bullet. We need to create an environment where those people rise to the top and demand a peaceful, gallant, and generous political theater. Will that happen? Honestly, I doubt it. But I am still committed to doing my part.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.