Late on Wednesday evening (UK time) news broke that Charlie Kirk had been shot & killed at Utah College Campus. One of the many ironies surrounding Kirk, was that Utah has an open carry policy when it comes to firearms. Whilst details, at the time of writing, are still thin on the ground – suspects arrested and released without charge etc. The speculation is that Charlie Kirk was killed from a College building some 130m away with a single kill shot, whilst he was discussing the Trans issue & Gun control
Who was Charlie Kirk?
Kirk was a lot of things to different people, if you’re on the left of politics he’s; a misogynist, racist, neo-Nazi and white supremacist. If you’re on the right (esp in US politics) he’s; a Patriot, Christian Conservative, a deep thinker, provocateur and so on.
On Radio 4 Today programme, a US Senator Pete Sessions talked fondly of Kirk saying;
… he did not chastise people, he did not belittle people.
and going on with:
He thought about how we want our country to be and let’s go and get it together..
Now, the fundamental problem with Sen Pete Sessions (a proven corrupt politician) trying to canonise Kirk is that he’s clearly looking at what he said with rose tint glasses. So here’s a list of some of Charlie Kirk’s view points:
- On the day of a school shooting, Kirk said that “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…That is a prudent deal“
- On civil rights, which gave Black Americans parity with their which counter-parts (previously the US constitution valued a Black person as only worth three fifths of a White one), he said: ” We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s “
- At the height of Covid, Kirk called the virus the “China virus“, and advocated that his followers take hydroxychloroquine which was “100% effective” in treating the virus. He was banned from Twitter for this statement. Ironically, his co-founder of Turning Point died of Covid.
- Kirk said during a 2024 podcast with a fellow Right wing commentator “I’m sorry. If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified,’“
- In a February 2024 Instagram post, he also referred to the “great replacement“, a widely debunked conspiracy theory that claims undocumented immigrants are entering the United States to replace white Americans.
- September 9th Kirk posted on Twitter: “We have been propagandized by liars and fakers in the media to believe that America is a vicious, racist country and indiscriminate attacks on black people by whites happen all the time.”
- His choice of words weren’t calculated, he has essentially parroted Elon Musk when he was on Joe Rogan’s podcast: “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made up new age term that does a lot of damage.“
- He has encouraged traditional gender roles, praising the values of “marriage and motherhood” for young women, actually saying they should go to college to find a husband (not to further their education)
- In September 2024, Kirk was among the first to share allegations that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs in Ohio. Something later to be proven to be a lie.
Then there’s this absolute graphic encounter regarding a scenario involving a 10yo rape victim:
Charlie Kirk on Gun Control
Charlie Kirk’s stance on gun control though is the easiest to refute. Kirk claims that:
“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…That is a prudent deal“
He then went on to compare deaths in the US by car as his justification for it, his false equivalence was:
‘We have 50,000 deaths by car every year, we don’t want to ban them because of the speed, transportation’ etc.
First up, gun deaths exceed car deaths in the US. According to the CDC (who have yet to release 2024 data) in 2023 there were 46,728 deaths caused by a firearm, by comparison there were 39,345 fatalities related to cars – according to the NHTSA. So already Kirk is on shaky ground.
Then there’s mass shootings, as this site is based outside of the US, this isn’t something we really think about. We drop our kids off at school and know that the only 9mm they’ll encounter is when they are measuring something as small as a MAGA’s intellect. However, in the US, it’s a different story: 488 mass shootings in 2024 – that’s more than double of all the other countries combined.
By Charlie’s logic Trump should legalise Heroin because there were 3,984 deaths (according to the CDC in 2023) in the US.
The 2nd Amendment was brought it to protect the citizenry from an over zealous tyrannical government, in a time when firing and reloading a musket would take 20secs – so 3 rounds per minute if lucky. The modern AR15 can fire 45 rounds per minute, and if modified, 400 rounds per minute. But what makes the situation with Republicans and the 2nd Amendment even more laughable was January 6th.
January 6th
Charlie Kirk like many of his ilk repeated the claim that the election was stolen from Trump, it wasn’t and there’s no evidence to say that it was.
Then came the insurrection on January 6th, instigated by Trump and cheered on by the likes of Kirk. The baying mob of Proud Boys and other right wing fanatics descended on the Capitol Building in the belief they had been wronged. Is this not the moment the 2nd Amendment was designed for? That the tyrannical government had stolen the election and ignoring the democratic voice of the people?
Surely these Patriots should be exercising their ‘God given rights‘ ,as Kirk likes to call them, (Spoiler: They aren’t, they were drawn up by a bunch of white dudes whilst amending the constitution to make it work able) and show up with their military grade assault weaponry and seize power back for the people. Except that didn’t really happen, CBS did an investigation, and only a handful of people turned up with firearms – contrary to what Trump claimed – Clown von Fuckface claimed that there were no guns at the Capitol in January 6th.
The Right wing reality of Charlie Kirk
The reality of politics to day is, whilst Kirk’s death maybe tragic to some & celebrated by others, it changes very little in the American political landscape. There will be another grifter along shortly with a more outrageous narrative who will appeal to a section of society that feels that they aren’t being listened to, and they want to ‘stick it to the man’ – rinse and repeat.
