Charlie Kirk assassin was living with trans roommate

The judge, announcing the next hearing

Judge: Mr Robinson, I invite you to join us

Utahns are famously polite, but that's going the extra mile.

JUDGE: Thank you for being here, Mr Robinson.

Lolol. Like he had a choice.

It's starting the noo.

It was his grandfather’s old gun and had been gifted to him.

Well I suppose there's political and there's political.

There's an old time American socialist called Barry Sheppard - I think he's still alive, though he must be pretty ancient - who wrote a memoir of his activism in the 60s. As he tells it, he was working late at the party office one night in November 1963, putting the paper to bed, when the news came over the radio that President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas.

Barry swears the first words out of his mouth were "I hope it wasn't that gun nut in New Orleans who tried to join the party." Guess what...

Oswald having been a communist seems to have been almost completely memory holed, though he was a very eccentric sort of communist, and when he tried to defect to the Soviet Union it didn't take them much time to realise he was a bit of a weirdo and quickly wash their hands of him.

In this day and age, especially with gamers, it's probably a fool's errand trying to find a formal group with a consistent ideology. But if he was in American leftist or trans online communities, even as a lurker, there's constant violent rhetoric and assassination talk in those places. Some of those online communities are very big. It only takes one person to take the talk seriously.

But then, it wasn’t his gun, it was his grandfather’s.

? Killed for lols?

Even if you take this text message exchange at face value it's all about how he can't live with CK's "hatred", the bullet messages may have been memes but the killing itself wasn't...

I disagree. It doesn't have to be complex to be political. From the text exchange:

Robinson: Why did I do it?

Roommate: Yeah

Robinson: I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out.

His motive was in support of LGBT rights, effectively. Kirk was opposed to gay marriage and trans and had considerable influence over the younger USA generation.

This is (eventually) going to be a very weird trial, unless he is persuaded to plead guilty (and potentially avoid death penalty/swerve making a public tit of himself).

He definitely seems to be demonstrating how impulse control and forward thinking are the parts of the brain that take the longest to reach maturity.

Not that that’s an excuse for murder (but it might be a reason to raise the age of gun ownership).

There's some talk about what was on his discord from a friend who was apparently in a chat with him.

It makes only a couple of references to politics and isn't political and seems to suggest the killer wasn't really that political at all in the past.

And yes his own 'text confession' isn't exactly a manifesto is it? He was thinking more about how memes would go down on Fox!!!

This is less political than people want to believe however you cut it.

Well, I wouldn't assume that a strongly GC person would murder a transwoman, but if so you could equally say they were starting from a different position than most people.

I think his parents certainly thought he was capable of it for some reason. (Fuck knows why he was given a gun in those circumstances)

MAGA world will absolutely not have this. They just won't be able to accept that Kirk appears to have been killed for LOLs and for Robinson to wow his mates on Discord. This will be just too arbitrary for them, in addition to being of little political value.

Definitely, but I think to some extent the boyfriend is being portrayed as some totally innocent, poor shocked lover who is appalled at this shocking turn of events - someone akin to his poor mother, finding out in the worst possible way that someone you loved turned out to be a killer...

If you were already hanging out carving bullets I can see how you might be shocked that he actually went through with it, but you're in a bit of a different starting position I think.

Law & Crime Network are live streaming Robinson’s first court appearance on this link - not sure when it’s expected to start.

Edited to add: as far as I can tell he’s due in court at 10pm our time (BST).

Indeed. I'm sure he'll get plenty of attention from other men though as is the way in Class A penitentiaries.

Wouldn’t be the first ‘gifted’ child who has a cognitive deficit alongside an academic ability.

Collecting knives/engraving bullets etc certainly aren't hobbies that appeal to me but on they're own they're not really on the level of assassinations tbf.

Is this the ‘Kill them all’ girl?
FAFO indeed

Tbh I wonder if there's some cognitive issue with Robinson. He seems to have excelled enough academically at school to get a really good college scholarship, then dropped out after one semester for reasons unknown.

Those texts don't read like a bright 22 year old, they read like a not very bright 10 year old.

I feel a bit sorry for all of them really - obviously Robinson has to be held legally accountable for his terrible actions but he’s thrown his whole life away and made Charlie Kirk more famous (and potentially more popular) than ever.

What an absolute twit - seems to believe he did it for the love of his boyfriend but the boyfriend ain’t gonna be visiting him on death row for the next 30 years.

To a point.

But

"He was just engraving his bullets with Furry Memes in front of the TV" is probably not the easiest sell to the FBI who are investigating one of the USA's highest profile murders in sixty years.

Cos we are all thinking "well thats just normal isn't it?!"

God, can you imagine whats being going on in the FBI investigation room this week?!

In fairness to Lance, if Tyler is this level immature/naive, I'm not exactly expecting much more from Lance.

I definitely feel sorry for the partner. Haven't heard anything so far that would make you think he/her had a clue about what TR was going to do.

TR appears to have been so sure he was going to get away it, he never gave any thought for what life would be like for his loved ones and the potential for their safety to be compromised after he was caught.

You may be more up to date than me! I agree re: hard drive.

I thought he'd already shared some bullshit story about how his actions were in fact an attempt to distract the sniper from any further shooting?

His hard drive is probably another one that needs checked.