Charlie Kirk dead

[Booneymil]

The last thread was taken down because of personal insults towards the man.

We should be able to have a thread about this news topic.

Report any insulting posts. Mumsnet can you please just delete the offending posts, instead of deleting the whole thread?

Thank you.

Charlie Kirk has died today. He was shot at a public talk that he was giving.

It staggers me the amount of people who think this man was dangerous because he hosted debating events, claiming what he said was dangerous.

If all the nutters decided to have debates instead of resorting to violence the world would be a much better place.

Words are not dangerous, actions are.

On a personal level I don't mourn his death - he was a terrible person who actively wanted to restrict other peoples rights.
However, I'm finding the sharing of the shooting footage disturbing. It makes me feel uncomfortable it's being widely circulated and is available to be viewed amongst apple pie recipes and pet pictures - I don't like what this represents and he's now going to become a far-right free speech martyr, which I'm sure we all agree society doesn't need. I fear this will set a very unpleasant precedent.
It isn't about his death, but what the reaction and circulation reveal about where society is heading which is troubling for me.

I feel sad for his children, but I will not mourn the death of a man who died as a direct result of trying to spread hate. He stated very publicly that gun deaths are the acceptable price to pay to have the second amendment, and that children being shot to death at school were collateral damage to maintain the freedoms of gun ownership. He said that empathy was a woke invention and a danger to society. So I will not waste my empathy on someone who despised it, who died in a way he publicly stated he was just fine with.

Because it literally isn’t just your body, there is another body involved. That’s the burden of being a woman.

Then that body is an unwanted parasite, and the woman has the right to remove it from her person, just as she would a tapeworm, which is also 'another body'.

That’s the burden of being a woman.

It does not have to be.

But thats your opinion. I hear this all the time ‘I know the truth’ - everything else is lies and conspiracy theories’ I know the facts- I am cleverer than everyone else.

And the other side says the same thing.

I despair at people’s lack of critical thinking and laziness in debate probably the real reason they hated Charlie Kirk

He didn’t just host debating events though. And he very loudly and publicly advocated for exactly what happened to him. He said that school shootings were acceptable losses in exchange for the freedom to own guns.

That is funny, because you have displayed a lack of critical thinking on this thread. I’m not being derogatory here - you have, several times.

I can’t help thinking it’s a case of he lived by the sword, he died by the sword.

Obviously no-one should be getting shot for their views, but he was very much against gun control and didn’t mind a few people dying for the sake of the second amendment, bet he never thought it would happen to him though.

I feel bad for his family, and worried about the state of America and politics in general. It’s so divisive now. Who is going to be the next poor sod who’s shot for their views/religion/beliefs?

I would describe them as far right.
American conservative has a very wide range, which includes far right.
Saying the deaths of innocent people - school children - are worth a gun policy is harmful, especially when it endorsed by a president.

People in the UK can’t hold a cardboard sign saying they support a non-violent group trying obstructs machinery which helps a genocide.
They are carted off.

This guy could literally put together a tour to show off. That’s going to anger people. A risk he owned and sadly paid.

If you have to kill someone to win the argument you have already lost

Did he partake in violence?

He hosted debates and said things. Apparently saying things you don't agree with is justification for murder.

Well exactly as soon as you limit free speech, it’s dead. Because who has the right to define what is acceptable and what isn’t. That’s their value judgement, not mine.

Actually, I am not sure I do feel sad for his children. I feel sorry that they have experienced loss in such a brutal way, and that they had to witness such violence, but actually I feel hopeful for them that they might have the opportunity to now be raised by someone else, who might be more capable of love and tolerance and compassion.

To the sickos like @LuckyPeonies who think that being anti gun control means you deserve to be shot, then thinking it's ok to shoot someone bc of their views means it's ok to shoot you?

Presumably, he would say, if he could, that his death was a price worth paying for the right to bear arms?

After all, he was ok with children being murdered for that right

Absolutely correct.

It was his actions supporting the election and re-election of Trump as well as the founding of the MAGA movement that made him dangerous. No one should be killed for that, but let’s not pretend there aren’t people suffering because of this man.

I’m getting very, VERY tired of this “he was just a nice little debate man” narrative that’s being pushed, so I’ll probably stop reading comments here. It’s ridiculous and disingenuous. He was an experienced political showman who got what he wanted: the election and re-election of a felon rapist grifter, abortion becoming so difficult to get that 65,000 rape victims were forced to go through pregnancy, and the second amendment enshrined. No one deserves to die, but ffs, can we please stop pretending he was some poor innocent bystander. Plenty of other Americans have died because of him and all the Trump allies like him…. Like the Colorado school children who were shot just minutes after him.

If you want to be a pedant, Hitler didn’t personally kill anyone. He just said things.

Words have power, particularly when you are using them to sway the vulnerable and the gullible.

@Rewis

I disagree with everything this man represents. I wish people like him wouldnt exist, I wish they didn't have access to microphones and I wish they were not going around campuses trying to poison young minds.

From this I take it that you have never seen his "change my mind" sections.

One of the admirable things about him is that he encouraged open debate, something that many colleges and universities no longer seem to do.

You know there are millions and millions of Trump supporters. Would you be happy if they were all shot?

The media have done some job on dehumanising a certain section of the populace. If you don’t see them as human have they any right to life in your eyes?

I think posting memes and claiming to be a critical thinker without actually demonstrating any critical thought is the very definition of lazy debating!

His organisation arranged buses to DC on Jan 6th. He tweeted encouraging people to go. He deleted his tweets after the fact. I’d say that’s partaking, even indirectly.

You reap what you sow. His poor kids.

Damaging vehicles that have helped in providing aid for the people of Gaza.

Is anything known about the identity of the shooter?

There seems to be a lot of commentary about left wing and right wing, but doesn't experience show that these shootings tend to be more complicated?