Had you heard of Charlie Kirk before yesterday?

[Havetoagree]

Just that really? I hadn’t and wondering if I’m the only one. And why is it such a big story? I guess the association with trump. What would be the equivalent level of fame over here?

Obviously neither he nor his wife married their college sweetheart.

Sometimes the general good advice doesn’t work for you personally. I didn’t marry my college boyfriend. He’s a nice guy but I had other plans.

College is not the last chance saloon—it’s just your optimal chance to meet a good guy to partner up with.

These types of people are definitely not better than he was, and I disagreed with nearly everything he said.

I say nearly everything because I watched him say that it was vital that we all continued to talk to each other, disagreement or not, because bad things happen when people stop talking and violence is never the answer.

So anyone crowing over his death, is demonstrably more evil than he was.

Not that those thick enough to be doing so would ever be able to see themselves as 'the baddies'.

Or see the future they are ushering in.

When you cheer on the dismantling of democracy, mob rule takes over. I think the Internet has given many people the impression that their 'mob' is far larger than it actually is, so they mistakenly believe that their side will 'win'. When every single person will lose.

I think part of the issue is that, unlike Andrew Tate, most posters (myself included) had never heard of this bloke until 2 days ago.

Most seem to think he was vile but that murder is never justified.

Then because he held specific views on trans issues, you get a few posters saying “Well, I agreed with him about that so…”

An even smaller number of posters have said “I agreed with him on several/many issues”. (Those usernames have been duly noted!)

I’m GC but highly sceptical of his final words which seemed to attempt to smear trans people as disproportionately responsible for gun deaths/mass killings. The attempts since to paint CK’s murder as trans motivated also sounds like complete bollox to me and I’d need to see cold, hard evidence of that, rather than the witterings of idiots like Megyn Kelly, before I believe it.

Where did he say black people were bad and stupid?

I DO think his views on them are being exaggerated.

I’m 40 and I knew of him and watched his videos etc.

You are stirring the hate pot and supporting the murder.

Hang on, the killer's bullet had trans messages written on it. That has been confirmed.

I fear you are missing the point. You are defining “what America stands for” in alignment with what you consider acceptable, without acknowledging that Charlie Kirk and others like him are actually reflecting what millions of people are thinking, as demonstrated by the election of Trump

Your view

They didn’t say he did deserve to be murdered.

Why do you feel the need to preach at people who haven’t said this?

The university is governed by Utah state gun laws, they don't get a say.

Merely suggesting that DEI hiring is suboptimal will get you accused of racism here, despite the many examples we have of this literally happening.

I’ll wait til I see that admitted as evidence in a court of law. The attempts to stoke hatred against certain groups (eg, Democrats) since his death have been chilling.

I and most people on here began yesterday with, "I dont agree with much of what he said but am saddened by this."
That kind of sentiment would have been the end of it, except for those who needed to stick the boot in, and trot out all the anti Kirk talking points, many of which it turns out are exaggerations or half truths.

Hadn't heard of him. Have read a bit since and apparently he said that a certain number of shooting deaths a year was the price to pay for their precious second amendment......

I'm 43 and yes had seen Charlie Kirk before and weirdly had been talking about him in the car on the way home that evening he was murdered. (Discussing his content and that of Dean Withers who I do enjoy).

I disagreed with what he put out there and what he seemed to believe in, but he did not deserve to die in such a way. His children were watching and they will never recover from that trauma as well.

I also think that when your answer to disagreeing with someone is murder, you lose any high ground you thought you had. It's just awful.

No need to feel sorry for him or his either. He rejected empathy as a new-fangled and damaging woke concept.

I think people are missing this. He said some deaths are worth it, for their right to bear arms. Including school shootings. So it stands to reason that he’d believe his own death to be ‘worth it’.

That's unfair. He didn't like empathy but he did say he liked sympathy, he wasn't totally heartless.

His children were watching and they will never recover from that trauma as well.

His children are aged 3 and 1 and likely won’t have had the foggiest what was going on.

His wife is a different matter. I hope she and the kids weren’t anywhere near the front but in reality, I suspect they probably were.

He was behind Trumps leadership bids and especially influential with young people. He was a charismatic speaker and for that you don't have to be particularly intelligent (I mean look at Trump!). He spoke in a way that clearly reached people.

One thing he said was that people dying each year from gun crime was just the price American's had to pay for keeping their sacred second amendment, and he was willing to pay that price. I bet when he said that though, he probably never thought it would be himself paying that price. It's sad for his family, but he was delusional not having security given the sort of racist, misogynist, fascist, pro life, anti LGBTQ views he was spouting and well, US gun crime stats.

I believe he was killed with a long range assault rifle. Pretty sure any nut job can just go into a supermarket in some US states and get tooled up with one of these plus ammo without any checks. Anyone who thinks that's a good idea is nuts.

I hear in the UK now children in schools are already having to do emergency lockdown drills similar to US. Mostly because we have a similar problem with knives and illegal weapons. At least though they are not so easily obtainable otherwise our problems would be far worse!

He also made mocking jokes about Paul Pelosi when he was lying seriously injured in hospital, so in reality, he seems to have run rather low on both empathy or sympathy. At least for those he didn’t agree with.

I think that given how widley reported this is, and how available the full footage of him being shot is, that they may not have any clue now what was going on, but that as they continue to grow up without their Dad they will be super aware of what has happened and I'm sure it will be incredibly traumatic for them (as it would be for anyone who loses a parent with such brutality).

Empathy and sympathy aren’t the same thing. Empathy has nothing to do with feeling sorry for something or someone.

It's not so much directly comparing them, and more pointing out that anyyone can have one or two good points, despite overall being an unpleasant character.