Charlie Kirk shot during a debate about trans people

[feministmom4ever]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15086277/Charlie-Kirks-final-words-assassinated-Utah-dead.html

I didn’t agree with many of his political views, but I liked how he interacted with college students who couldn’t answer the question “what is a woman?”.

I think a lot of people have forgotten that Charlie Kirk's primary mission was to model polite and civil debate and give young people an opportunity to participate in it. He used the socratic method to teach teenagers how to think critically, but also how to behave when confronted with opinions they disagree with. That has never been more important. I don't think anyone needs to caveat their sadness at his murder by telling us whether they agreed or disagreed with his opinions. Agreement or not wasn't the point. Courteous engagement was.

I'm pointing out I disagreed with his opinions, not to make myself look better, but to point out the regardless of my opinion of him, it is abhorrent.

When, as a society, did we move away from "I disagree with what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it" to "words are violence"?

I had never heard of Charlie Kirk before this morning but I have to say, 'Prove me wrong' sounds like an unusual slogan for a bigot.

My condolences to his family.

I think I'll leave it at that for today.

I don't think he was a great loss but equally I don't celebrate his death and would not have wished him ill. The murder was a heinous crime regardless of how abhorrent you do or don't find the victim.

Well, quite.

Just had a phone chat with my young adult son about it who was keen to stress that Kirk was ‘not a good person’ and also that he didn’t do particularly well when he brought his campus debates to the UK - to which I pointed out that the arena for defeating bad ideas IS the debate space and what happened to Kirk yesterday is not very different to what happened to Salman Rushdie (to whom we have a bit of a family connection) and that neither man deserved physical violence as a response to their opinions, ideas and words, no matter how egregious those ideas are to their opponents, to which thankfully my son agreed.

Nonetheless I am concerned at how social media seems to be normalising violence (or at the very least, normalising gleefulness in the violence of others) as a reaction to differences of political opinion (because not everyone is going to have a sensible parent to talk them back down).

I feel so astounded and depressed at humanity right now. People celebrating the death of someone because he didn't hold the same political beliefs as them, people saying "live by the sword die by the sword"etc. Then there's the vitriol thrown at people like JK Rowling for standing up for women, the protests and hate towards immigrants, the "them versus us" attitude of UK politics.

I've come off Facebook, Instagram and twitter because I've just lost faith in humanity, it's too depressing. Seeing so many people blaming the left for Charlie Kirk's murder, when the truth is we don't know much information about who did it and why, just straight away moving to blaming and attacking each other. It feels like it's a ticking time bomb about to go off.

Why haven’t you created one?

No one should be assassinated for their political beliefs.

Anyone who believes that this is OK whatever side of the political divide needs to give their head a massive wobble.

Shooting anyone for any reason is awful. I don’t believe in his stance on guns but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a right to talk
about them .

However, this is an irony in that he had no problem with other people being killed with guns rather than banning them.

It is a catch phrase designed to engage young people. It is intended as an invitation to say that he is open to debating with anyone.

Political rhetoric in the USA is awful

Does the Colorado school have political ramifications for the UK and echo political issues in the UK? Does it have significant implications for the direction and stability of the entire USA?

It's tragic and awful, but Kirk's death matters in a way that has far greater implications than a school shooting regardless of how you want to frame others of 'not caring'.

Please don't try to draw false equivalence. Anyone with half an ounce of political understanding knows why one is getting more attention on MN than the other. Suggesting otherwise is just dishonesty.

He said that the passing of the civil rights act was a mistake.

He subscribed to the “great replacement theory”

He accused a Supreme Court judge of only being appointed because she was a black woman.

He said he would automatically question the credentials of a black pilot.

You may, of course, still not feel that this is enough evidence that he was a racist 🤷‍♀️

Political violence is abhorrent but this is the USA I guess. He was pretty much a vile racist, homophobic, misogynistic person. Thought keeping guns was worth losing people to gun crime, and raped girls should be forced to give birth. I feel sorry for his poor children, but it's a very dark karma taking place here.

I keep reading this, it’s like a copy and paste meme.

The only death in yesterdays school shooting was the shooter, who successfully took their own life.

The other two students shot are thankfully still
alive.

https://coloradosun.com/2025/09/11/everygreen-high-school-shooting-teen-critical-condition/

Perhaps do a bit of fact checking before blindly repeating lies you read on social media?

It feels like it's a ticking time bomb about to go off.

Nail being hit on head.

no, it’s completely transparent the smug gesturing to the “irony” of his brutal murder which is, as I said, a projection on your part. He believed there would have to be collateral damage because guns would inevitably be misused. He personally felt that the second amendment was extremely important to America. You are assuming he wasn’t prepared to die for this strongly held principle. It’s likely he considered that it was at least a possibility that he would.

I am a European woman who is anti violence in all circumstances and completely against guns. It’s not me who is polarising this issue, it’s the unhelpful them and us gloating and lack of human decency about the violent death by murder of a young man with a young family by people on the left. It’s inhuman. You think you’re better than men like Kirk. Try to be worthy of taking the moral high ground. Otherwise you don’t occupy it.

He said black women like Michelle Obama and other successful black women lack brain processing power and steal “white peoples slots” He implied he didn’t trust black pilots. He was anti the Civil rights act and hated Martin Luther King. It isn’t on me to convince you he was racist though. I don’t care what you think.

And still with the "murder is wrong, but he has these opinions" justifications.

Anyone with half a brain can see that argument being used by the other side, and that is why is a very obvious that killing someone because of their opinions is never justified.

‘Trans messages’ on ammo come amid fears over transgender mass shootings
The pro-trans, pro-antifa messages reportedly written on ammunition used to kill Charlie Kirk come amid a heated debate about an apparent rise in transgender violence.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/09/10/charlie-kirk-shots-fired-latest/

So you think he was racist because Google says so?

This is a UK forum and I think a lot of people here can't really engage with the US on shootings whilst the US doesn't acknowledge that widespread gun ownership is problematic.

Much of the time there's very little to say. US seems like yet another fucked up place.

Personally I question whether the motives of any murderers ought to be given quite so much media attention. But I guess when motives are shown to be linked to extremist ideology there is a wider public interest because the nature of extremist ideology is to recruit.

Probably because the only person to have died was the 16 year-old male who did the shooting and he shot himself. Two students were wounded, of whom one is still in hospital in critical condition. Very sad, but not the stuff of international news.

https://www.cpr.org/2025/09/10/evergreen-high-school-shooting/

Again, people plopping on to Have Their Say and repeat the same unoriginal, dull talking points they got from some unoriginal commentator on social media. It’s not helping anyone that this issue can be painted that people on the left don’t give a fuck about the violent murder of people they don’t like and continue to act superior and gloat about it. And it won’t help when the people on the right take their “revenge” as they may do. Have some personal responsibility fgs.

I heard a news report on BBC radio 4 late this afternoon saying they had found the gun abandoned in woodland and that it was engraved with trans ‘messages’. The report also said that they had information leading them to believe the shooter was of college age.