Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA was making a college appearance on Wednesday when a single shot fired with murderous accuracy from a sniper’s distance signaled the country’s turn toward a new era of political violence.
In what may or may not be a coincidence, Kirk was fatally wounded in the neck at Utah Valley University (UVU) just as he answered a question about transgender mass shooters. But the killer was not some crazed maniac bent on killing as many people as possible. He also was not an amateurish mope such as the would-be assassin who unleashed a flurry of shots at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing a fire chief while grazing Trump’s ear and affording him an opportunity to create an image that reelected him.
This was a calculating killer who was given plenty of time to plan after word spread last week that Kirk would be appearing at UVU on Wednesday and then at Utah State University (USU) on September 30. The news prompted a pair of online petitions seeking to have Kirk barred from campus.
“What is going on in Utah?” Kirk asked on X.
UVU administrators responded with an official statement on September 3, as one would hope in a democracy.
“At Utah Valley University, we affirm our commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive dialogue. The university respects the rights of student clubs and organizations to invite various speakers to campus. As a public institution, UVU upholds First Amendment rights and fosters an environment where ideas — popular or controversial — can be exchanged freely, energetically, and civilly.”
The event details were posted online.
“The event is scheduled to begin at 12 p.m. Wednesday in the Fountain Courtyard, located between the Hall of Flags, Fugal Gateway and Sorensen Center buildings. “
The lone, precise shot rang out 10 minutes after the scheduled start. The hundreds who had chosen to attend suddenly scattered in a panic, but there was no more gunfire. This was not another school shooting such as those that students across the nation prepare for. This was an assassination, and along with possibly being timed to a question about transgender killers, the fatal moment of the bullet striking Kirk’s neck was captured on a perfectly centered video.
Welcome to politics by bullet, Gen Z.
This digital age horror was replayed millions of times online. It was followed by archived images of Kirk with his wife and their two young children. They will now be without a husband and father. And, whatever your beliefs, we will be in a country whose future is again darkened by a political assassination.
This one was not of the historic magnitude of the 1963 killing of President John F. Kennedy or the 1968 murders of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy And, Kirk’s killer is not likely to go alongside Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray in the roster of noted assassins, even if he was so calculating he apparently planned an escape. But the Kirk assassination was unquestionably a moment in our history.
One sign of where we may now be headed came from Fox News host Jesse Waters.
“They are at war with us!” he exclaimed on air.
Waters did not say exactly who he meant by “they.” He was apparently conflating the lone gunman with everybody on the left, the vast majority of whom eschew violence–political or otherwise–and continually clamor for gun control in the face of undefined carnage. His dehumanizing use of “they” seems a call for retaliation against much more than a bad guy with a gun.
Both sides of the political divide in the House of Representatives did join in a moment of silence for Kirk before word came that he had died. But Republican Lauren Boebert of Colorado then asked for a prayer to be spoken aloud.
“I believe silent prayers get silent results,” she said.
A squabble erupted. The New York Times reported that some Democrats noted the Republicans had said nothing about three students in Colorado who had been critically wounded in yet another school shooting that very afternoon.
Meanwhile, we have gone from school shootings to assassination, with every sign that there is more political violence to come. And the question for all of us was what’s going on in America?
The post Opinion: An Assassin’s Bullet Rips Through the Fabric of America’s Story—Again appeared first on The Daily Beast.
