Shots and prayers

Since 2001, today has been a day of remembrance and mourning reserved for the anniversary of 9/11 when we lost nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest terrorist attacks in human history. Now 24 years later, it is also a day for reflection on who we have become as a nation. For me, yesterday was just another Wednesday. Or so I thought. Rebecca had gone on a solo Costco run, and I brought up some autumn stuff from the orange and black plastic bins to add fall decor to the house. A smallish gnome wizard and a white-bearded gnome holding a pumpkin. My vintage Halloween Peanuts tree that won’t light. A ceramic pumpkin soup tureen and a couple of Pewabic tile paperweights: a brown acorn and another with the words “new leaf.” It was probably Sunday’s half-gallon of fresh cider-mill cider that put me in such a festive fall mood. Or maybe those warm sugar-cinnamon donuts.

Either way, my midafternoon bliss was interrupted by unexpected sadness. Another shooting on a college campus. But this time the victim wasn’t a student or professor.

It was Charlie Kirk. Conservative political activist Charlie Kirk.

I won’t rehash the details of this unspeakable horror. Acts of political violence have become so commonplace in the American fabric of life. More shots and prayers. Until the next time.

There is no room for violence and hate in a healthy democracy. My logical conclusion is that none of this is healthy. And we’re already hearing calls for retribution, not calm or justice. It’s reprehensible.

Aside from the brutality of a cold-blooded murder in broad daylight witnessed by nearly 3,000 people, my mind keeps returning to the final questions posed to Kirk by an audience member at the Utah Valley University event, the first stop of his “American Comeback Tour.”

I’m still not sure if it was a student doing the asking.

Man: “So, do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?”

Kirk: “Too many.”

Man: “There have been five. Five is a lot, right? I’m gonna give you some credit.”

The man continued: “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”

Kirk: “Counting or not counting gang violence?”

Then, bang. One shot. Blood gushed from Kirk’s neck seeping into his white T-shirt with the word “Freedom” printed on the front. Horrific.

“Counting or not counting gang violence?”

Those were likely the last six words uttered by this 31-year-old husband and father of two young children. Downed by a single shot fired at 12:20 p.m. (MST) from a rooftop sniper about 200 yards away. A few hours later, we would learn that Kirk had died at the hospital. As of this writing, the shooter still hasn’t been caught.

A conservative political activist.

In 2012 at age 18, Kirk dropped out of college and co-founded the right-wing youth activist organization Turning Point USA, which aimed to spread conservative ideals to Gen Zers enrolled at liberal-leaning U.S. colleges. The nonprofit group has chapters at more than 850 colleges.

Kirk’s social media platforms and three-hour daily podcast often featured clips of him debating students about issues such as gender identity, immigration, climate change and family values. It was these same positions that made him a hero to many conservative Christians.

Today I read that he was being called a martyr and compared to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

At a speaking event four years ago, an audience member asked Kirk about when it would be justified to kill political opponents. Thankfully, Kirk shut him down by saying, “We must exhaust every peaceful means possible.”

Kirk made a career out of the age-old idea of exercising free speech on college campuses. Exactly when did that practice go out of style? I clearly remember political debates being a part of my college experience at a then-smallish liberal arts college in Michigan called Oakland University.

Again, that was in the early-1980s, some 40-plus years ago.

“Prove me wrong” was Kirk’s standard line to opponents in his latest appearances at college campuses, where he invited attendees of different political persuasions to debate with him.

Sadly, Kirk did most of this in a way that was often harsh to those who disagreed with him, using insulting, cringe-worthy and sometimes dehumanizing language to describe his foes. (If you don’t believe me, check out any YouTube video featuring Kirk answering a question from a gay student.)

We shouldn’t ignore that. We can’t.

And we cannot ignore these actions confirming his core beliefs regarding certain Americans: 

• He spent much of his adult life defending and articulating a worldview aligned with the MAGA political movement, not shying away from bigotry, intolerance, exclusion and stereotyping. With that, he had become the defining voice of the movement’s next generation.
• In May 2025 on a visit to the United Kingdom, he said it was a “huge mistake” to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.
• Over the course of his career, he told LGBTQ+ college students that he did not agree with their “lifestyle,” and that same-sex relationships were “destructive.” In September 2024, invoking an oft-quoted biblical verse from the Book of Leviticus that prescribes the death penalty for gays, he called it “God’s perfect law.”
• In October 2023, after Hamas attacked Israel, he blamed “Jewish dollars” on funding Marxist ideas in education and ruining American culture.
• He believed in the debunked Great Replacement Theory that Jews and Western elites are conspiring to “replace” white Americans and Europeans with nonwhite immigrants.
• Also in 2023, he said the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms) was “prudent,” “rational” and worth the cost of “some gun deaths every single year.”

However you may feel about his beliefs, there’s something else you should know about Charlie Kirk: He encouraged and welcomed debate with detractors (e.g., liberal Democrats). A good thing in these uncertain times, I suppose.

Yet his arguments were not beyond reproach.

He regularly amplified his so-called wins.

“We own the libs,” he’d post on social media afterward to gin up his 18 million followers on TikTok and YouTube about a victory. And to piss off those of us on the left.

It worked like a charm. Or did it?

Was this tragedy an assassination of a political activist? Yes. And no.

Yes, because after all, he was a conservative political activist. A man in the prime of his life murdered in cold blood on a college campus for some inexplicable reason of which we’re not yet certain. 

And no, because in my mind, a true political activist who wishes to unite all of us — whether liberal, conservative or somewhere in between — doesn’t spread hate toward other Americans in order to divide us. Period.

RIP, Charlie Kirk. As those of the Jewish faith say in this time of sorrow, “May his memory be a blessing.”

If you’re not familiar with those words, it’s a traditional condolence meant to convey honor, respect and a desire for the deceased’s legacy to bring comfort and inspiration to the living once they’re gone.

At a speaking event four years ago, an audience member asked Kirk about when it would be justified to kill political opponents. Thankfully, Kirk shut him down by saying, “We must exhaust every peaceful means possible.”

Prove me wrong, Charlie.

(YOUTUBE MUSIC VIDEO: The Piano Guys have always inspired me and left me in a better place after listening to one of their songs. Here is one in particular: “Fight Song/Amazing Grace” from 2016 with its beautiful combination of piano and cello, along with the soothing sound of Scottish bagpipes. The Piano Guys were inspired by the message of “Fight Song,” originally sung by Rachel Platten. “In a world where we too often focus on our differences, perhaps we should realize that we have at least one thing in common: We all struggle.” And we could certainly give each other a bit more grace.)