World Suicide Prevention Day was on September 10th, just four days ago, and one day before the 24th Anniversary of 9/11. Both days are recognized by thousands, as days they will never forget, because their loved ones were taken well before their time – whether by demons of their own or another kind of evil.
According to a report by Johns Hopkins, Bloomsburg School of Public Health, 46,728 people died by gun violence in 2023, or one person every 11 minutes. Of those, 27,300 people died by suicide and a gun was their weapon of choice.
September 10, 2025 was also the day that another senseless act with a gun was committed. According to a statement by the FBI, a bolt-action rifle was used to assassinate the founder of Turning Point USA, son, husband, father, and political activist, Charlie Kirk. The rifle was found in a wooded area not far from Utah Valley University event held in Orem, Utah, the kind of rifle that sharpshooters and hunters use to kill their prey.
But Charlie Kirk was not prey in a forest. He was a person who, at the age of 31, was killed, in daylight, on display, for the world to see. And once you see it, you cannot unsee it. In a report by The Salt Lake City Tribune, there is a statement made by a Utah Valley University (UVU) spokesperson which implied that Charlie Kirk wanted to be out in the open, and thus, in that request, the university in some ways seems to blame him for his own murder. No matter where he was, inside or outside, it seems that the alleged shooter would have hunted him down anyway.
In the same article, titled, Charlie Kirk wanted an outdoor, ‘central’ spot at Utah Valley University, where police chief admits ‘we didn’t’ cover bases, various sources seem to pass the blame from statements like “his 2019 event was ticketed and handled by his own security team” and “the event on Wednesday drew approximately 3,000 people and wasn’t ticketed.” Whatever the details were, or which security team was or was not responsible, or how or why Charlie Kirk was where he was, the fact is, a man died.
Kirk’s words were divisive and in an article, published by The Guardian titled, How Charlie Kirk turned campuses into cultural battlefields – and ushered in Trump’s assault on universities, Wednesday’s assassination seemed to be just that – a battle in action (being that a gun was used) and in words (internet commentary spewing hate in response to his murder).
There is much to be unpacked and inspected from this grave act of violence. In a sermon delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1961 at the Council of Churches’ Lenten Services in Detroit, Michigan, he said, “Hate begets hate. Force begets force. Violence begets violence. Toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral ending in destruction for everybody.” In the days since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, there is a palpable feeling that we are a nation spiraling toward destruction.
The metrics listed on Turning Point USA’s website lead one to believe that Kirk had the ear of thousands of college students across the United States, whom we can assume both believed in and followed his rhetoric, words that can be heard in his recorded debates and podcast conversations that both provoked conversation and incited fear.
What we know to be true about Charlie Kirk and Tyler Robinson, the man who confessed to assassinating Kirk, is that they both are being remembered. While some will celebrate the loss, others will mourn it, but none will forget who each of them were and what they stood for. Will the details of this political assassination make history books?
Writer and former Marine, Miguel Castillo, Jr., shares in an article, “As a Marine, as a fighter, you respect skill, even when it’s wielded against you. He [Charlie Kirk] could be infuriating. But he could also be sharp. The combination made him impossible to ignore. And that was the whole point.”
Well written!