Looks like there was a good guy with a gun after all

[Scooter]

Conservative U.S. commentator and Trump ally Charlie Kirk shot at university event

U.S. right-wing activist and commentator Charlie Kirk was shot on Wednesday at an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, and a suspect was in custody.

Kirk, 31, is an influential ally of President Donald Trump and co-founder of Turning Point USA, the largest conservative youth organization in the country.

He was taken to a hospital, Fox News reported.

A spokesperson told NBC News that Kirk was giving a presentation when shots were fired and "to the best of our knowledge he was hit and taken with his security team away from the premises."

Video of the incident circulating on social media showed Kirk addressing a large outdoor crowd when a loud crack that sounded like a gunshot rang out. Kirk can be seen briefly moving his hand to his neck as he falls off his chair, sending the attendees running.

"A shot was fired from a nearby building and we have a suspect in custody," a university spokesperson told Reuters in an email.

Local TV station KSL-TV aired video of an older man wearing a blue shirt being led away by police following the attack.

"We are closely monitoring reports of the tragic shooting involving Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University," FBI Director Kash Patel said on X. "Our thoughts are with Charlie, his loved ones, and everyone affected."

Kirk, an activist and the founder of conservative student group Turning Point USA, played a key role in driving youth support for Trump last November. His events at college campuses nationwide typically draw large crowds.

Kirk has been an effective voice for the conservative movement. He has 5.2 million followers on X and hosts a popular podcast and radio program, The Charlie Kirk Show. He has also recently co-hosted Fox & Friends on Fox News.

U.S. President Donald Trump called for prayers.

"We must all pray for Charlie Kirk, who has been shot. A great guy from top to bottom," Trump posted on Truth Social.

Both Republican and Democratic politicians expressed support for Kirk following the shooting.

"Political violence is NEVER acceptable," Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, said on X. "My thoughts and prayers are with Charlie Kirk and his family."

Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre also responded on social media, writing on X, "We must all strongly denounce the shooting of Charlie Kirk. Political violence is NEVER justified."

[BoSoxGal]

"I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights" - Charlie Kirk, 2023

[Crackpot]

I just worry about the consequences

[MajGenl.Meade]

It's the road the USA has chosen to take. It's a race between gun violence on a mass scale and simply pricing ourselves out of life. Food, fuel, medical, etc. getting closer to the point where we simply cannot afford to buy stuff. Decline and fall?

But on the pessimistic side of things . . .

[BoSoxGal]

I just saw a video of the shooting online - ugh. I won't share it here, but I'll suffice to say it will be some kind of miracle if he survives - shot to the neck and blood pouring out of him like a fire hose.

But I might add - it was one shot and he'll be able to look like himself in the coffin, unlike those poor babies at Sandy Hook and Uvalde who were shredded beyond recognition by assault weapon fire. Hey hey hey, it's the price of 2A!

[BoSoxGal]

He's dead.

RIP, Charlie

[Joe Guy]

I have disliked Charlie Kirk ever since I first saw him speak. This morning after checking in here at Plan B I went on to TwitterX and was directed to a video of Kirk rambling on about how Black on White crime occurs much more often then White on Black and how the liberal media always portrays black people as victims.

I thought to myself that he should be a little more careful about what he says because there are dangerous people out there.

I then clicked on Yahoo News and saw that he had been shot.

He has two surviving children.

I'm afraid this tragic killing might lead to more violence. Some crazed MAGA person might now go out and shoot a democrat.

I hope I'm wrong.

[Burning Petard]

Kirk was not the victim of a deranged shooter. Our beloved leader who knows more than anyone, has declared Kirk was loved by all. There for there was no shooter. It must have been that marvelous gun that manages to fire without the direction of a human being who is responsible. Hey may be it was AI? Our Glorious Leader has said some nice things about AI, so perhaps AI is included in loved by all.

snailgate.

[BoSoxGal]

Of course it's going to lead to more violence.

It's noteworthy that news reports I'm listening to are indicating they did NOT take the shooter into custody. So a very good marksman who just killed Kirk with one shot to the neck from 200 yards is on the loose, presumably.

And yes some part of me is very suspicious. Reichstag fire, anyone?

[Crackpot]

He needed something to distract from the Epstein files

[Joe Guy]

Trump is blaming Kirk's death on "radical left political violence" and he has vowed to put an end to it.

Way to go, Donald. You really know how to de-escalate a situation. Assigning blame and getting your MAGA-minions riled is how you choose to lead our nation in a time of crisis.

[BoSoxGal]

[Sue U]

Charlie Kirk's death is of course A TragedyTM, but it's a price we must pay to maintain the sanctity of the Second Amendment. He would have wanted it that way.

[Big RR]

Sad to say, Sue, I have to agree.

[MajGenl.Meade]

"He blamed the media and the political left for the violence . . .It's long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible," said the Kettle.

[BoSoxGal]

I posted this, in response to his screen captures of Facebook profiles (not me) laughing at posts about Kirk's prior stance on gun violence as the price of 2A preservation:

Karla Mae Bosse
Kyle Carpenter It's unfortunate when somebody lives in such a way that people read their obituary with pleasure - that's a reference to Twain or Darrow, depending on which attribution you believe. Senator Mike Lee (R, Utah) made jokes about the assassination of Melissa Hortman and her husband and the attempted assassination of her MN legislative colleague and his wife. Every day that I'm on social media I see MAGAts death wishing liberals, cheering 'libruhl tears,' and there has been much mocking of Nancy Pelosi's husband's near death from horrific assault and also mockery of the victims of Jan. 6 etc. MAGAt anti-vaxxers by the dozens wished me death just a week ago because I posted on a public page thanking my governor for making the covid vaccine available to me, a very high risk person who lives and works with even higher risk people. You people have ZERO standing to cast judgments in this regard, sorry not sorry. (Also laughing at irony is not equivalent to cheering in my book, the emoji options being limited on social media.)

He posted this:

Kyle Carpenter
Karla Mae Bosse the only irony here is that Charlie Kirk has been proven unquestionably right
And make no mistake the voice that replaces Charlie Kirk’s isn’t going to be interested in debating.
The voice thing is Charlie Kirk rightfully will be pointing out that people like you are incompatible with American society

Looks like I'll be on the transport train to . . .

He's in the military, by the way. I'm sure there are tens of thousands just like him.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I think Charlie Kirk was a POS but that is not the same as wanting him dead. Maybe Putin is up there in the rarefied ranks of people I would like to see dead - there might be 5 or 20 in the world but Kirk is and always was a long long way from that list.

In a piece written by Bess Levin in Vanity Fair and published September 9th - two days ago - we had:

. . . allies of the president have spent the last 24 hours arguing that the letter [the famous outline drawing of a woman], which appears to bear Trump’s signature, exonerates him. “Does the below from the WSJ look like this actual signature from the President? I don't think so at all. Fake,” right-wing activist Charlie Kirk wrote on X.

Sorry Charlie - no-one deserves to die for being wrong. You did have a way of being spectacularly wrong. There are plenty of examples of Trump's signature (as Donald) which look just like the one in the drawing.

[Sue U]

Sorry Charlie - no-one deserves to die for being wrong. You did have a way of being spectacularly wrong.

Charlie Kirk was not just wrong. He was not just some guy who I disagreed with. He was a rage-baiting advocate for racism, antisemitism, misogyny, bigotry, anti-intellectualism, violence and fascism. He was a shit-stirrer with a large platform who deliberately chose a career in stoking hatred and divisiveness. Robyn Pennacchia has his number, and that of the hand-wringing punditocracy (yeah, fuck you, Ezra Klein) bemoaning the incivility that has lead to our murderous politics:

Conservatives Want To Be Middle-School Bullies And Have Us Kiss Their Asses Back
But that only really works in middle school.

Robyn Pennacchia
Sep 11, 2025

When I was in middle school (and most of elementary school), there was one sure way to know one was at the top of the popularity food chain — and that was the ability to bully people without the social consequence of people not wanting to be around you. If you could say horrible things to people and have them still be desperate to be your friend, you’d know you had a certain amount of social power.

Things aren’t really like that anymore — in adult life or, I think, even in middle schools. But there are still people who crave that power. They are called “Republicans.”

Donald Trump, in his capacity as President of the United States, said this about Charlie Kirk last night:

“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.

“My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law-enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.”

It’s an absolutely horrific statement, tantamount to declaring war on half of the country. If you want to talk about dangerous rhetoric, it’s a hell of a lot more dangerous than calling Charlie Kirk a Nazi or a fascist or a bigot or any other entirely accurate descriptor. Given that people on the Right are out here calling for a civil war now, it’s the kind of rhetoric that could get people killed.

When Trump and other Republicans talk about our rhetoric, they are talking about our responses to actual things that Kirk said and others say and do. Things that are nearly always incredibly insulting to one group or another. If they didn’t say insulting things, if they didn’t call for the oppression of various groups, they would not be called bigots or racists or misogynists or what have you.

More specifically, no one would call Kirk a Nazi if he hadn’t been out here saying Nazi shit.

“Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them,” he once said. “The philosophical foundation of anti-whiteness has been largely financed by Jewish donors in the country.”

He also once claimed that Jewish people control everything, specifying that it’s “not just the colleges; it’s the nonprofits, it’s the movies, it’s Hollywood, it’s all of it.”

That, to be clear, is some Nazi shit. That is not “Oh gosh, we have a difference of opinion on what color the drapes ought to be!” or “We support different sports teams.” That is Nazi shit. In fact, it was such obvious Nazi shit, that even Republicans acknowledged it was Nazi shit.

If Charlie Kirk remains the head of TPUSA, the right has an anti-Semite problem that will follow them into the coming elections.
-- Ben Domenech, husband to Megan McCain

What the Right desires most of all is social power. They want to control the schools, they want to control the media, they want to control the culture and they have no problem admitting it. They say it straight out, without batting an eyelash. They’d lose their absolute shit if anyone on our side ever said something like that. Charlie Kirk, clearly, was very angry about the Jewish people he imagined were doing that. But they have no problem openly saying it themselves. Hell, the evangelicals even have that whole “Seven Mountains” deal where they are openly planning to dominate the world.

The biggest thing they want, though, the thing they have been clamoring for all these years, is that middle school bully power. When they used to cry about not being “allowed” to say certain things, what they really meant was “I can’t use a racial slur or accuse Jewish people of controlling the world or say women ought to stay home and have babies or that trans people are mentally ill mass shooters without someone thinking I’m a horrible person because of it.” They were always free to say those things, they just were not able to say them without criticism.

Not only is the cruelty the point, the tolerance of cruelty is the end goal.

Social power, to them, means “I can insult you to your face and you tell me I’m a wonderful person whom you just disagree with on some things that don’t really matter in the long run or actually hurt anybody.” And, to be fair, this is what a lot of center-left folks do. They love to go high, they love to be the bigger person, they love to not acknowledge the truly horrific things that someone like Kirk has said.

LIKE SO:

Gavin Newsom Gleefully Rolls Over On Trans Folks In Hopes Of Impressing Charlie Kirk
Robyn Pennacchia
Mar 6

Does the Right ever give them credit for this? It does not. Because that is just how they believe things should be. Gavin Newsom and Ezra Klein should talk about how wonderful Charlie Kirk was, and various right-wing pundits should go around saying terrible things about Gavin Newsom and Ezra Klein and claim they were responsible for his death for even being on the side of those who publicly refuted his views, but everyone should pretend the latter isn’t happening. For civility!

We always say it’s only the Left that is expected to be “civil,” but it’s not actually civility they are after. They want domination. They want to spit in your face and tell you it is raining and for you to go “Oh gee, you’re so helpful! And handsome!”

That is the game they are playing. We don’t really think of things like social power in that way, because it doesn’t appeal to us. Hierarchy is not our jam. We’re not sitting around creating groups like TPUSA that are specifically designed to infiltrate colleges, harass professors and get them fired, and and turn students to the Right. We don’t want a Joe Rogan of the Left. We just want people to be better, kinder human beings and we want a non-zero-sum world, where everybody can have nice things.

But now is not the time to retreat, it’s the time to fight back. There is a difference between insulting people and reacting to an insult. We do the latter, they do the former, so it is not our rhetoric that is the problem. We do not need to let them say whatever they want without consequence, because there is no end to how far they will go.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Exactly on point.

[BoSoxGal]

I'm already disgusted by the lionizing and martyrdom of Charlie Kirk.