What I feel is nausea about the ongoing destabilization of American life and institutions. What I feel is worry about the danger so many people are in right now, the backlash this event is likely to cause, and the way this will fuel an acceleration of Trump's illegal military occupations of American cities whose citizens or officials Trump finds politically disagreeable. And in the back of my mind I also wonder what will become of Kirk's children, who are very young.
But I can't summon either glee or grief. All I've got is irony and deep unease, at least for now.
Re: DC national guard, from what I’ve seen rough neighbourhoods in DC were very happy with additional policing, particularly in gang areas, while middle class people who were less affected seemed mainly angry about it.
I think that says more about he HN community than Charlie Kirk.
The hagiographic levels of writing about him make it pretty obvious. People who cure cancer don’t get this kind of treatment.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Kirk made a substantial portion of his living trolling people and fomenting hostility between people of different political ideologies. He said gay people should be stoned to death. He did not deserve to die, I do not celebrate his murder. But I will not celebrate the way he lived his life, let alone indulge this flagrant (and tasteless) attempt by the GOP to make him a saintly martyr.
The reason is Hortman is less known.
> He said gay people should be stoned to death.
No he didn’t.
Here’s something he did say, however, including a source:
> "Black women do not have brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person's slot."
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/fact-check-charlie-kirk-once-17000...
Ignoring the ironic typo: is this dialogue? Is this “crossing political divides” for productive discussion? Or is it just bog standard racism/sexism? I’m curious what your thoughts are on that one, which was a pretty typical comment from him mind you.
Charlie Kirk was a cruel person to those he considered outside his tribe. I will not participate in the GOP’s cynical, opportunistic attempt to brand him as a martyr for free speech. It’s whitewashing nonsense.
I wasn’t aware they said they were there because of AA, this is worthwhile information.
He literally said the above quote I mentioned. It was sexist/racist. It was wrong. You can weigh in on it or not that’s your choice. But this man was not the saint the right is making him out to be. It’s flagrant revisionist history
Edit: I also forgot to respond to your Hortman comment. That does not matter. She and her husband were brutally murdered in their home for the crime of being democrats and holding office. How is that not worthy of national attention? How is that not kind of political violence that the right pretends to care about right now? If they had been Republicans we would still be hearing about it and you know it.
> He literally said the above quote I mentioned.
Which was discussing self confessed AA hires.
He lived and profited as a right wing troll. He provoked people to get a rise which was rewarded with clicks and money. His entire enterprise was indicative of what is wrong with this country right now and anyone heralding him as this MLK Jr. figure should be ashamed of the white washing they’re participating in.
This was a man who had a “woke professor” list (TP USA’s professor watchlist) which published the names of professors he considered “dangerous Marxists,” people that I know personally and who have subsequently received death threats and other fun treats as a result of his actions.
I won’t keep rattling off his sins because at some point it’s just unproductive. He did not deserve to die, but I will not be compelled to celebrate a person who did not exist.
The fascist line is from hell divers.
Bella Caio is on a groyper playlist on Spotify.
Any attempts to neatly slot this into “he was left” or “he was right” are a waste of time. He doesn’t fit into that paradigm: https://www.garbageday.email/p/charlie-kirk-was-killed-by-a-...
There isn’t a liberal in the country who follows Nick Fuentes. Dude is clearly a blackpilled 4chaner as described above.
I actually think we can care about kids and Charlie Kirk (and that there are different and overlapping audiences involved). It's more complicated than your lazy framing.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42370622
(also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448899 was even more discussed, but it was a stabbing)
He would have really advocated for violence, or school shootings? That seems odd. It is way different from "gun deaths are worth having the 2nd amendment".
My question was not answered, and my comment was ignored.
Good job for everyone here for not being able to hold a rational, non-heated conversation.
He didn't say Kirk advocated violence but that he was indifferent towards it in favor of the 2nd amendment. Isn't it interesting how a pro-lifer like Kirk didn't care that much about lives if it's about gun ownership?
Seems like it's harder to get a driver's license than a gun.
What makes gun death so special, that we don't do the same for guns?
According to your logic Kirk was against speed limits, driver licenses and seat belts but cared about lives. I doubt that he thought like that when it came to road safety.
Kirk's point was that we do for guns (domestic violence etc red flags). But like cars we don't ban them.
> According to your logic Kirk was against speed limits, driver licenses and seat belts
No.
That would be the equivalent of what we did against traffic deaths
It is very hard for someone living in the UK to understand things from the US context. It just comes across as bizarre that people accept that school children will relatively frequently die for this. I do not feel impelled at all to own a gun. It isn't something that I ever think about.
So when you say things like the phrase above, it is very alien to most people from the UK. We just don't understand what the benefits are of owning guns that justify the negatives.
By the way, this isn't an attack, it is just me sharing a state of mind with you.
In London, someone grabs your phone, threatens to take your watch with a machete, or tries to rape your child. In New York someone marches down the street wanting to punch anyone that gets close. You let yourself be victimised and then report it.
In Texas, they generally don't do these things because they might get shot. People defend themselves.
In exchange, we accept there will be some unwanted violence. Kirk made an analogy here: we don't want road deaths, yet we don't ban cars. We don't want school shootings, but we don't ban guns.
South Africans in London have similar perspectives regarding being able to defend themselves.
But the rest of the UK is extremely safe. Compared to the US? Very! And we don' have guns to defend ourselves. How does that work? And it is the same in many, many countries that don't have guns - a lot safer than the US.
So that argument for guns just doesn't work. There must be something deeper to it. It must really be something that triggers a deeper response in people.
I also visited Austin Texas and spent a night staying in the center on 6th street and didn't feel safe. Aggressive black guys shouting and stuff. I googled that location when I got to the lodging and someone was shot there a year earlier.
I guess it depends the area but I wouldn't say guns have made Texas a haven of peace.
So picking these incidents and citing them as a reason for owning guns, while ignoring the whole picture strikes me as dishonest.
The US has a lot of violent cities, I live in NY (in a very good area) and there’s still more street violence than you’d expect in a similar area in London. But that’s a coastal city. People don’t have guns here.
If someone walked down the street in Austin threatening to kill people that wouldn’t happen. Honestly.
I’m not sure if I have an answer one way or the other - I’d like it if I could buy milk in NY without someone threatening violence, and don’t think it’s right for jihadists to stand in the middle of London saying they’ll kill all the jews without the police doing anything, but I also don’t want to live somewhere where someone snaps and they have access to an automatic weapon.
That the US is safer than other places because it has guns? I guess you can sincerely believe that, but the facts say something else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...
Check out both tables and you will see that the facts do not say what you think they say, at all.
Homicide rates by firearm per 100,000 inhabitants (2017):
Jamaica - 47.857
United States - 3.342
Serbia - 0.415
Jamaica - 8.8
United States - 120.5
Serbia - 39.1
It shows that Serbia has loads of guns, yet barely any firearm-related homicides, whereas Jamaica has much less guns, yet homicide rates by firearm are way higher than the US.
Thus, the statement that "More guns -> More gun-related violence" is evidently false.
You’re quoting national statistics, which include places with no guns and a lot of street violence - I’ve already mentioned that, if you’re not going to read when I respond to you there’s no point having this conversation.
In any case, I think the argument that was brought forward in favor of guns does not hold true universally for every places. For example, in Hungary, you do not need guns as a deterrent.
Perhaps London would benefit from it, I actually have no idea and I do not know if I could have any way of telling.
It is a cherry picked example and has nothing to contribute to the overall argument that gun ownership makes the US safe. Otherwise I can point to the many mass shootings in the US and say that would never have happened in the UK.
I live in the UK. It is objectively safer to live in the UK where we are not allowed to own guns. To us, it is absurd to claim we need guns to be safer when we look at what actually happens in the US as a result of guns.
I don't think this is really a controversial take.
That is why the argument for gun ownership actually happens at a deeper level in the psyche.
I do not think it is that difficult to grasp either. Do you understand now?
I am Eastern European, no guns here either, and as I said, it may not universally apply to all countries, or even cities within one country.
Sure, I can read English, I can understand the actual English words you're typing and the point you're trying to make. I just think it isn't true, and an honest reading of statistics would show that.
But I don't think we're going to get honesty here.
This does not imply what I said though, it just confirms that more guns does not imply more gun violence.
You did not leave an answer to "If people (thieves, criminals) think "this guy may have a gun", then others are less likely to rob him to avoid getting shot." though.
You wanted to know the mentality behind it, and this is the mentality behind it, so now you know why people say and believe these things. As I previously have said, this probably cannot be universally applied to all countries, but it theoretically could be, especially if we consider the fact that "more guns -> more gun violence" is just simply not true. I have a feeling it is a cultural thing. How come Serbia (among other countries) have lots of guns yet no firearm-related violence? Many other countries have much less guns per 100 people (as per statistics), yet gun violence is through the roof. We have to look at it from many different aspects. We need ask ourselves "why?" or "why that is?", what are the differences? What are the cultural differences?
Just to be sure, I am not in favor of guns, but I do believe in that guns can be a deterrent in some places at the very least, and we know that more guns do not lead to more firearm-related homicides, so theoretically it could work in some or many places. I do not know much about Serbia. I wonder how come they have lots of guns yet barely any related crimes.
It obviously makes the argument that Texas isn’t New York or London and has little street crime, as a result of gun ownership. You wanted to understand the mentality? That’s the mentality. No road men in Austin.
> Otherwise I can point to the many mass shootings in the US and say that would never have happened in the UK.
Yes you can. That’s a fine argument, I agree with it. I’ve made comments about not wanting to die because someone had a bad day earlier in this thread supporting exactly this argument. You’re arguing with someone else rather than reading my responses.
Check the statistics[1] with regarding to robbing, knife crimes, homelessness, and so on. Perhaps that is a better starting point?
I have been told by many locals to not wear an expensive watch around designer stores, or touristic hotspots because robbery happens on a daily basis, it depends on the time of the day and which day it is, of course.
I have watched many YouTubers visiting London as well and they tell quite the story, too.
[1] See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44914081
https://xcancel.com/patriottakes/status/1800678317030564306
https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/charlie-kirk-once-called...
It's interesting that you mention driver's licenses. Would you say that intellectual consistency would require a "pro-lifer" to be in favour of nobody being allowed to own a car? After all, sometimes fatal driving accidents occur.
I do not think that he was against regulation, and keep in mind that criminals inherently do not care about gun laws or regulation.
The definition of a criminal is somebody who breaks the law, which means anyone who breaks any law is disregarding the existence of a law. This is not unique to gun legislation.
If your bar for whether or not we should have laws and restrictions is whether or not people will break them, then I don’t really know how you can square that with the necessary existence of our judicial system.
Let’s look at this another way: despite DUI laws, there are people still drinking and driving every day. Should we remove the restriction and just allow drinking and driving?
>There was a school shooting on the same day as Kirk's death: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/students-wounded-shooti... If he were still alive, he would be writing and speaking about how such violence is unfortunate but ultimately acceptable— even necessary— to "preserve our freedoms", brushing it aside to be forgotten. He of course did so many times in life, notably in 2023 when he was quoted doing so in the media:
Notice they said "he would be writing and speaking about how such violence...is unfortunate but ultimately acceptable - even necessary - to 'preserve our freedoms.'"
To which you responded:
>He would have really advocated for violence, or school shootings? That seems odd.
Where they did they say "advocated" or "encouraged" or anything remotely like that? "Acceptable" and "necessary" are not saying "pro-" as you are implying they said. So right out the gate you are misrepresenting the person and moving the goalposts so that a bar which you have established on your own must be met.
So my question is: why should anyone be forced to meet your challenge? They said Kirk ultimately determined that these sacrifices are acceptable, even necessary, for the second amendment which he considered a good thing worthy of virtually any cost. You twisted that into claiming he was advocating for school shootings. Clearly that is not what they said at all.
You can Google the answer to this instead of asking us here on HN. Kirk was a career politician, he had no trouble making his position known:
"Gay people should be stoned to death. Just saying." https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1800678317030564306And then, hours later, you opted to chastize someone else for "drawing comparisons from the most deliberately-inflammatory portion of the internet."
https://www.mediamatters.org/antisemitism/charlie-kirk-turns...
So much intellectual honesty here, hospes. Thank you for clearing that up.
Racial comments targeting Black Americans
Pilots and qualifications: In a January 2024 episode of his podcast, Kirk said, "If I see a Black pilot, I'm going to be like, 'Boy, I hope he's qualified'". The comment came during a segment criticizing DEI initiatives in the airline industry.
Customer service: In a January 2024 podcast episode, Kirk remarked, "If I'm dealing with somebody in customer service who's a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?".
"Prowling Blacks": In May 2023, Kirk claimed on his show that "prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people".
"Brain processing power": Kirk claimed that prominent Black women like Michelle Obama and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson "lacked the brain processing power" to understand complex topics, and only succeeded through affirmative action.
George Floyd and Martin Luther King Jr.: He made disrespectful comments about Black leaders. During a 2021 speech, Kirk called George Floyd a "scumbag". In December 2023, he referred to Martin Luther King Jr. as "awful" and "not a good person".
Civil Rights Act of 1964: Kirk repeatedly referred to the Civil Rights Act as a "huge mistake," calling it an "anti-white weapon".
White nationalist rhetoric: Kirk promoted the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory, which alleges a plot to replace white Americans with nonwhite immigrants.
Promotion of extremists: Turning Point USA (TPUSA), the conservative youth organization Kirk founded, has a history of attracting white nationalists and featuring speakers with extremist views. In 2022, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) documented racist and homophobic incidents involving TPUSA members.
Criticism from within conservative circles: In 2023, Kirk drew criticism from fellow conservatives, including Ben Domenech of The Federalist, over antisemitic remarks. Kirk later attempted to clarify his comments and was given a prime speaking slot at the 2024 Republican National Convention.Unfortunately this is valid.
This question highlights a real problem with how affirmative action policies work in practice. When we have systems that explicitly consider race in hiring/admissions decisions, it inevitably creates this uncertainty and that is unfair to everyone.
The real issue is not individuals, it is that these policies create systematic doubt that hurts the very people they are meant to help. Maybe we need to rethink approaches that do not put qualified people in this impossible position where their achievements are automatically questioned.
Do you disagree?
You can check for yourself, Charlie didn't even believe in race: https://x.com/thatsKAIZEN/status/1967652741905518882
Please re-read the post you replied to; literally no one was blaming Kirk for public shootings happening. They were mentioning that Kirk has previously remarked about how shootings are ultimately a necessary trade-off for 2A rights. Seriously, you might also want to read the Newsweek article that the OP linked to; Kirk is quoted:
> "You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won't have a single gun death," Kirk said at a Turning Point USA Faith event on Wednesday, as reported by Media Matters for America. "That is nonsense. It's drivel. But I am—I think it's worth it. "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. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe."
Kirk SAID THIS; there's video of him saying this as well; I had to double check this myself as, putting aside the irony of his own death, how can anyone rationalise this way? Let alone say it out loud? I never heard of this guy before now and the more I read about him, the more I am astounded in the worst possibly ways.
> The left really needs to get a grip and look in the mirror. I have seen way too many 'normal' democrats mocking his death and implying it was justified because he was a 2nd amendment supporter. So are many of your friends, relatively, coworkers. When they see you express that opinion, we realize you're a sociopath and you're the fascist who thinks anyone who disagrees deserves death.
You are now ranting against a made-up argument that literally NO ONE made, but you.
Imagine if Rachel Maddow died and republicans behaved even slightly similarly... you'd all be crying about fascism and acting hysterical. Would it be okay if republicans said something like, too bad she didn't have more security but she didn't support the 2nd amendment, so her death is no big deal (like you are)--BUT because it was a republican, you can just cite his support for the 2nd amendment and go--see he deserved it because he won't just agree to repealing the 2nd amendment. Which to normal people comes off as unhinged. Imagine if you did this for every non-public figure who also supported 2nd amendment. 'Ah well, too bad they weren't against the 2nd amendment, then their death would actually be tragic.' The left has become so unhinged that they don't even see republicans as human and don't value their deaths/lives. This is what 10+ years of calling republicans Nazis does... eventually some mentally ill people are going to take it seriously and start killing people.
> The left has become so unhinged that they don't even see republicans as human and don't value their deaths/lives.
Across the left I see calls for gun control. If the left had their way, gun violence wouldn't be the problem that it is in America. The left is just sick of burying dead children with holes in them, there's not sympathy left for literally anyone else, especially Kirk, who advocated for this to continue happening. Thoughts and prayers, whatever. Can we do gun control now? No? Then what are we even talking about, we'll just be here again soon enough.
> This is what 10+ years of calling republicans Nazis does... eventually some mentally ill people are going to take it seriously and start killing people.
Unlike the rest of us, you seem to know who the killer was and why he did what he did. At this stage it's just as likely Kirk was shot by a disillusioned fan based on his reaction to the Epstein files, per Laura Loomer's post. Actually, a priori it's far more likely seeing as the statistics show rightwing shooters are far more frequent than leftwing shooters. So calling out "Nazi rhetoric" as the culprit is premature.
You simply think the end justifies the means.
>Maddow advocates for universal healthcare. If we get universal healthcare and she dies because she lost private healthcare, that would be deeply ironic and everyone should point that out upon her death, throwing all her words supporting universal healthcare back at her ghost. I would 100% support that.
This argument is backwards. It would not be ironic and the better metaphor is if she died in Canada in a country with universal healthcare. You don't even understand your own shitty half-baked argument. Go touch grass.
>Across the left I see calls for gun control. If the left had their way, gun violence wouldn't be the problem that it is in America.
It's never going to happen and this is why the left keeps losing. There are too many guns and too much support for them. Instead of harping on this dead end idea, maybe actually put cops in schools and fortify classrooms and take protections? But the left doesn't do that because they're rather the kids keep getting slaughtered so they can use them as talking points like you. In the left's warped mind: taxes are virtuous, no tax rate is high enough, republicans are sub-human Nazis, Trump is a fascist dictator/tyrant, and 2nd amendment must be repealed---yet year after year they lose more and more seats in Congress and have lost 4M voters since 2020. Your ideas are a dead end and will guarantee your party ends up extinct and in the dust bin of history. Your ideas suck!
I say all of this as someone who voted for Obama twice, never voted for Trump, doesn't own a gun, is pro-universal healthcare and pro-gun control--but you have to see reality for what it is. Democrats are on a losing course that will guarantee there is less political choice because they are making themselves politically obsolete and irrelevant and out of touch.
>calling out "Nazi rhetoric" as the culprit is premature.
You're kind of gross? Of course calling people Nazis and subhumans and othering them is bad. This is exactly why political violence occurs. You have to learnt to disagree with your neighbors and coworkers and fellow citizens without dehumanizing them and pretending like you ALWAYS hold the moral high ground. Quit watching MSNBC and get some fresh sources--challenge your bubble.
Oh also, google the inscribing on the bullets and it's crystal clear this was a left wing shooter. It's been confirmed by the Governor of Utah--but the media likes to cover up all these trans/leftist shooters.
At first I also had thr reaction of thinking "he asked for it" , and all that schadenfreude feeling.
However, now I think it was a great loss and hope the killer gets the whole extent of the law.
See, in a society that is tending more and more to the extremes, polarization and radicalism, we NEED people to TALK.
Being from outside of the US, I don't know the ideas this guy was spewing; However, from what I've read, what he did was basically talking and debate. We need that. We need to be open to talk ideas, even if we dont agree. Where are we when someone who speaks his mind gets killed for that?
I am socialist and anti-US-imperialism in general, but I tend to frequent r/conservative and r/ccw and even patriots.win subteddits. Because im interested in a different point of view.
I get sad that most posts in r/conservative block externals, as I would love to interact in some of the posts. But... after this guys assassination... I dont blame them. People should feel safe to talk and discuss their ideas.
I'm to stupid to be able to debate against this guy, or the other guy.that speaks too fast and always looks angry (anti abortion American dude). But ... why isn't someone smarter and with opposing views debating them?. We need it.
That does not mean he deserved to die. He didn’t. But he did not die undergoing some noble endeavor or engaging in free speech in some profoundly brave way.
You can see this with Ben Shapiro when he walked out of an interview with conservative BBC host, Andrew Neil. Shapiro was unprepared for a real challenge and his go-to of speaking fast, gish galloping, and calling out the “radical left views” of his opponent didn’t work because the host was a conservative.
https://youtu.be/6VixqvOcK8E?si=GX9TcG7gOgUQH3Bo
If you want a someone who would be an effective counter, look to Mehdi Hasan of Zeteo.
Even though Kirk made a point to debate students, generally, there were always a few at good schools that pretty thoroughly defeated him.
And in fairness to Kirk, he sometimes posted the in full (albeit always with laughably distorted headlines):
If he were still alive, he would be writing and speaking about how such violence is unfortunate but ultimately acceptable— even necessary— to "preserve our freedoms", brushing it aside to be forgotten. He of course did so many times in life, notably in 2023 when he was quoted doing so in the media:
https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-says-gun-deaths-worth-...
Kirk's death has already overshadowed the news of that school shooting, which will indeed be forgotten by most long before we stop talking about him.
One final victory for Charlie Kirk, I guess.