I have learned more about Charlie Kirk since his murder than before. I generally knew who he was, but he didn’t communicate in circles I follow. Books like the one pictured below repel me. Since his death, I’ve read little that makes me wish I had paid more attention. Yet I never would wish violence upon him, any more than I’d wish violence upon Melissa and Mark Hortman and John and Yvette Hoffman, the victims of a political shooting in Minnesota this June.
People’s level of outrage over these shootings matches their partisan leanings. The right is incensed over the shooting of Kirk, the left over the politicians in Minnesota. That’s regrettable. We could use a little more John Donne, who wrote centuries ago, “Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind.”
I was saddened but not surprised when President Trump reacted to the shooting of Kirk with a statement blaming the radical left, showing the same lack of sensible restraint he showed decades ago when he placed a full-page ad in newspapers calling for the execution of the (later proven innocent) Central Park Five. I was also not surprised when Trump was asked this weekend by a reporter how he was holding up after the shooting and Trump took it as an opportunity to brag about the ballroom being constructed at the White House. Compassion and empathy are foreign notions to the President. (Of course Charlie Kirk famously said that he can’t stand empathy, so maybe Trump was just following his lead.)
Trumping Trump, in the wake of Kirk’s murder, a Facebook friend posted that “the Democrats” had engineered the shooting. Blaming like that, and Trump’s blaming, are irresponsible and simply drive wedges farther into our partisan divide. I haven’t seen a corresponding statement on Facebook retracting my friend’s conclusion now that Kirk’s alleged killer has been arrested. Yet now that Tyler Robinson has been arrested and details are emerging about his life, there is one sense that she and Trump are right.
Mick Jagger named it in 1968: “I shouted out ‘Who killed the Kennedys?’ When after all it was you and me.”
When I read the profile of Tyler Robinson, he seemed familiar. He reminded me of Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark David Chapman, James Eagan Holmes, John Hinckley, Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, Adam Lanza, and even the fictional Travis Bickle, Paul Schrader’s creation in the movie Taxi Driver. They were all disaffected young men who easily obtained firearms and then lived out their dark fantasies by shooting people. Sometimes they shot famous people. Sometimes they shot children. Sometimes classmates. In every instance, their previously anonymous lives gained twisted notoriety through destruction. Thomas Matthew Crooks, the young man who shot Donald Trump in the ear, belongs in that group too. So do hundreds of others. Some of the shooters leaned left. Some leaned right. Some were apolitical. Their politics does not define them; their disaffection defines them. Along with their easy access to guns. And, going back to John Donne, their acts have diminished our lives and our world in incalculable ways.
One of the things I’ve learned this week about Charlie Kirk is that he said we have to tolerate shootings to ensure our Second Amendment rights. He likened it to tolerating traffic deaths so we have the freedom to drive on highways. The tragic irony of that statement is overwhelming.
Here’s where Kirk and I disagree. His argument is based on a logical fallacy. He’s comparing apples to oranges. We have numerous laws regulating highway travel, beginning with speed limits, painted lines on highways, drivers’ education requirements and license tests, seat belts and air bags, and harsh drunk driving punishments. Insurance companies refuse to cover unsafe drivers. Almost every day I drive by an electric sign showing my speed and informing me if I should slow down. City, county, and state police patrol the roads. In spite of all that, there still are horrific traffic accidents. But where would we be without the efforts we make to limit these occurrences?
What regulations do we have on firearms? There are some. But not enough. To go back to Kirk’s analogy, if accidents happen repeatedly at an intersection or a stretch of road, changes will be made for public safety. What do we do when shootings happen? Absolutely nothing.
The Second Amendment is a sacred cow. Even its strongest defenders must admit that it was written in a different time with primitive firearms and no standing army. The writers of the US Constitution never imagined the mayhem their words would unleash.
But do we do anything about it? This is why I agree that the Democrats did kill Charlie Kirk. Of course the Republicans did too. And you may argue the Republicans bear more responsibility than the Democrats. But on the whole, lawmakers have been impotent when addressing gun violence.
It’s not like this is an unsolvable dilemma. Just look at the gun violence rates in countries around the world that aren’t burdened with a constitutional right to bear arms. (Our peer countries with a constitutional right to bear arms are Mexico and Guatemala.)
We could easily solve gun violence. We don’t have the will to do it.
Malcolm X got into a lot of hot water following the assassination of JFK when he said that it was merely a case of the chickens coming home to roost. He was referring to the fact that Kennedy had sponsored a political assassination in Vietnam. (More tragic irony: Malcolm X was gunned down a short while after making that statement.) I couldn’t help but think of Malcolm X’s line when I read what Kirk had said about tolerating shootings. Nor could I help but think of it when I read about members of Congress going to House Speaker Mike Johnson because they fear political violence and want measures in place to guarantee their safety.
They are the very people who could do something.
But they won’t.
The chickens will continue to come home to roost.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
46 Responses
Maybe instead of a publicized watch-list of professors, teachers, and journalists, there could be a publicized watch-list of gun owners.
You should start that watchlist! A list of people who obtain and use guns illegally. Publicize those people. Let the public see who these offenders are.
Question: did the TP Watchlist slander the since-fired Calvin professor?
Did the being on the watchlist.precipitate his firing, or was that coincidental? And others on the watchlist started receiving death threats, coincidental I’m sure.
From what I understand that young man, who certainly was a child of Calvin Privilege, did more than enough on his own to get himself booted out of the place.
You “generally” knew who Charlie Kirk was, but “he didn’t communicate in circles I follow”. But then you read about him (presumably in circles you follow), and your disdain for him remained. His book cover repels you.
In a pique of magnanimity, you claim you would not wish violence upon him. So there’s that…
Why don’t you try to understand, genuinely understand, the arguments of people who don’t think like you?
When conversations end, violence starts. Charlie Kirk said that.
I understand his arguments inside and out bc I was raised under outlooks like his in my own school/church/home triangle.
I listened to his last few podcast episodes and confirmed from his lips to my ears that he was not interested in prioritizing the prophetic Way of Jesus, but the unsustainable project of white nationalism.
Those of us who have worked hard to unravel our Christian faith from its woven into white nationalist civil religion have significant experience in identifying the warp thread from the weft thread.
As usual, your writing weft me confused.
But I do understand the upbringing that you experienced. I have sympathy for, not empathy, young people who grew up in that environment. It makes me angry.
Do not equate that experience with Charlie Kirk. Not the same.
You couldn’t find one good thing to say about him? How would you easily solve gun violence?
As a graduate of Dordt University I still am horrified that Donald Trump stood on the stage of the BJ Haan Auditorium and claimed that he could shoot someone on 4th Avenue and not be held responsible. In my opinion this has given his supporters permission to talk like this, starting a movement of harsh political rhetoric and violence that is now a norm. If he had said this in the past week would he be held responsible by his supporters? Would his Vice President include him in his speech about how the left is to blame for all the horrible rhetoric and violence?
His supporters understood the point he was trying, bluntly, to make. You don’t. Or won’t.
The violence doesn’t come from his supporters. It comes from the left.
I’ve heard this assertion over and over again, but the data just don’t support it. I’d post a picture if I could, but here’s a link to some actual data: https://bsky.app/profile/pbump.com/post/3lyoqpl42422d
That study arbitrarily counts White Supremacists as “right wing” and includes prison gang violence. One could just as easily claim that the Bloods and Crips are “left wing” and skew the results in the other direction.
Jeff,
If more gun control laws are the easy answer to this problem, as you naively imply, then please do tell me why Chicago has off the charts gun violence despite Illinois having among the most restrictive gun laws in the US?
A watch list is not a law (yet) but apparently has some effect on academia and school.boards.
Indiana is very close to Illinois, has lax gun laws and is the source of many of the guns used in crimes in Chicago. (60-70% of guns recovered in crimes in Chicago were NOT purchased in Illinois – https://thegunzone.com/where-do-firearms-used-in-chicago-crimes-come-from/).
Louisiana and Mississippi have more than twice the gun violence Illinois has. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/gun-violence-by-state
Unfortunately for Chicago, the vast majority of those guns are bought in surrounding states. Illinois has not decided, to this point, to set up check points to search for guns. Probably a good idea.
Thank you!
Excellent article. Thank you.
Sometime last week I heard someone say on a public platform that it was their “God given right” to own and use a gun for both recreation and protection. Yet Jesus told Peter to put his sword away because “all who draw the sword will die by the sword”. To me that has always meant that violence begets violence and the suffering and misery that come with it. The Constitution may give that right, but that does not indicate that God has sanctioned owning and using a gun for personal protection or to harm another. It has everything and nothing to do with politics, but with following our risen Lord.
Então os militares, policiais e todos os agentes de segurança cristãos estão em pecado? Pedro não estava em risco de perder a sua própria vida.
Wise words indeed. To quote MLK: “We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
Wise words–thank you for this. As MLK said: “We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
What was the point Trump was trying to make? I wasn’t there, but there have been so many comments coming from him that incite angry responses. I agree with the author that gun violence has become all of our responsibility because we refuse to do something about the use of guns in our culture. And those guns are used by both the left and the right. I long to live in a country where it is safe to walk the streets. Those countries do exist.
His point: my followers are loyal.
A good way to view it: Trump voters take him seriously but not literally. His opponents do the opposite.
But to me, Marty, this is the point. If Trump says something, his supporters believe it and imitate his words and actions. Do these supporters think for themselves? Do Christian supporters evaluate his words and actions in the light of Jesus’s words and actions? This is my concern: one can identify as Christian but abide by less than Christ- like principles. We are all required to do that, regardless of political preference.
Thank you, Jeff. Your fine writing articulates courage.
I notice after your not-new observation that it is quite often disaffected young men with a gun who perpetrate these acts of violence that you only want to talk about one half of that formula when seeking a solution. Your proposed arena of solutions only involves the gun and seems to pay no attention to the disaffected young men. Yes, our chickens are coming home to roost, alright. Disaffected young men are killing others and each other every day – most of them without any RJ mention or special attention. I wonder what it would look like to try to reverse our cultural trend toward more and more disaffected young men? Does the church have anything to offer a society with too many disaffected young men? Does the church have a prophetic word for a society that creates and fosters disaffection in myriad ways, not the least of which is a culture-wide rejection of God’s good design for marriage and sex? Can the church speak truth to the cultural powers that be about the destructive effects of flouting God’s moral law? Take away the guns (which inherently involves state coercion and violence) and you still have the angry disaffected young men. Men like Timothy McVeigh. Men like Decarlos Brown, Jr. There are plenty more where they came from. You know what’s really easy? Acting like you have the “easy” solution. You don’t, and your proposed easy solution absolutely ignores human nature and our real cultural dilemma.
I can’t say I was disaffected as young man. But when I was 23, an RCA congregation gave me a chance to take on a job I was minimally qualified for and let me grow and develop over 16 years with them. That said, if I had come into the interview for that job complaining about how women and minorities were stealing the opportunities I rightfully deserved as a white man, I have no doubt they would rightfully have passed me up.
Hi Wesley,
I am glad to hear that a church embraced you and helped you to avoid the perils of disaffection. My testimony is similar in that I was embraced in church life and community (not with a job, but with love and training) and helped to avoid the perils of disaffection that I (in my rebelliousness) may have been prone to. Churches can (and must) in word and deed be a part of the solution to disaffected young men, and not just at the parish level. I hear you agreeing with me on that.
There are alternative ways to discuss the perils of tokenism, race-essentialism, and discrimination in our society than how you have phrased it there. If we cannot have those conversations without steel-manning each other’s arguments I don’t think we will progress very far in better understanding and commonality.
Thanks for your reply, Eric. The church was and is a place where people have lots of different opinions and do well with each other. The point I was trying to make, but didn’t make very well, was that if I had showed up as someone who had chosen to make himself disagreeable and bigoted and refused to change the subject (as some do!), I would not have been welcomed in the way I was.
I was not trying to make the point that everyone who thinks differently than me is disagreeable and bigoted, sorry if that’s what it sounded like!
Hi again, Wesley. Thank you for continued engagement. I appreciate your clarification.
I think you present an interesting dilemma/challenge for us as individuals and for churches to think about. In your case the church embraced you by offering you a job. While a job offer would not be the likely embrace, I do remain convinced that it would still be a proper role for the church to embrace you had you been disagreeable and even bigoted. That seems to model the type of enfoldment that acts in love and also then has the opportunity to speak into the life of the disagreeable and the bigoted to show a better way forward. I guess that too gets at my first point – we have a people problem, not a tool problem (or perhaps some of both, but the church’s main focus is people and their condition, not tools and their control). The church is equipped to diagnose and help to counter the people problem.
I should also provide my own clarification. In my last sentence I meant to say “while steel-manning” (my mind was reversed :))
May God bless you and keep you.
I am no zealot for gun ownership, but I do wonder what you see, Jeff, as an easy way to have prevented Tyler Robinson from getting the gun that killed Charlie Kirk. Perhap you consider Charlie.Kirk a shame to the Gospel. He surely was not ashamed of the Gospel. I give thanks to God for Charlie’s clear and unashamed witness to the Gospel. A perfect witness? No, but is mine, is yours?
How can the many truly hateful things he has said (some which are personal about my African American daughter, and another a pediatrician caring for all children – including trans -who according to Kirk should be brought to a Nuremberg trial) be compatible with the Gospel? Grieve his death, grieve for our country, but please do not idolize him, because his life and death have become fodder for further racial division.
I don’t see how your daughter’s racial identity had anything to do with Kirk’s opposition to transitioning minors?
Thank you for naming our suffering, our strife, and for daring to enter this anguished territory.
Thank you for caring. And for daring to enter this fray. Clearly we are a fevered and mis-led people. It’s hard to see hope for us.
“Blaming like that, and Trump’s blaming, are irresponsible and simply drive wedges farther into our partisan divide.”
“And you may argue the Republicans bear more responsibility than the Democrats.”
You may also argue that the author had a difficult time heeding his own admonishment about irresponsible blaming and driving wedges. I’m not arguing it, but you certainly may.
Eric,
I think the key qualifier is “Blaming like that”
It may be that there is no room for “blaming” at all, but I don’t think Jeff is arguing that, and I don’t think you would say that either. It just might be that “blaming” has nuance. How we work through that in our broken world is a whole other challenge.
Hi Rodney,
The author describes Trump’s blaming as a “blaming the radical left”. He then goes on to suggest if not outright state that the preponderance of blame should be on Republicans. Do I understand you to be saying that when Trump blames the left it “drives wedges further into our partisan divide” but when the author blames the right it doesn’t drive wedges further into our partisan divide? That seems implausible to me, particularly in light of the circumstances. Imagine, if you will, blaming MLK’s assassination on the left and thinking that doing so does not inflame partisan passions.
Hi again, Rodney,
As a quick aside, this quote from The Hill (center/center left publication) seems contradictory to the author’s (veiled) assertion:
“A quarter of respondents who identified as “very liberal” said violence can sometimes be justified to achieve political goals, along with 17 percent of those who identified as “liberal,” 9 percent of moderates, 6 percent of those who said they’re “conservative” and 3 percent of those who identified as “very conservative.””
That violence continuum is not flattering for the left and is consistent with other polls and findings.
(And yes, I am glad to acknowledge that the author’s likely point did not have to do entirely with advocacy for or acceptance of violence but likely also alluded to rhetoric that the author believes is harmful to civic peace. But it seems to me that blame-casting for acts of violence (if we are to engage in it) has to include the calculus of who is more prone to accept and promote violence as a solution to political disagreement.)
When do we need to ask what are the contributing factors that led to an intelligent young man raised in a Christian (Mormon) home with a bright future to plot and carry out an assassination on a fellow human? His parents look like good people who probably did everything we have done to provide for and raise our children to be good people contributing in a positive way to the world they live in. Could this be any of our children?
Thanks Jeff,
I listened to a podcast recently that pointed out the “far right” (I prefer far wrong!) will always make excuses for sin committed with a gun but never for any other. When was the last time someone said, “well, abortion is just part of our life.” Or, “people don’t mean it when they take God’s name in vain, it is just part of the culture.” But say something about limiting guns and you have a fight on your hands. Folks in our area have their first opportunity to proclaim the “confessions without reservation” in a few weeks, I think they only care about what they say about the seventh commandment, it seems they do not care about the sixth or ninth.
Nobody that I know of advocates for restrictions on forceps.
In regards to the ninth commandment, you may want to note that the CRC church order and supplements have contained this phraseology for decades. CRC officebearers have for many decades been explicitly asked to confirm without reservation. This is not a recent development. That some signed with reservations is not to their credit.
From the CRC Church Order (1980): “The person signing the Form of Subscription subscribes without reservation to all the doctrines contained in the standards of the church, as being doctrines which are taught in the Word of God.”
What “regulations “ do you propose that would have prevented Charlie Kirk’s murder? He was killed by a gun designed for hunting big game in wide open spaces like Utah. It was not the infamous AR-15 or a “high capacity” semiautomatic pistol that killed him. The gun was also a bolt action and not a semiautomatic so a “bump stock” would not transform it into an “automatic” rifle.
Absent an outright ban on all firearms, your beloved “regulations” would not have prevented this murder. I doubt the murder could have been prevented even if all firearms had magically disappeared the week before. This disturbed young man would have found some way to carry out his self declared mission to rid the world of Charlie Kirk. Mental illness, the inability to cope with differing opinions, and the wholesale devaluation of individuals’ lives, contributed far more to Charlie’s murder than the tool used to carry out the murder.
Even all the regulations regarding the safe construction and operation of motor vehicles, hasn’t eliminated traffic deaths and injuries. Nor has it prevented mentally ill people or those with evil intent from using those well regulated vehicles as weapons of mass destruction.
I do applaud you from stopping just short of saying Charlie Kirk was at least partially responsible for his own death because of the political views he held.