In the last few hours I’ve seen many clips and reels from TikTok and X (Twitter) showing the outrage over the horrific public assassination of Charlie Kirk coming from the political Right.
While it’s saddening to see people grieving the sudden loss of someone they cared about, it’s been deeply frightening to see those same people call for retribution against everyone they see as political opponents.
What’s striking is that in all these years since the Columbine school shooting, I have not seen this same group of people express anything approaching this level of outrage over little children being slaughtered inside schools.
“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.” – Charlie Kirk
What I have seen is Charlie Kirk accepting some gun deaths every year as being “worth it” so long as those deaths preserve “our other God-given rights.”
I’ve also seen Alex Jones sued to oblivion for falsely and maliciously claiming that the Sandy Hook shooting was faked and that grieving parents were actors. Thousands — perhaps millions — of his followers went along with those lies; some even harassed the grief-stricken parents.
Not have they shed no tears shed over children killed needlessly at school, but the Right somehow managed to channel anger toward the victims themselves.
Alex Jones’ verbal assault on Sandy Hook parents wasn’t an aberration: Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene racked up political points by harassing Parkland School Shooting survivor David Hogg through the streets of Washington, D.C.
It’s a truly sad reflection on our society that people who readily dismiss the assassinations of children in classrooms can get filled with fire and outrage over the senseless death of Charlie Kirk.
By the way, there was a school shooting in Colorado on September 10, 2025 — three students were hospitalized and the shooter (another student) killed himself. That one didn’t make national headlines. There are so many school shootings that only the worst of them reach national news.
Personally, I believe all gun violence is deplorable no matter who the victim is. But it’s even more deplorable when the victims are innocent children — especially compared to an adult who publicly counseled millions of followers to be morally fine with their deaths.
Charlie may have claimed that “empathy is a made-up, new age term [which] does a lot of damage”, but that shouldn’t stop us from expressing empathy for his family.
Rest in peace, Charlie Kirk. Thoughts and prayers to your wife and children — and not just the meaningless platitudes Republican politicians offer up when mass shootings makes the news. His wife and kids lost their husband and father.
My only hope is that this act opens a conversation about common-sense gun law reform and a heartfelt discussion about de-escalating rhetoric from public figures on both the extreme Left and the extreme Right.
| This commentary was before this blog came into being. I have performed some edits, but nonetheless, it is backdated to the time of writing. |