Dear Editor:
I believe that this is not a time for celebration, but neither is it a time for false mourning. To grieve Charlie Kirk’s death without acknowledging the destruction he leaves behind is to ignore the suffering he contributed to, which has, and continues to, end and hurt thousands of lives. We should not confuse condemning violence with excusing hatred.
While Kirk’s death, or anyone’s, is not something that should be celebrated, with the amount of media coverage this is getting, it should be known that Charlie Kirk consistently promoted sexist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, cruel, hateful, ignorant, xenophobic and misogynistic bigotry.
While I wholeheartedly believe that, regardless of political views, no one should be harmed or attacked for their opinions, the sentiment that Kirk died for simply “voicing his opinion” is false. He built an entire platform based on hate. Charlie Kirk went to college campuses to indoctrinate young people still forming opinions into a regressive and divisive cause, all while making a profit.
Additionally, Kirk built his career defending the Second Amendment, even when it meant ignoring the lives lost to gun violence and school shootings. As he once said, “I think it’s worth having 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.”
I do not doubt that Trump will use this assassination as a political advantage, and somehow, he will make the argument that more guns are needed to protect people from gun violence.
Instead of offering unification and coming together during a “hard time,” President Donald Trump decided to push the blame onto half of the country (Democrats) and pushed a narrative that has already caused harm, with many popular conservative social media platforms.
It is still important to note that this country is the United States of America, and we must collectively seek unity, not division. Without civil dialogue, we as a nation are doomed. Our country was founded on the values of coming together for the common good and working in unity to govern and strengthen our nation.
In the end, Kirk became a victim of the very thing he platformed on. Ironically, Kirk was answering a question about gun violence when he was shot dead. Had he advocated against gun violence, maybe he wouldn’t have died from it. He spent years claiming that gun violence was an acceptable price for the Second Amendment, and ultimately, he paid that price himself. He died by the ideology he helped spread, and in that sense, he reaped what he sowed.
Brandon Hill (student)
Marshall Terrace
