Charlie Kirk, Founder of Turning Point USA, was shot dead by a sniper while speaking at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. In the hours following Kirk’s horrific death, President Trump rightfully dubbed him “great, and even Legendary,” and pledged to posthumously award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In the coming days and weeks, we will hear countless stories of Mr. Kirk’s remarkable character and career – testaments to a life well lived. America is a better place because of the life and labor of Charlie Kirk, and he will be long remembered.
However, in the midst of our memory of Mr. Kirk, we should not lose sight of the dark cloud of evil overshadowing his death. He died not from natural causes at a tragically young age. He was murdered – assassinated – by a sniper in broad daylight, in front of a massive crowd.
We over use the term un-American. This is un-American.
A public figure being assassinated in front of thousands of people is not something that is supposed to happen in America.
The horrific, up-close video of Charlie Kirk being struck by a bullet and blood pouring from his neck has seared many minds – mine included – in the past forty-eight hours. It will be hard to forget that image. We shouldn’t forget that image, and we should call it for what it is: evil.
Kirk’s murder comes only weeks after a young woman was viciously slaughtered by a deranged criminal in Charlotte, and little children were murdered at Annunciation Catholic School in Minnesota. It was only a little over a year ago that a bullet came within a few millimeters of President Trump’s head and struck an ordinary citizen in Butler, PA.
We need leaders with a manly sense of moral courage to lead us out from this cloud of political violence that has lately descended on us. Moral courage requires moral clarity. We need to speak in terms of good and evil about Kirk’s murder and other political violence. In short, the public square is not simply a market place of ideas, it is a moral and spiritual battlefield, and this week we watched as a good man was slaughtered on that battlefield.
We should be satisfied with nothing less than justice for Charlie Kirk – a husband, father, and citizen murdered in broad daylight.
Mr. Kirk leaves behind a legacy in American politics that will last for generations. He died a martyr for a cause that will long outlive him, and the institutions and people he shaped will pick up the torch and keep running the race with his memory as an inspiration.
But there is one institution, one small fiber of our society that will not carry on in the same way. The Kirk household – his wife and two children, his parents, and his friends – will not be a complete and whole again this side of eternity.
Chad Pecknold reposted a video on X of Kirk’s daughter running up to him on the set of Fox and Friends after he was the guest host a few weeks ago. Pecknold’s caption reads, “I just want this video to be the one that everyone plays over and over and over again.”
Dr. Pecknold is right. The political fights will go on, but the most important thing the demented shooter took from American society was a father and husband, and a man of moral courage – the kind of man we need right now.
Requiescat in Pace, Charlie Kirk.
