A quick opinion on the Charlie Kirk situation and why I lack empathy.
When first learning about the shooting that occurred on September 10, 2025, I didn't feel surprised, shocked, or angry. Instead, like many, I followed up on what happened. Unfortunately, I was exposed to the video against my will, just as I had been in 2019 at the age of seventeen when I was forced to watch a Facebook live in my forensic science class of the aftermath of the Walmart shooting in El Paso, Texas. Still, I couldn't find it in me to feel remorse or pain for a man who lacked the same empathy his death is calling for when he didn't extend that same empathy to the victims of the same weapon that took his life. Charlie Kirk is being made a martyr of the problem that he supported while the students shot that same day, one remaining in critical condition, are not being covered as proportionally.
Before starting, there are a few things I want to make clear. I will not say that I celebrate any death that is caused by gun violence. I don't believe in celebrating something that I am against. I am against gun violence, so why would I want to throw a party for someone taking away someone's life through shooting them? I will say this. Charlie Kirk once said that gun violence is a price and a risk that must be made in order to preserve the second amendment. He also said that empathy is a "made-up, new age term." Therefore, I can't help but be unaffected by the death of a man who believed so cruelly. I have never once agreed with Charlie Kirk, but I can't say I believe in taking away anyone's life by a gun, either.
There have been many innocent lives taken away due to gun violence, but Charlie Kirk was not one of those innocent souls taken too soon. He was nothing if not evil. He was nothing if he wasn't a man who lacked compassion. He spoke out against women's rights, immigrants, LGBTQ+ rights, and more. He was a man that didn't deserve that platform he had, and he died on the hill he created. He died by the weapon he defended to the very end. After all, one of his last conversations was him saying that there were "too many" trans shooters in mass shootings while subsequently about to defend white, cis-gendered males who committed the same crime. As he so often did at these events. All the blame went to people of color, people who identified as trans or gay, people who were immigrants when it came to a Charlie Kirk debate.
I want to believe this could open Pandora's box on gun reform and allow the other side to open their eyes and see the negative effects caused by guns, but I don't think this will happen. Instead, Trump is going to write Charlie Kirk off as a hero due to the unrelenting loyalty and support that he [Kirk] has shown while he skates over the fact that children were shot in a school that same day. So, while Charlie Kirk, who was famous for asking students questions, not letting them answer, devaluing their beliefs and stories, and being known for his occupation as a professional rage-baiter (not a debater) on college campuses is being mentioned as Trump orders flags at half staff for him, we only get a couple of news articles, compared to Kirk's news, on what happened at Evergreen High School.
Another statement I would like to add is how quickly people forgot about the two students killed and the other seventeen that were injured while praying at their school in Minnesota in August. Directly two weeks before the incident on September 10. It is becoming prevalent that people who are not directly connected to shootings advocate for the victims for a couple of days, show face online, and they don't do anything else. Nowadays, activism is just for appearance, and I'm absolutely sick of it.
According to security.org, since 1999, there have been 440 people who have been killed in school shootings and 1,243 injured. Additionally the coverage for the shootings since Columbine has dwindled significantly in the media due to how common this is in America. Do you know how disturbing that is? Let me say this again. School shootings are so common in America, since Columbine, since 1999, that the coverage has only been a fraction of the coverage of the Columbine massacre, according to security.org. Moreover, school shootings aren't the only mass shootings we have witnessed since 1999.
You have the 2016, Orlando, Florida Pulse Nightclub shooting that left 49 people dead, and 50 wounded (source). You have the Jason Aldean concert in Las Vegas in 2017 that left 59 people dead and more than 500 injured (source). You have the 2019 Walmart shooting in El Paso where 23 people were left dead and 22 injured (source). And more: US Mass Shootings 1982-2025.
So, you can not sit here and try to convince me to have empathy for Charlie Kirk after he stated the right to have bare arms in America far outweighs the bad, that the outcome of gun violence is the risk America needed to take in order to keep guns alive and well in this country while many others died due for the "risk of the reward." Do not try to tell me he is a martyr and is deserving of the recognition that he is getting, because he doesn't. This is not an assassination. He is now just a number in the statistics of gun violence, an issue he supported.
While I will not celebrate his death, I won't cry over him either.
Another source used for this post that I think is very important to look at: Mass Shooting Fact Sheet