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Charlie Kirk shot at UVU event

Jazz Spazz said:
I don’t think this has much to do with “their guy”. I don’t use social media, don’t consume the news of any type and I had no clue who Kirk was or did, and when a friend showed the video of him being shot, once was more than enough. We are not equipped to watch people die and be ok with it. We shouldn’t be. There is a reason people that survive war situations often need help coping with normal life after. Consuming content, entertainment, or whatever that desensitizes or normalizes us from violence, death, rape, or other traumatic types of events is harmful even in small doses over time.

This video was watched by so many people. Kids with phones saw this. Jr high and high school kids are needing people to walk/talk them through the bit of trauma they felt from watching it. Normal people don’t watch someone die like this and shrug it off. They cope how they cope. Cry, laugh/joke, share, whatever… but there is a bit of shock they are experiencing and processing.

I guess people cope here by posting their reactionary take here?

I agree that watching it changes it from some obscure event we use our own imagination to visualize or sort in our minds. When we see someone bleed and die, in a real life setting, it hits harder. It’s different in our minds from seeing the same thing in fictionalized entertainment, though I feel both have an impact. It’s just the scale is bigger irl.

I have more to say, but I’m done typing.
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Yep. 100%
If the same number of americans who saw Charlie Kirk get murdered also saw children being murdered in the same horrific clarity then something might actually be done about it. Maybe not. But people would certainly be more upset about it.

As it stands right now schools get shot up pretty regularly and I will be honest and admit that I just take it in stride and move on with my day and barely mention it. And I volunteer at an elementary school and have so much love for all the kids there.

This thread is 17 pages long in less than a week. The next school shooting where kids die might not even have a thread about it.
 
fishonjazz said:
Yep. 100%
If the same number of americans who saw Charlie Kirk get murdered also saw children being murdered in the same horrific clarity then something might actually be done about it. Maybe not. But people would certainly be more upset about it.

As it stands right now schools get shot up pretty regularly and I will be honest and admit that I just take it in stride and move on with my day and barely mention it. And I volunteer at an elementary school and have so much love for all the kids there.

This thread is 17 pages long in less than a week. The next school shooting where kids die might not even have a thread about it.
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This is total propaganda. I’m just going to copy and paste facts that I responded to red with when he was saying the same bogus lies.

I think you may have been propagandized on this subject and have a skewed perspective. Is 500 deaths a year a lot? Sure, but there are significantly worse problems plaguing our country. You should ask yourself why are politicians so worried about this subject and not others? What do they have to gain from getting support to ban guns in America? Why does the media always make this out to be such a significant issue? 41000 people a year die in car accidents in the US, 913,000 people in the US die every year from heart disease, 619,000 people in the US die every year from cancer, 100,000 people a year in the US die of diabetes. Why no uproar over this? These are preventable deaths too! Where is the ****ing health care uproar?

The media has many people like you believing these mass shootings are happening everywhere all the time and that every other person on the street in America is some sort of psychopath mass murderer and it isn't factual, it's propaganda. There is a very small population of mentally ill people in America getting access to guns that shouldn't have access to them and the bias and corrupt media blows these stories up every single time.

The U.S. has the highest number of mass shootings globally, but the number of deaths varies by definition:
  • Gun Violence Archive (GVA): Defines a mass shooting as an incident where four or more people are shot (injured or killed), excluding the shooter, at the same general time and location. In 2021, GVA reported 706 deaths from mass shootings.


    1756414976820.png
    • In 2023, GVA recorded 503 mass shootings, with an estimated 600–700 deaths based on trends (exact death tolls vary as data is updated).


      1756414976828.png
  • FBI Definition: Defines an "active shooter incident" as one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill in a populated area. In 2021, the FBI reported 103 deaths (excluding perpetrators) from such incidents.


    1756414976836.png
    • In 2023, the FBI reported 105 deaths from active shooter incidents.


      1756414976842.png
  • Mother Jones/Statista: Defines a mass shooting as an indiscriminate rampage in a public place with three or more fatalities (excluding the shooter). As of September 4, 2024, only 8 deaths were reported from two mass shootings in the U.S. for 2024, though this is likely an undercount due to the partial year and stricter definition.


    1756414976848.png
  • Everytown Research: Notes that mass shootings (four or more killed) account for about 1% of U.S. gun deaths. With 46,728 total gun deaths in 2023, this suggests roughly 467 deaths from mass shootings annually, though this varies by year.


    1756414976853.png
Average Estimate: Depending on the definition, U.S. mass shooting deaths range from 100–700 annually, with GVA’s broader definition yielding higher counts (closer to 600–700) and stricter definitions (FBI, Mother Jones) yielding lower counts (100–200).


If you’re a dog lover here’s another stat for you. You should also consider there are 4.5 million dog attacks every year in the USA. 800,000 of those attacks require medical attention. Dogs are dangerous and these attacks drag on our medical system.
 
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Ya I think after this past week some people are going to get louder, fight harder, never surrender, be more aggressive.

I think I will try to go the other route and be quieter, fight less, surrender more often, lose more arguments, not have the last word etc. It will be hard and I wont always succeed. Sometimes im sure that anger and darkness will flow from my hands to the keyboard but hopefully it will be way less often. Maybe over time it will get easier and there will be a snowball effect and I will get to a place where I always behave as if I were on the BYU message board lol.
 
fishonjazz said:
Ya I think after this past week some people are going to get louder, fight harder, never surrender, be more aggressive.

I think I will try to go the other route and be quieter, fight less, surrender more often, lose more arguments, not have the last word etc. It will be hard and I wont always succeed. Sometimes im sure that anger and darkness will flow from my hands to the keyboard but hopefully it will be way less often. Maybe over time it will get easier and there will be a snowball effect and I will get to a place where I always behave as if I were on the BYU message board lol.
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It’s like so many of you circle jerkers made a blood oath to defend democrats to your dying breath. No matter how many friends you lose, or how many time your exposed, or whatever else occurs.
Just go back and look at the first few pages of the thread democrats try and kill democrats page. Thriller was totally exposed as a completely captured ideologue. He was on the wrong side of atrocities time after time and apparently didn’t learn anything about the dangers of his rhetoric and justifications. Even after it was exposed to him then he came back on the wrong side of this Charlie Kirk assassination. He finally had to face the music and I hope he is actually touching some grass, conversing with real people, and reassessing his cult behaviors. Either that or he’s just hoping nobody noticed and he’s trying to lay low for a while, or create a new account. Who knows… I encourage you all to go back and read it. Even the ******** thread title was exposed.
I don’t see any indicators that any of you will, but if you are going to spend another decade wasting your time on this site, I think you should do yourselves a favor and at least be willing to try and learn something while you’re here. Even if it’s just about your own behavior like thriller.
 
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fishonjazz said:
apnews.com

Matthew Dowd's firing begins flood of people facing consequences for their comments on Kirk's death

Former MSNBC analyst Matthew Dowd opened a floodgate of people who faced consequences for statements in the media — social or otherwise — in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk's assassination.
apnews.com apnews.com

MSNBC said Dowd is no longer with the network after his comments, shortly after the shooting, about “hateful words” leading to “hateful actions.” Both MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler and Dowd apologized for the remarks, which Kutler called “inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable.”

Dowd said he didn’t intend for his comments to blame Kirk for the attack. Still, it brought an abrupt interruption to his work as a television commentator, which the former aide to President George W. Bush has done for nearly two decades.

A Florida reporter was suspended for a question posed to a congressman. A comic book writer lost her job because of social media posts, as did educators in Mississippi and Tennessee. “CBS Mornings” host Nate Burleson was attacked for a question. An Arizona sports reporter and a Carolina Panthers public relations official both lost jobs.

The site published a running list Thursday of targeted posts, along with the names, locations and employers of people who posted them. While some posts contained incendiary language, others didn’t appear to celebrate the shooting or glorify violence.

The president of Middle Tennessee State University said he’d fired a staffer who offered “callous and inappropriate comments on social media” about the assassination.

X post by Tennessee GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn identified an assistant dean of students at MTSU who posted online that she had “ZERO sympathy” following the shooting. Blackburn said the person should be ashamed and fired.

The rush to police commentary appeared to have little precedent in other recent examples of political violence, such as the 2022 attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or the shooting deaths earlier this year former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, and her husband Mark.

A writer for the Arizona media company PHNX Sports was fired after conservative activists called attention to a series of online posts that attacked Kirk’s positions on guns and Gaza and called him evil.

Burleson, a former football star turned anchor for CBS News’ morning show, was attacked online for asking former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on the air Thursday whether this was a moment for the Republican party to reflect on political violence.


Damn. Seems like the party of free speech want people punished for saying mean things when someone on the right is killed but have no problem with people saying mean things when someone on the left is killed.

And it's totally fine when one of the biggest stars on the biggest news network says we should kill all homeless people.

Wonder what Charlie Kirk would think of all this.
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Fascist playbook in full swing.
 
LogGrad98 said:
Fascist playbook in full swing.
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Im sure Charlie Kirk's death will get milked for everything possible. Anything can be justified now that this first political attack in history has occurred.
Im sure trump will use this as justification for some future atrocity.
The left is violent and evil. I mean they think all homeless people should be murdered for goodness sake.
 
fishonjazz said:
Yep. 100%
If the same number of americans who saw Charlie Kirk get murdered also saw children being murdered in the same horrific clarity then something might actually be done about it. Maybe not. But people would certainly be more upset about it.

As it stands right now schools get shot up pretty regularly and I will be honest and admit that I just take it in stride and move on with my day and barely mention it. And I volunteer at an elementary school and have so much love for all the kids there.

This thread is 17 pages long in less than a week. The next school shooting where kids die might not even have a thread about it.
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They haven't. A school shooting happened at exactly the time Kirk was shot, got almost zero coverage and barely a mention here. To be honest I don't even know if anyone died, I think the shooter killed himself but the others were just wounded. Just. **** me at how this has become normalized in our society. Oh there was another school shooting today, hey and bread is on sale at Walmart! Better make a note. Buy bread. Disgusting what's happening to our society in front of our very noses.
 
LogGrad98 said:
They haven't. A school shooting happened at exactly the time Kirk was shot, got almost zero coverage and barely a mention here. To be honest I don't even know if anyone died, I think the shooter killed himself but the others were just wounded. Just. **** me at how this has become normalized in our society. Oh there was another school shooting today, hey and bread is on sale at Walmart! Better make a note. Buy bread. Disgusting what's happening to our society in front of our very noses.
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Yes under democrat majority for 16 of the last 20 years
 
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PJF said:
Up yours Cy.


View: https://x.com/akafaceUS/status/1966543033379524895?t=5wXTVT-uhzCgHaSuRAWhBg&s=19
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I’ve seen many statements regarding comments made at that dinner. Not much detail. And I can find no source whatsoever that spells out what that tweet says, anywhere. It appears to be made up. Likely to provide confirmation bias, but with things that were never said in the first place, so just made up. Not surprised, and I do think we all do it, look for confirmation that is, whether we want to admit it or not. But I had to look this up, because it went well past what all other accounts state about that recent dinner.


View: https://x.com/grok/status/1966664156012310913
 
I didn’t follow Charlie Kirk. He wasn’t speaking to me, or for men like myself. At the moment I’m examining the common belief, at least on the Right, that he was a champion of free speech. And now a martyr for free speech. I do think his murder is a turning point in our history, the irony of that fact lining right up with the title of his famous organization, was not lost on me. I’m not sure I can see the man as a true champion of free speech. I do like the “Prove Me Wrong” debate style, and he treated students who came to the mic and disagreed with him respectfully.

But, saying he was a champion of free speech?

AI Overview


There is a strong argument that Charlie Kirk's actions, particularly his organization's "Professor Watchlist," directly contradicted his claims of supporting free speech by attempting to silence or intimidate professors with differing viewpoints
. This has led many critics to describe his free speech advocacy as hypocritical.
The "Professor Watchlist" and free speech debates

In 2016, Kirk's organization, Turning Point USA, launched a "Professor Watchlist," a public database of academics accused of advancing "leftist propaganda". The watchlist has been cited by critics as a clear attempt to silence professors by intimidating them and mobilizing public pressure to punish them for their views.

Critics have argued that this targeting of professors goes against the spirit of free speech for several reasons:
  • Intimidation and fear: Professors included on the list have reported receiving threats and harassment, creating a chilling effect on academic freedom. The American Association of University Professors called the list "the opening salvo in a broader right-wing attack on higher education".
  • Encouraging censorship: By branding opposing ideas as "propaganda," the watchlist encouraged students and others to demand the removal or punishment of professors based on their speech. Some conservative politicians have since followed similar tactics, with incidents in Texas leading to professors being fired after students reported them for discussing gender identity.
  • Disagreement vs. blacklisting: While Kirk often framed his campus visits as promoting open debate, critics argued that the watchlist was not about disagreement but about blacklisting opponents in a modern form of McCarthyism.
Kirk's position on free speech
Despite these actions, Kirk and his supporters presented themselves as champions of free speech on college campuses. They argued that:
  • Challenging "indoctrination": Kirk's efforts were a necessary pushback against what he saw as "woke indoctrination" and liberal bias in higher education.
  • Promoting debate: His campus tours, which featured debates with students, were framed as a way to encourage dialogue and challenge dominant narratives.
  • Defending conservative views: Supporters maintain that Kirk was fighting to protect the free speech rights of conservatives, whom he believed were being censored and marginalized on college campuses.
The tension between Kirk's stated support for free speech and his specific actions targeting professors with different views remains a central point of conflict in discussions about


View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/n3vkVjlkTOE


krcrtv.com

Turning Point USA's professor watchlist sparks fear and controversy

Turning Point USA, founded by far-right conservative activist Charlie Kirk, continues to maintain an online database of university professors they claim "discri
krcrtv.com krcrtv.com


View: https://medium.com/@mboedy/debunking-charlie-kirk-and-his-followers-on-campus-speech-a773b9225ab5


www.theguardian.com

How Charlie Kirk turned campuses into cultural battlefields – and ushered in Trump’s assault on universities

The slain head of Turning Point USA stoked campus culture wars and ‘treated faculty and students as enemies’
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

The man is going to be lionized and hailed as a champion of free speech. Unless you are a left leaning professor at an institution of higher learning. I’m also expecting the Right to go full throttle on cancel culture. Describing Trump’s words and actions for what they actually are may become all but impossible, with Bondi launching investigations of anyone doing that. So, his death may really have a chilling effect on free speech.

And I’ll also say I’ve long felt the internet and its social media platforms may be the death of civilization itself. Just as the Governor of Utah said to America the other day. It is a poison. It’s made me say things and exhibit a personality that is combative and angry. That cannot be doing me any good whatsoever. In other words, I do not for one second think I’ve avoided the worst effects of being online so much. What the hell did I do before the internet, lol.

Finally, there are people on this forum who feel genuine pain and grief at Kirk’s murder. I would never wish the pain of grief on any of those fellow posters, no matter how much I’ve attacked them, or their positions. No matter how much I believe they support an American fascist in Donald Trump. If Kirk meant that much to you, like a family member even, I am sorry for your loss.
 
str8line said:
Shocking that people listen to this guy and support him. He wants to take down the USA. That's what he's doing. With everything I used to feel about Hitler, as he arrogantly and psychotically took down Germany, I feel the same way about what Trump is doing right now. He's doing the same things that Hitler did early in his time of unlimited power, years before WW2. My parents lived through that hell and family suffered massively. It's just so shocking we have that type of leader and so many Americans are fully buying into it. Making a martyr out of Charlie ****ing Kirk is just another step in the authoritarian playbook. On the same day as the assassination Congress quashed the Epstein files and The Supreme Court said ICE could profile and drag people away. That is what Hitler did to his own populace. It's so ****ing disgusting I really wish I could move away. So when will Trump invade Poland?
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View: https://x.com/lumea25/status/1966846626343121123
 
PJF said:

View: https://x.com/RealJamesWoods/status/1966578517724078404?t=-HXkc0eWdDPBPpRiRzZiEw&s=19
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Sarah Churchwell’s essay from 5 years ago can help clarify why all those speakers are correct in identifying Trump as a Fascist ideologue. It was never a case of saying Trump is our Hitler. Fascism is always rooted in the history and culture out of which it emerges as a political movement.

I think one of the serious misunderstandings in our divided country, when it comes to the belief that Trump is a fascist is that supporters of Trump immediately equate it with meaning the same as “Trump is another Hitler”.

The paragraphs I’ve excerpted below, from Churchwell’s 2020 essay, can clarify why people have been both willing, and accurately able to, identify Trump as fascist and MAGA as a fascist political movement. It’s become “just another dirty word for Trump”, but it isn’t a dirty word. It’s an accurate statement. Once you understand the elements that define fascism, and once one recognizes fascism will be Americanized when it appears in the United States. Foucus on those two things, the elements that describe fascism, and what an Americanized “specie” of fascism would look like. I knew Jimmy Woods very well, years ago. He’s a genius, crazy high IQ, but that doesn’t make him enlightened.

Telling the truth about Trump is not the cause of Charlie Kirk being murdered.

“American Fascism: It Has Happenned Here”


“An American fascism would, by definition, deploy American symbols and American slogans. “Do not look for them to raise aloft the swastika,” Wise warned, “or to employ any of the popular forms of Fascism” from Europe. Fascism’s ultra-nationalism means that it works by normalizing itself, drawing on familiar national customs to insist it is merely conducting political business as usual.

Samuel Moyn recently argued in these pages against comparing Trump’s policies to fascism, because his administration is “pursuing causes with roots deep in American history. No analogy to Hitler or fascism is needed to explain these results.” But this presumes that fascism does not have its own deep roots in American history. It is arguable—not to say, exceptionalist—to presuppose that anything indigenously American cannot be fascist; this begs the question of American fascism rather than disputing it. Experts on fascism such as Robert O. Paxton, Roger Griffin, and Stanley G. Payne have long argued that fascism can never seem alien to its followers; its claims to speak for “the people” and to restore national greatness mean that each version of fascism must have its own local identity. To believe that a nationalist movement isn’t fascist because it’s native is to miss the point entirely.

THIS: Paxton has argued influentially that fascism is as fascism does. But conspicuous features are recognizably shared, including: nostalgia for a purer, mythic, often rural past; cults of tradition and cultural regeneration; paramilitary groups; the delegitimizing of political opponents and demonization of critics; the universalizing of some groups as authentically national, while dehumanizing all other groups; hostility to intellectualism and attacks on a free press; anti-modernism; fetishized patriarchal masculinity; and a distressed sense of victimhood and collective grievance. Fascist mythologies often incorporate a notion of cleansing, an exclusionary defense against racial or cultural contamination, and related eugenicist preferences for certain “bloodlines” over others. Fascism weaponizes identity, validating the herrenvolk and invalidating all the other folk”.

(That last paragraph includes very familiar elements seen in Trump’s movement. It describes many of the recognizable elements of the MAGA movement and is largely behind why the American citizens that Woods is singling out to quote, and to blame, for Charlie Kirk’s death, are only stating what is obvious to millions of Americans.
 
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