[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
Turning Point USA founder and conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was the target of an assassin on Wednesday afternoon as he fielded questions from a large audience during an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Amid a student Q&A session, a shot rang out, reportedly from a building about 200 yards from the stage, and witnesses attest that Charlie was shot in the neck. Video captures show him flinching from a neck wound. Kirk’s security team whisked him to safety. The event erupted into chaos as attendees fled, but in short order social media circulated claims that a suspect was in custody. It seems to be an older white male, but details have not been confirmed.
As of this writing, reports are that Kirk’s condition is clearly serious but not life-threatening. Fortunately, unlike at the site of Trump’s assassination attempt last year in Butler, Pennsylvania, no other injuries have been reported.
JD Vance weighed in online: “Say a prayer for Charlie Kirk, a genuinely good guy and a young father.”
FBI Director Kash Patel wrote, “We are closely monitoring reports of the tragic shooting involving Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University. Our thoughts are with Charlie, his loved ones, and everyone affected. Agents will be on the scene quickly and the FBI stands in full support of the ongoing response and investigation.”
“Pray for Charlie and all other innocents,” tweeted Ben Shapiro.
The Daily Wire’s Isabel Brown posted, “Desperately praying for @charliekirk11 and his family. Please pray like you never have before.”
Brace yourself for the usual deflections from the Left-wing media as they try to justify the shooting with such excuses as “Kirk is a polarizing figure,” as well as the predictable, outright gleeful gloating on Left-wing social media outlets like Bluesky. Such hateful rhetoric, including the Left’s vicious and routine demonization of their political opponents as Nazis and fascists, is precisely what leads to everyone from Catholic schoolchildren to the President of the United States – and now Charlie Kirk – being targeted for murder.
As Charlie himself posted back in April,
Assassination culture is spreading on the left. Forty-eight percent of liberals say it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk. Fifty-five percent said the same about Donald Trump.
In California, activists are naming ballot measures after Luigi Mangione.
The left is being whipped into a violent frenzy. Any setback, whether losing an election or losing a court case, justifies a maximally violent response.
This is the natural outgrowth of left-wing protest culture tolerating violence and mayhem for years on end. The cowardice of local prosecutors and school officials have turned the left into a ticking time bomb.
Join us in praying for Charlie, husband and father of two young children, and in praying for America, which is in the grip of surging political violence from the hate-America Left.
