Conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on September 10 while speaking at a debate series at Utah Valley University. Debate topics before his death included religion, LGBTQ+ rights and gun violence. The political weight and shock surrounding the death of a prominent figure sparked a number of controversies concerning issues of gun violence, political violence and empathy, among others. 

As for debates of gun violence, my stance is this: Gun violence does not discriminate, and enhanced laws on both the state and federal levels aimed at preventing gun violence would benefit all political parties equally. 

However, in an unfortunate way, Kirk cannot escape the irony of his own death. This was a man who openly campaigned for a pullback on firearm restriction laws, and following the Parkland shooting in 2018, advocated on behalf of the National Rifle Association. Kirk also made comments in a 2023 speech at an event for his nonprofit Turning Point USA where he stated that gun deaths are “worth it” to protect the second amendment. 

As he and his family began to receive floods of support following the shooting, the public was reminded of other comments of his where he described the value of empathy as a “made-up, new-age term” that “does a lot of damage.” Charlie Kirk supported and martyred his own death, and while I am against gun violence and I myself advocate for stricter gun laws to prevent mass shootings across the country, his actions make it difficult for me to find within myself sympathy for his situation, when he has not shared any sympathy for victims of violence in the past and preached values based in hatred. 

Kirk’s death similarly sparked widespread discussions of what exactly are empathy and sympathy, and where, on both sides of the political spectrum, does ones’ empathy, or lack thereof, become hypocritical? In this matter I look to the following arguments that I have seen and implore each one of you to reflect on them with me. 

Argument 1: Charlie Kirk’s death was unjustified because he had a family.

Argument 2: Kirk’s death was unjustified because he was simply enacting his right to free speech. 

Argument 3: Political violence is never okay or justified.

I do not disagree with these statements. I sympathize with his young children, condemn political violence, and ardently support freedom of speech. Rather, in response, I look particularly to those who have now, for the first time, broken their silence on political violence, gun death, and justice in the aftermath of Kirk’s death. Your hypocrisy lies here: 

17 people were killed in the Parkland shooting and roughly 200 more in school-shooting deaths since. Where were your prayers and sympathies then? Current statistics estimate that 20,000 children have been killed by the Israeli state since October 2023. Where was your condemnation of political violence then?

You say you don’t support violence in any form. Why are you silent about police brutality? Why are you silent when the Supreme Court rules that ICE can enact racial profiling to arrest individuals without cause? You shout that Kirk died for exercising free speech. Why do you show no concern when the Trump administration bans 350 words such as “inclusion,” “diversity,” “climate change,” “women,” “bias” and anti-racism, and targets research that includes these ideas. You feel no fear when late-night hosts are pulled off air for criticizing Trump, when the administration pulls public media funding for engaging in “woke” ideology? Where is your concern then?

Violence benefits no one, and you cannot only show sympathy when the victim’s existence benefits your own. In the wake of Kirk’s death, I optimistically see ahead a period of reflection and awakening as we examine our own biases and grow to unite ourselves for change in aim of the common good.