By Lynda Kirkpatrick
This is going to offend some of you; however, nothing is as irritating as someone who dies, and here comes someone to make a martyr out of them. Where were all these MAGA Republicans when parents all over the nation were burying their children who were murdered in their schools? They were standing up and shouting about how these crazies had a right to own an assault weapon. Where was Charlie Kirk? He said, and I quote, “I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.” Rationale for innocent little children to be murdered. Rational for people to be shot dead in their church. Rationale for Minnesota House Democratic-Farmer-Labor caucus leader, Melissa Hortman, and her husband to be shot dead in their home. This list can go on and on.
Charlie Kirk was a MAGA commentator and ally for Donald Trump. He was known for his incendiary and often racist, sexist comments to large audiences on podcasts, college campuses, and wherever he showed up. He was accountable to no one in his bigotry toward anyone who did not line up with his way of thinking. His racist remarks were offensive. He claimed that Black people were better off under slavery and that the Civil Rights Act was a “huge mistake” and called Martin Luther King, Jr, “an awful person”.
Kirk was very vocal about his opinion of women. He often encouraged young college women to “get married and have babies and submit to your husband” as opposed to having a career. He made no secret that he condemned the LGBTQ to hell and said that “Democrats stand for everything that God hates.”
Needless to say, I did not agree with Charlie Kirk’s ranting, bigotry; however, it is a sad day that another person falls victim to gun violence.
Whatever his beliefs, the killing of Charlie Kirk at a campus event in Utah is tragic. Nancy Mace, a Republican congressperson from South Carolina, told a gathering of reporters that “Democrats own what happened today.” Was Ms. Mace absent from Congress all this time that Democrats have put bill after bill on the floor to regulate gun control? How many times did Nancy Mace and the majority of the Republican Congress vote against background checks? One of the first things Donald Trump did as President was sign an executive order allowing the mentally challenged to own a weapon.
We all know there is plenty of blame to go around. One person to blame for what happened to Charlie Kirk is Charlie Kirk himself. His bold stand on gun violence in America was “Oh well.” This rhetoric is deeply entrenched in partisan politics and encouraged by a president who glories in violence.
The NRA put a lot of money into getting their candidates elected. They gave over $2 million to lobbying in the last election. They spent over $4 million for campaigns against Democrats. They spent almost $11 million on outside spending alone to Republican candidates. To keep this money coming into their campaigns, politicians will vote in favor of bills to benefit their largest contributors, like the NRA, which can afford to keep the money flowing. Just follow the money.
Gun violence is an epidemic in America today. At the same time Charlie Kirk was being brutally shot, another school shooting was also taking place in Evergreen, Colorado.
A former Arizona Democratic Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot and suffered a severe brain injury in 2012 and is now a passionate advocate for preventing gun violence, made the statement, “Democratic societies will always have political disagreements, but we must never allow America to become a country that confronts those disagreements with violence.” We have already allowed it. America already is that country.
To the family of Charlie Kirk, I send my thoughts and prayers.
Lynda Kirkpatrick