No one deserves to have somebody sneak past security, climb to a rooftop with a high-powered rifle and take a shot at them.
And, no one deserves to sit on a stage with a microphone in his hand and barely finish a sentence — about violence, no less — and have a bullet explode in his neck.
And, certainly, no one deserves to have his bloody, ghastly murder playing on repeat in slow motion from six different angles on every social media platform.
No one deserves that. Ever.
That said, not everyone deserves to be a martyr.
America was rightly shocked by the murder of Charlie Kirk.
Even in a country built on the cornerstone of violence, that openly markets violence and has more guns than anyone can count, Kirk’s murder opened a lot of eyes.
Kirk, 31, a polarizing conservative political youth organizer, was in the middle of an outdoor question and answer session on the campus of Utah Valley University Wednesday afternoon when a loud shot rang out, killing him almost instantly.
Video of the shooting posted on social media shows Kirk in a white t-shirt seated under a white tent, addressing a question about mass shootings, when the sound of a single gunshot rings out.
Blood can be seen gushing from Kirk’s neck before he drops a microphone, topples from his chair and falls to the floor.
Investigators said the shooter fired from a rooftop several hundred feet away, and escaped in the ensuing chaos
A suspect, Tyler Robinson, 22, was arrested on Friday.
Kirk, the co-founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, was a close Trump ally, and a friend to many in his administration.
Shortly after Kirk’s death, Trump ordered flags across the nation, at military posts, and at embassies to remain flown at half-staff until Sunday, according to a White House proclamation.
Trump later announced that he will posthumously award Kirk with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the same award he sullied recently by similarly honoring former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
“Charlie was a giant of his generation, a champion of liberty and an inspiration to millions and millions of people,” Trump said last week.
The body of Kirk, who is survived by his wife and their two young children, was flown Thursday aboard Air Force Two from Utah to his home state of Arizona.
Vice President Vance skipped an appearance at Ground Zero on Sept. 11 to escort Kirk’s body back to Arizona.
Trump’s crassest detractors described the posthumous pageantry as “overkill.”
Bad choice of language, but the sentiment warrants scrutiny.
When former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, her husband, Mark, and their dog were killed in their home in an attack that Minnesota’s chief federal prosecutor called an assassination, there were no lowered flags, no medals of freedom, no lengthy presidential eulogy.
Trump didn’t even go to their funerals. That day, he played a round of golf.
Charlie Kirk was revered by many, but certainly not by all. Here’s why:
— “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.”
— “If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?”
— “America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.”
— “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.”
It’s not rational. It wasn’t rational then. It isn’t rational now.
Charlie Kirk had a wife and children. But so did Medgar Evers. So did Martin Luther King Jr.
So did Malcolm X.
None of them had it coming.
