First off, let me state that until about 48 hours ago, I had no idea whom Charlie Kirk was, nor for what he stood. However, that changed when I heard the news of his death and some of his "conservative" extremist political ideology. While I'm not celebrating his shooting, I'm not going to feel sorry for him or mourn his passing. Karma can be a bitch with a long memory. It gets everyone in the end, so be careful what you preach because it will come back to bite you in the long run ...

Here's what I've heard and read about Charlie Kirk:

• He died after being shot in the neck while addressing a crowd during his “Prove Me Wrong” campus tour at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
• In 2023, Kirk asserted, “It’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.”
• He also dismissed empathy as “a made-up New Age term that has done a lot of damage.”
• Charlie Kirk’s own demise is consistent with his purported worldview of "some gun deaths are acceptable". (Are such deaths unacceptable when they happen to oneself or one's own demographic? If not, why not?)

Why, then, would you be outraged that his death is by gunfire? If one accepts this logic, why then be upset when it happens to one? The wave of protest following Mr. Kirk's death is only just getting started. Surely, we will see it grow, and it’s not going to challenge gun laws. It’s going to focus on how unfair it is that this happened — that this happened to a Conservative white man, no matter that he advocated for exactly the situation that killed him.

If you feel strongly about this, I challenge you to further examine those feelings. Would you still be outraged if the collateral damage for which Charlie Kirk advocated was in the form of a Black person? How about an Indigenous one? How about if it was a trans* person, or other member of the LGBTQIA community? What about someone who's disabled, or maybe a sex worker? Maybe you'd be OK with that, but I'm not.

Gun violence in the United States is at a crisis point. According to the CDC [1], in 2023 there were 46 728 firearm-related deaths, representing a rate of 14.0 per 100 000 people; this places guns firmly among the top causes of preventable death nationwide. Even more alarming, firearms have become the leading cause of death for children and adolescents. Researchers at Johns Hopkins found that in 2022 more than 48 000 Americans died from gun-related injuries, and for the third straight year, firearms caused more deaths among those aged 1 to 17 than any other cause. [2]

Among children, the rate of firearm deaths has increased sharply — by over 100 percent since 2013 — and Black children and teens are disproportionately affected. In 2022, Black youth faced a firearm death rate 18 times higher than their white peers. In 2023 alone, about 2 581 children aged 17 and under died from firearm-related incidents — nearly four per 100 000 children — making gun violence nearly three times more deadly than drowning and reaffirming its position as the leading cause of death in that age group. [3] Even at the lowest state-by-state rates, the United States fared much worse than comparable nations. If child firearm deaths were at Canada’s level, approximately 30 000 lives would have been saved since 2010. [4]

Research consistently shows that policy can make a difference. States implementing universal background checks experience an 11.2 percent lower homicide rate, and one study found that requiring permits to purchase guns [5] corresponds with an average 18 percent decline in firearm homicides, more effective than background checks alone. Waiting-period laws delaying gun access have consistently reduced homicides by around 17 percent. [6]

What does this mean? It means that stronger, evidence-based policies can (and do) save lives. [7] Who knows? Maybe if he’d advocated for stricter gun regulations than deciding that some gun-related deaths were "acceptable", Charlie Kirk would still be alive and spewing forth his ideas.

Empathy is far from the "New Age luxury" Kirk claimed it to be. Empathy is, in fact, one of humanity’s most essential qualities. It anchors us, fosters cooperation, and helps us to honor each other’s humanity (instead of diminish it). Empathy is what bridges isolation and sustains society. When empathy is dismissed or demeaned, suffering becomes easier to ignore, violence easier to rationalise, and death easier to accept. This is why many of us can see that Kirk contributed to his own demise, but aren’t planning to celebrate it. Empathy exists and some of us have it.

Violent death of any kind is a tragedy. But if someone so explicitly minimizes the value of human life, then the absence of outrage at the loss of his own should not come as a surprise. Lack of grief for Charlie Kirk does not reflect approval of the actions that took it, but a shock at how low our discourse has sunk.

Charlie Kirk may have done a lot of damage in his short life, but here is a lesson to pull from his death: When you advocate for something that can harm others, you should probably remember that it can happen to you, too. (Those living in glass houses will do well to not throw stones.)

May Charlie Kirk's corpse rot in pieces.