The Charlie Kirk Thread

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Lots of motives other than conservative vs liberal:

- anti-vaxxer. Kirk and TPUSA strongly pushed sentiment against COVID vaccines in the early surge of the anti-vax movement.

And an anti-vaxxer just killed a cop while shooting up the CDC, likely motivated by people like Kirk.

- Racism/Islamophobia/anti-immigrant. Kirk claims to be against white-supremacy but he rubs elbows w racists and neo-nazis and platforms them at conferences.

- misogyny

- homophobic

- separation of church and state. He's preaches hard-core Christian nationalist doctrine.

- gun culture promoter. Plenty of victims of gun violence could be angry w people like Kirk.

- climate change denial. More than a skeptic, called it a hoax.

- 2020 election denier

All things that have nothing to do with fiscal conservatives, or free market, or "small gov".
 
p5mmr9 said:
Just because the most irresponsible among us are being irresponsible - doesn't mean it is right to follow suit.
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This is a message board, you realize.

I’d say it’s irresponsible to assign motive, especially for anyone with a real platform from which to do so. It’s not irresponsible to discuss motive, especially on a message board. Two very different things.
 
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UNCBAdookJD said:
There weren’t really any indicators of Luigi being a pro other than he knew where the guy would be and initially got away. He shot that CEO at point blank and ran. This shot is a completely different animal. That accuracy at that distance is a very well-trained shooter. A shot like that isn’t going to be pulled off by someone who just decided to kill someone and went to the range a couple times after buying the gun. Also had a very well put together plan to be able to get away in a crowd that large. Almost certainly has a military, law enforcement, or extensive hunting background.
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I was a hunter in a previous life so I'm familiar with firearms and understand that this shot required considerable skill. Some random dude off the street is unlikely to pull it off but you don't have to be Chris Kyle either with modern equipment. Maybe I'm just misinterpreting the term "trained hand" in comparison to the "lone crazy" in the original tweet. I was thinking someone with special forces training or similar. I could definitely see the shooter being former military / law enforcement or an experienced hunter as you said. Then again, the PA shooter was just some young guy who went to the shooting range with his dad and he barely missed a similar shot because Trump turned his head.
 
rodoheel said:
I think we all understand that this is the move for right wingers but don’t honestly understand what you’re saying people on the left should do differently in response to it. Yes, traits like empathy and compassion and restraint can seem like weakness in the face of people who have no morals and will go to any lengths to seize and hold power. But the idea that the left can somehow just “out-dirt bag” the right into becoming reasonable people again and lead us to a more harmonious democracy seems absolutely crazy. It will not work. It will lead to a never ending cycle of retribution and grievance far worse than anything we have now. It sounds like the logic that has led the Middle East into the most intractable conflict imaginable.
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There are two issues. First is my model of our democracy as a prisoners' dilemma. Second is the feasibility of alternatives. You can think highly of the first and be skeptical of the second.

What I know is that things have to change. Do you want to live in a country in which every election brings the threat of fascism? Where every single news cycle is charged and fraught with threats of violence, exclusion, demonization?
 
CFordUNC said:
I know it's only a few hours after the shooting and that there's plenty that law enforcement is probably having to sift through, but tt's really unsettling to me that we haven't caught the shooter and have zero idea what the shooter's motivations were.

I know it's reckless to speculate but having had the extremely ignominious misfortune of having seen the video clip of the killing on social media, it seems to me that either the shooter was one of the luckiest shots I've ever seen or extremely well-trained and proficient. It appears that it was a single shot that hit Kirk in one of the smallest yet absolute worst places for a human being to be wounded- the area around the carotid and juglar, from what was apparently multiple hundred yards away.

Really scary stuff.
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Pro
 
SnoopRob said:
I'd go far enough to say that's very likely someone who's had some experience with a firearm, but that doesn't necessarily mean they've had any specialized training, either.
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200 yards with a scoped rifle is easy if it’s sighted in properly (and you can pay to have that done for you with the ammo and distance of your choice).
 
BlooVooDoo said:
200 yards with a scoped rifle is easy if it’s sighted in properly (and you can pay to have that done for you with the ammo and distance of your choice).
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It's not terribly hard if you've got some experience with shooting at decent distances in a variety of situations...I would be surprised if a novice could do it very well. Especially once you add in the nerves of knowing that you're about to shoot a person and all hell will break loose once you pull the trigger.
 
SnoopRob said:
It's not terribly hard if you've got some experience with shooting at decent distances in a variety of situations...I would be surprised if a novice could do it very well. Especially once you add in the nerves of knowing that you're about to shoot a person and all hell will break loose once you pull the trigger.
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Sure. Not a novice. Someone who has shot enough to hold zero and not flinch when squeezing the trigger, but far from expert.
 
duluoz said:
This is a message board, you realize.

I’d say it’s irresponsible to assign motive, especially for anyone with a real platform from which to do so. It’s not irresponsible to discuss motive, especially on a message board. Two very different things.
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Huh? What does the platform have to do with responsibility? It absolutely is irresponsible to discuss motive when we have no idea even who a suspect is in this murder. It's irresponsible to discuss motive whether you are a major politician, media figure, or an idiot sitting on your sofa posting on your phone. There is no difference. We know nothing about the perpetrator. Assigning motive in that situation is ridiculous. "Anonymously" posting online does not leave you without responsibility.
 
p5mmr9 said:
Huh? What does the platform have to do with responsibility? It absolutely is irresponsible to discuss motive when we have no idea even who a suspect is in this murder. It's irresponsible to discuss motive whether you are a major politician, media figure, or an idiot sitting on your sofa posting on your phone. There is no difference. We know nothing about the perpetrator. Assigning motive in that situation is ridiculous. "Anonymously" posting online does not leave you without responsibility.
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I would say it’s fine to discuss the shooter’s potential motives and even to make grounded assumptions about said motive, as long one is clear that these are assumptions and not known facts.

It’s wrong to assign a motive to the shooter as if said motive is factual and to not be clear that said motive is an assumption.
 
Rock said:
Pretty wild to me that they still don’t have the shooter in custody.
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People are saying that Trump did this for relief from the Epstein storm and that we’ll never really know what happened here…like Epstein’s mysterious death.

Who knows what really happened, but we are headed to unsolved conspiracy possible House of Cards mess.
 
SnoopRob said:
I would say it’s fine to discuss the shooter’s potential motives and even to make grounded assumptions about said motive, as long one is clear that these are assumptions and not known facts.

It’s wrong to assign a motive to the shooter as if said motive is factual and to not be clear that said motive is an assumption.
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I think it’s safe on IC…
 
Recall the D.C. sniper attacks in 2002.
Speculation ran wild. Who had 2 black dudes shooting from the trunk of a Caprice on their bingo card in that one?

Nobody knows squat about who the perp is in this new incident or what the motive is/was.

And I will add, though it is indeed horrific, and a tragedy for the family - and thoughts and prayers are with all involved, I find it disingenuous for this particular murderous event to supersede all other tragic shooting deaths which happen on the daily. The Democratic politicians who were just murdered for example, or the numerous school shootings, etc.
All are tragic. All are horrific. I see no reason to let this new murderous, tragic, horrifying event overshadow all of the others.

Mind you, I’m not advocating for ignoring this terrible stuff and allowing us all to be numb to it, turning a blind eye to it, thereby normalizing the tragedies. No, of course not. But to canonize the recently departed in this murder in Utah would seem to diminish the lives lost all over the Nation due to gun violence.
 
rodoheel said:
Yeah obviously you have to have training with a firearm to accurately shoot someone at range. I just mean in the “lone wolf vs vast conspiracy” dynamic, it is not as hard as people like to make it seem for a “lone wolf” with some firearms training to do this.
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It's essentially like swishing an unguarded three-point shot. Could your average Joe in Wal-Mart do it with one attempt? Probably not. But it also doesn't exactly take Steph Curry.
 
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