The Charlie Kirk Thread

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WaynetheDrain said:
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Wow. Haven't paid this guy any attention so don't know much about him. But here he is comparing deaths from cars to death by guns as similar. And even mentioning having armed guards in schools as necessary to have this unregulated freedom (which he wants). But his audience buys it and doesn't get the difference. No one drives their cars with the intent to kill. But they often buy guns with that intent.
 
CFordUNC said:
I've been thinking about this for the last couple of hours. It's hard for me to square how I'm feeling about it all. Obviously, I loathe and condemn any and all violence or killing in all forms, political or apolitical. And I absolutely detest any human being who extinguishes the life of another with hatred, malice, or intent.

That said, I find myself not really feeling sorry for Charlie himself, aside from feeling sad for him that he'll never hug his wife or kiss his children ever again. As a husband and father of two very young children in my mid-30's, that is the part that tugs my heartstrings the most. But I don't really feel sorry for Charlie, because I believe that his use of his enormous visibility to platform hatred and sow division, for profit, for has caused harm to a lot of people in our country. Does that mean he deserved to die for his views and beliefs? Absolutely, positively, unequivocally NOT. I hate that he's dead, and I hate even more the reason that he's dead. But it's hard to feel sorry for someone who proudly boasted that people dying as a result of gun violence is a necessary sacrifice for the Second Amendment. I'm a gun owner and a believer in the right to own guns, and I find his notion that human lives are necessary sacrifices for other humans to be able to own firearms.

I do feel deep, heartfelt sadness and sympathy for his wife, his children, and his parents. None of them should have to bury a 31-year-old husband, father, and son because of (probable) politically-motivated violence. I feel sadness for all of them and sincerely pray that they find some semblance of peace, comfort, and strength in the hours and days ahead. I hope they have all of the support and help they need.

It's so disheartening and dismaying that we live in a society today where children being massacred in their classrooms, politicians being massacred in their homes, and political commentators being murdered at speaking events has become so commonplace, so *NOT* unusual, and so frequent, that so many people's immediate reaction is to figure out how to best utilize the senseless loss of other human lives to score political points.
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I've been thinking about not only this event, but my reaction to it, as well.

I mourn deeply for our country and our society today because of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. No one should die for their personal or political beliefs and what happened today to Kirk is horrifying for our nation. As we know all too well, political violence largely begets more political violence and I am afraid for our country and our society what future violence will be the result of today's events. I am deeply concerned for what actions will be taken because of and defended under the banner of what happened today in Utah and for those who will be the victims of those actions. I greatly fear that this will be one more large brick in the wall that divides our nation and our society and leads it further down the path toward greater pain and suffering.

I mourn for Charlie Kirk's two children. No child should grow up without a parent due to violence. The impacts on them will last for the entirety of their lives and I am sorry for their loss and what that loss will mean for them. I truly hope for them that, at some point, they are able to find healing for this loss and that the negative repercussions in their lives can be minimized as much as possible.

I do not mourn for Charlie Kirk. I do not celebrate his death, instead I am very, very apathetic. Kirk was a terrible person who advocated for terrible ideas and actions that led to pain and suffering for large swaths of the American public. He actively worked toward discrimination against large groups of people in our country and, directly and indirectly, contributed to violence against others on scales both large and small. Because of his horrendous actions toward humanity, I find that I cannot be sad about the loss of his life in any way personal to him, and instead find that it really doesn't affect me at all.

I also do not mourn for Charlie Kirk's family, friends, and professional relationships. I find myself largely apathetic toward them, as well, as they knowingly and, presumably, enthusiastically embraced all the terrible ideas and actions that he promulgated. And for that, I don't find myself terribly sympathetic to them for their loss. I wouldn't want any further harm to come to them, but I also can't muster up any real sympathy for them. I do hope that they are able to find peace and healing, if not for themselves, for those that their unresolved pain would inevitably cause to be harmed.

I do worry a bit for myself as to what this means in that I know that in the face of inhumanity, the kind created and advocated for by Charlie Kirk and his peers, that one's own humanity is often difficult to maintain. I hope that my reaction doesn't indicate that I am losing my own humanity having lived through the last 10+ years of the rise of fascism in the US (and around the world). I am comforted by the fact that, in the hypothetical exercise of "If you had the power to stop this event...", that I would stop Kirk's death as I believe it should not have occurred, but I am also distressed by my lack of emotional concern that it has occurred in reality. While I know I will continue to follow the details of Kirk's assassination, and even argue about it on message boards, my personal reaction is where I will spend most of my time and energy reacting to this event, hoping to largely control the things I can control in such a terrible time as this.
 
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.
 
ZZLPHeels said:
Right after the 34 time convicted felon apologizes for the attack on the Capitol, the attack on Governor Shapiro, the attack on Paul Pelosi, the attack on Democrats in Minnesota, and the attack on the CDC.
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The country knew about the "felonies" and Trump still won the popular vote which means you are in the minority. What does it say about how piss-poor of a job the country must have felt the Democrats did to elect a 34 time convicted felon?
 
Callatoroy said:
So you rebut my comment completely ignoring 13 other arrests, including a felony. LOL. The judge made him write a letter of promise for fuck's sake. And you likely think everything was handled appropriately I bet. Soft on crime is the badge the left wears proudly. How about a little more accountability than writing a letter promising something for 14 arrests and a diagnosed schizophrenic? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see how that could go horrible wrong. You can also follow the DEI trail of those involved to see that it was predictable.
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You don’t have an understanding of the facts or the law here. He was charged with the misdemeanor of misusing 911 back in January. The charge stemmed from him having an episode where he thought someone was putting “materials” in his body to control him. When the police responded and tried to talk him down, he called the 911 on them, thinking they were in on it. They then arrested him.

Nobody is going to be sitting in jail for that. By NC law, the magistrate (it was not a judge) was required to set conditions of release for that charge, which she did. In addition, the US and NC Constitutions prohibit excessive bond. To be frank, the State probably was not going to be able to get a conviction in that charge because they would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he knowingly misused 911. Based on the psychotic episode he was having, he most likely did not knowingly misuse 911. He most likely believed he was using it for its intended purpose.

But let’s say hypothetically that he was not released from jail after that arrest. Based on his prior record level, the maximum sentence he could have faced for being convicted of misusing 911 was 45 days. So after sitting in jail for 45 days awaiting his next court date, one of two things would have happened: (1) his lawyer would have moved for his bond to be unsecured, resulting in his release, since he had already served his maximum punishment, or (2) he could have pled guilty and, under NC law, the judge could sentence him to no more than the time he served, thus resulting in his release. So even if he was held in jail, he would have been released a long time ago anyway.

As the claim of 14 arrests, there were not actually 14 separate arrests. There had been 14 charges. A number of those charges occurred during the same arrest as they arose out of the same incident. (Referring to those charges as 14 arrests would be like referring to Donald Trump’s 34 charges in NY as 34 arrests. Trump was not arrested 34 times, however). Many of them were for minor offenses, including disorderly conduct.

As for his felonies, he had been convicted in all of those matters. Two of them were from 2014 and arose out of the same incident. They were low level (Class H) felonies. The last one was the more serious one. That was for robbery with a dangerous weapon from 2015. When he was sentenced, the judge imposed the maximum sentence he could legally receive for that offense, which was 73-100 months (6 years, 1 month to 8 years, 4 months). Under NC structured sentencing, every sentence has a minimum and a corresponding maximum. That was the highest minimum and corresponding maximum he could receive by law. Pursuant to NC law, he was given credit for the 176 days he had already served while in custody awaiting arraignment (he remained in custody while that case was pending). Once a defendant goes to prison, they have an opportunity to work their sentence down to the minimum— and no less than the minimum (in this case 73 months)— if they participate in rehabilitative programming, work jobs, while incarcerated, and avoid serious infractions. He worked his case down to the minimum of 73 months and was released on September 20, 2020. He was then placed on post-release supervision for 12 months as required by law. That ended on September 20, 2021.

As for him being schizophrenic, that is not a crime. Also, one cannot be involuntarily committed simply for being schizophrenic.

So despite the narrative that some want to push that someone in the criminal justice system did something wrong or was soft on crime, that was not all the case. Now, you could certainly point to a lack of availability and/or affordability of metal health treatment as a problem.
 
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I made a promise to myself not to follow the news after Trumps 2nd election. I doom scrolled the first, and was engaged with the news on a daily basis. This time, I have a young son to raise, and I'll be damned if I waste my time that could be spent with him getting sucked into these stories.

I checked in on this thread, because it's a big story. And I wanted to lament the toxicity of our political rhetoric that leads to this kind of stuff.

From someone who is basically checked out of the news, coming onto this thread and reading it is just nutso. It's fucking CRAZY how much rage and outrage are driving people on this thread, on both sides of the issue. I'm not used to it...I'm like someone who hasn't had a drink in a decade taking a couple shots of whiskey and getting soused by it. I'm going to close down now & go spend some time with my kid. Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
 
Im sincerely not going to be able to occupy this world and environment much longer. I cannot take everyone hating everyone. Im not built for that.
 
sringwal said:
Charlie Kirk has very little of my respect, but I do not wish this on him. I hope that the shooter is caught as soon as possible, and faces serious consequences. All murder is wrong, but political assassination is right up there with hate crimes for me as the worst of the worst.
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I think of hate crimes as being crimes against a person for their personal qualities. What were Kirk's personal qualities that brought about this attack? There zillions of other vocal, public conservatives that weren't targeted with a bullet today, so what makes Kirk different?
 
wmheel1287 said:
There was no misinterpreting of what you said or what you intended in that moment. You just now would like to walk it back because you realize the overzealous nature of what you said.

I was never "calling you out" to begin with. I asked you twice to stop adding to the bitter environment that already saturates our daily lives. You responded by lashing out at me in the same manner you were lashing out at others. That I did call out.
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I was not lashing out at you. I was calling out your singling me out to dial it back when this board sews hatred every day, and from which I infrequently participate.
 
TarSpiel said:
I made a promise to myself not to follow the news after Trumps 2nd election. I doom scrolled the first, and was engaged with the news on a daily basis. This time, I have a young son to raise, and I'll be damned if I waste my time that could be spent with him getting sucked into these stories.

I checked in on this thread, because it's a big story. And I wanted to lament the toxicity of our political rhetoric that leads to this kind of stuff.

From someone who is basically checked out of the news, coming onto this thread and reading it is just nutso. It's fucking CRAZY how much rage and outrage are driving people on this thread, on both sides of the issue. I'm not used to it...I'm like someone who hasn't had a drink in a decade taking a couple shots of whiskey and getting soused by it. I'm going to close down now & go spend some time with my kid. Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
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bosides!
 
TarSpiel said:
I made a promise to myself not to follow the news after Trumps 2nd election. I doom scrolled the first, and was engaged with the news on a daily basis. This time, I have a young son to raise, and I'll be damned if I waste my time that could be spent with him getting sucked into these stories.

I checked in on this thread, because it's a big story. And I wanted to lament the toxicity of our political rhetoric that leads to this kind of stuff.

From someone who is basically checked out of the news, coming onto this thread and reading it is just nutso. It's fucking CRAZY how much rage and outrage are driving people on this thread, on both sides of the issue. I'm not used to it...I'm like someone who hasn't had a drink in a decade taking a couple shots of whiskey and getting soused by it. I'm going to close down now & go spend some time with my kid. Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
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Completely with you. I am also disengaged politically. Doing good where I can. This thread is depressing as it can get. Incredible anger.
 
PandemicBlue said:
The country knew about the "felonies" and Trump still won the popular vote which means you are in the minority. What does it say about how piss-poor of a job the country must have felt the Democrats did to elect a 34 time convicted felon?
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Trump won 32% of the eligible voters, as did Harris. 36% of eligible voters did not vote. Don’t ever think your views are those of the majority-they are not. We the majority are being ruled by a fascist minority.
 
nycfan said:
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We are lucky to have this man leading us through this fraught time. He is a uniter. The compassion he feels for ALL Americans is obvious in this “address”. It’s like a warm hug coming through the screen. A warm hug that has left an orange goo behind that is causing my skin to burn and peel away.

This sentient perineum has dominated American culture for a decade and I can count on 2 fingers the times I thought there was humanity in him.

We haven’t seen anything yet concerning the damage he’s going to wreak in the next 3 years.
 
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