Conservative pundit and activist Charlie Kirk was a staunch advocate for weapons, even arguing in 2023 that “some gun deaths” have been worthwhile “so that we can have the Second Amendment.”
On Wednesday, he was shot and killed, highlighting the continued and uniquely American downside with gun violence—emboldened by the correct’s lengthy love affair with weapons.
Most Individuals help the Second Modification proper to personal weapons, however they concurrently again rules to protect public security. A 2024 Morning Seek the advice of ballot discovered that the extremist pro-gun stance of the Republican Celebration is out of contact not solely with most Individuals, however even amongst Individuals who’re gun house owners themselves.
Charlie Kirk handing out MAGA hats at a Utah faculty occasion, the place he was later shot and killed.
As an example, President Donald Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign known as for slicing federal funding for analysis into gun violence analysis. Solely 33% of voters supported this concept, alongside 44% of Trump voters and 43% of gun house owners.
Equally, Trump’s concept to restrict state gun legal guidelines, finish gun violence prevention packages, and scale back help for group gun violence prevention packages had low ranges of help among the many voting public—33% and underneath.
The American public’s help for gun rules may need been heightened by the correct’s stomach-turning behavior of prioritizing weapons over lives.
In 2013, after a gun management invoice died within the Senate, President Barack Obama comforted the households of the Sandy Hook Elementary Faculty taking pictures the place 20 youngsters between the ages of six and 7 have been murdered alongside six grownup workers members.
In an advert posted on-line by the Republican Nationwide Committee, Obama was mocked with a voiceover claiming that his second time period was a failure after 100 days.
“Maybe I should just pack up and go home,” it mentioned.
Republicans have embraced their function as gun extremists, which has been rewarded with tens of millions in help from the scandal-plagued Nationwide Rifle Affiliation.
In the course of the 2024 election cycle, the NRA spent greater than $10 million to elect Republicans—although that’s a substantial decline from the almost $30 million it spent throughout the 2020 cycle.
NRA spending was probably down as a result of a sequence of scandals, together with infiltration by a Russian intelligence asset and tens of millions of {dollars} allegedly spent by former chief Wayne LaPierre.
Former NRA chief Wayne LaPierre
Trump has been a staunch NRA ally, buying and selling in early endorsements in favor of a lax method to gun legal guidelines and regulatory efforts meant to extend the movement of weapons all through the nation.
Although, after the Aug. 27 taking pictures in Minneapolis, Trump and the NRA discovered one thing to disagree on when the Trump administration floated the thought of denying gun rights to transgender individuals.
However the ties between the correct and weapons go a lot deeper than NRA cash.
Conservatism embraces gun tradition as an try to manage issues. Very like right-wing concern of numerous cities, conservatism asserts gun rights—regardless of the risk to public security—as a result of weapons are seen as a solution to management issues. The fitting has a deep-seated problem with rising gender and racial range, so weapons are seen as a solution to preserve that in test.
After Obama was elected the primary Black president in U.S. historical past, ammunition and gun gross sales soared.
Gun tradition figures like Ted Nugent, who was an NRA board member, advocated for weapons whereas pushing racist rhetoric and calling for figures like Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be hanged. This was a part of the correct’s try to claim management over a rustic that it believes has gotten uncontrolled.
On the similar time, conservatives have used weapons to place themselves as underdogs. In 2020, Nugent posted a meme making the ridiculous comparability between the “need” to personal an AR-15 assault rifle and civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, who defiantly sat within the entrance of a segregated bus.
A cartoon by Clay Jones.
Weapons are additionally utilized by the correct to strengthen a tradition of fake machismo. Many on the correct consider that proudly owning and utilizing weapons is a show of energy, whereas they deride purported female weak point from teams like Mothers Demand Motion for opposing gun violence.
Up till the early 2000s, Democrats have been usually petrified of advocating for gun security. It was lengthy believed that the NRA struggle chest was not value opposing. However after a number of mass shootings—significantly at Sandy Hook—mixed with proof of the NRA’s political weak point, the get together has stepped up.
President Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022, and whereas the regulation didn’t go so far as many wished, it did present funding for gun violence prevention and added new federal packages to chop down on gun violence.
At present, the Trump administration is working to undo most of the modifications from that regulation, which can probably result in extra gun deaths.
Demise from gun violence is down from its top throughout the coronavirus pandemic, however there have been nonetheless greater than 16,700 gun-related deaths in 2024. To this point in 2025, the Gun Violence Archive has catalogued greater than 10,300 gun deaths.
Charlie Kirk is certainly one of them. And the correct nonetheless loves their weapons.
