I’ll say the hard part first: I thought Charlie Kirk’s rhetoric was despicable. I think it harmed people. I think it cheapened debate. I also think the quote often misattributed to Mark Twain—“I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure”—captures an ugly, honest human feeling that flares when a polarizing figure dies.
And yet: violence is not the answer for a humanist. Not for me. Not for you. Not for anyone who wants to live in a country where speech beats bullets.
What happened, briefly
On Wednesday at Utah Valley University, during a Turning Point USA event, a single shot from elevation hit Charlie Kirk around 12:20 p.m. MDT. He died soon after. Investigators say a high-powered, bolt-action rifle believed to be the murder weapon was found later in a wooded area. They have “good video” of a suspect who appears college-age and blended in with the crowd. No one is in custody. The manhunt continues. UVU is closed through Sunday, with a planned reopening Monday.
Those are the facts that matter. They don’t soften the moral argument. They sharpen it.
Two truths can sit side by side
Truth one: Kirk’s public work spread ideas I find false, cruel, and often reckless. He made a business out of confrontation. He courted outrage. He punched down. He helped launder conspiracies into mainstream feeds. I won’t pretend otherwise.
Truth two: assassinating him was evil. It was a direct attack on the most basic rule of civil life. It was also strategically stupid. It doesn’t “end” his ideas. It risks sanctifying them. It hands his allies a martyr’s story forever.
I won’t celebrate that. I won’t excuse it. And I won’t move the goalposts because the target was someone I dislike.
Humanism has a spine
“Violence is not the answer” isn’t a Hallmark card. It’s a discipline. It asks you to hold your fire when someone’s speech makes your blood boil. It asks you to argue, organize, vote, boycott, counterspeech—everything short of picking up a weapon. It is the only position that scales in a diverse country. Because the moment you bless violence for your cause, you bless it for your enemy. You have surrendered the ground you need to stand on when they come for you.
That’s not weakness. It’s the only line that keeps a plural nation from tearing itself apart.
A note to those who share my anger
I get the impulse. You watch a figure platform bigotry, deny harm, and call it virtue. You see real people get hurt. You see rights chipped away. You feel rage. You want the universe to even the score.
The universe doesn’t do that. We do. Through laws. Through norms. Through elections. Through the slow grind of culture changing. Through the stubborn insistence that no speech, however vile, earns a bullet.
If you think that makes you soft, go read a history book. The most effective movements in this country did more with strategy, discipline, and time than any lone shooter ever did with a rifle.
The danger of martyrdom
Assassinations are accelerants. They don’t just remove a person. They rewrite a story. Kirk’s critics will remember his cruelty. His supporters will remember his death. In politics, narrative beats nuance. That is why targeted violence so often backfires. It turns a brand into a banner. It transforms a pundit into a parable.
If you wanted less of what Kirk stood for, yesterday’s shot did the opposite. It gave his project a fresh infusion of meaning and grievance. It fused his name to a national wound. That’s not a win for anyone who values reason.
Grief is not a partisan act
Kirk was 31. He had a wife and two young kids. They didn’t choose his fights. They did not consent to this story. If you can’t feel for them, you’ve let politics carve out something essential in you. I don’t have to like a man’s work to say his children deserved a father at bedtime last night. Those two things can be held together without contradiction.
Campus free speech needs adult thinking, not theater
Colleges love their “marketplace of ideas” branding. Then they host a high-heat event in a bowl-style courtyard framed by rooftops, with minimal control of vertical access and sightlines. That is malpractice in 2025. Free speech and good security are not enemies. You can keep a campus open and still do the basics right:
- map the sightlines before you set the stage
- lock and alarm roof hatches during the event window
- extend the perimeter beyond the front-row barricades to cover elevation angles
- put trained eyes on rooftops and parking structures
- practice an evacuation plan that uses simple language and clear routes
Will that stop every attack? No. Will it reduce risk without turning a quad into a fortress? Yes. If you’re going to platform big voices in volatile times, you have to think vertically, not just theatrically.
We keep lying to ourselves about the cost of “heat”
Everyone pretends rhetoric is harmless until it isn’t. We indulge provocateurs because they “drive engagement.” We put out daily content fires and call it news. Then we act shocked when a spark catches dry grass.
I’m not blaming microphones for a trigger pull. I am saying that constant dehumanization trains people to treat opponents as targets, not neighbors. When the culture treats politics like a forever-war, some lone actor will eventually act like it is one. That’s the pattern. It is not new. It is getting worse.
The fix isn’t censorship. It’s standards. Stop booking people who only show up to degrade others and flood the zone with garbage. Stop rewarding the algorithm’s worst instincts. Teach your audience to tell the difference between argument and abuse. Save “free speech” for speech that is actually doing the work of persuasion, not just licking wounds into rage.
What we should demand now
From law enforcement: a clean, fact-based case that survives the internet’s rumor mill. Release video once private identification avenues are exhausted. Publish a transparent timeline and ballistic model. Shut down the cottage industry of grifters who will monetize ambiguity.
From universities: a modern security playbook. If you can’t control vertical access and long sightlines, move the event or change the format. If you don’t have the budget, say so and postpone. “We couldn’t imagine this” is not acceptable anymore.
From political leaders: drop the opportunism for 48 hours. Condemn political violence without the “but.” Your base can live without one more dopamine hit. The country needs proof that adults still exist.
From the rest of us: hold two thoughts at once. You can condemn a man’s ideas with your whole chest and still reject his assassination with your whole soul. That isn’t hypocrisy. That’s civilization.
The misattributed quote and the temptation it names
“I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.” It probably wasn’t Mark Twain. It doesn’t matter. The line endures because it nails something real—how good it feels when a villain exits stage left. We should be honest about that feeling. Then we should refuse to be governed by it.
If we let private pleasure dictate public rules, we won’t have any rules left. We’ll have a running scorecard of payback.
What this does to the future
Assassinations reach forward. They distort every debate that follows. Every policy fight from here will carry this echo. Every campus that invites a polarizing speaker will hear it in their risk meeting. Every student who watched a body fall will carry a different kind of skepticism into adulthood.
That’s poison in the well. We can dilute it, but only with better habits: cleaner arguments, higher event standards, and a collective refusal to let murder decide meaning.
Wrapping Up
I thought Charlie Kirk’s rhetoric was horrible. I still do. I think he made the world harder for people who were already carrying too much. I think he turned cruelty into content and sold it as courage.
And I still say this was wrong. Evil. Anti-democratic. Anti-human.
I won’t pretend he was “just another voice.” He wasn’t. But I also won’t pretend a bullet is debate. It isn’t. It’s the dead end of politics.
So mourn with his family, if you can. They didn’t sign up for this. Denounce the killer, whoever he is. Give investigators the footage they’re asking for. Demand campuses get serious about elevation and sightlines. And the next time a grinning demagogue shows up with a mic, don’t fantasize about a muzzle flash. Show up with better arguments, tighter coalitions, and a plan to win something that lasts longer than a headline.
That’s how humanists fight. Not because we’re soft. Because we’re serious.
