Charlie Kirk. A patriot and man of God, or major douche?

To be a sniper you need special guns only used by the military.

Since the guy is still at large, and even though a rifle has been found, who knows of it was the shooter's weapon, or not, and not notice that I've seen identifying the make/model of the weapon. Is an "assault weapon?" And who has ever defined what that is?

Well, he did get God to show that prayer doesn't work.

Prayer works. Some answers take more time to be heard.

Killing people is not the only use for a gun. They can be used for hunting. They can also be used defensively as a deterrent. The threat of getting shot is often enough to stop a criminal without any actual use of force.

And control of the population is another reason the Left pushes gun control. Not all on the Left see it this way, but a disarmed population is much easier to control as a totalitarian government. All they need to do is convince the population it's in their best interest, then they take over. After that, they can do whatever they want with little resistance.

Seeing people on my Facebook celebrating his death under their real names has deeply disturbed me, and has actually *hurt* to see in a way I didn’t expect. I always felt I was a little jaded and cynical but I guess not. I was never a fan, the schtick of owning college kids with FACTS and LOGIC in little clippable moments never appealed to me. But the man had his thrown blown out in front of his family for the crime of…talking and debating with people. Literally what we’re doing here in this site.

And his views for the most part were not extreme at all. And even if they were this is an extreme attack on freedom of speech.

idk it goes back to a growing sense of dread I’ve been feeling about my generation generally. A lot of people never grew up. They actively got worse. A lot of people I’ve seen celebrating his death weren’t like that when I knew them. Also you should not celebrate someone’s death unless you think their conduct should be illegal and punished with the death penalty. Anything else is pure cowardice

I’ve come around to being much more anti gun than typical on the right (we do need gun rights but the current laxness is ridiculous)…but it appears he was killed by a bolt action hunting rifle. I don’t think any policy outside of a total ban on all guns with mass confiscation could prevent that

I said it when Trump was almost assassinated, and I’ll say it again now. Anyone who justifies this kind of senseless violence should be ashamed.

I think Biden has a lot of issues as a man and as POTUS but one thing he did that I really respected is that when Trump was shot he immediately and unequivocally condemned it and spoke with him in a way that I think was sincere. Despite his personal hatred of the man. Because despite his many flaws (in my opinion at least) he was wise enough to understand the absolute and utter horror that such a thing could’ve, and still could, unleash.

Widespread political violence is one of my worst fears. It doesn't look like any sort of heroic stand against fascism or communism or whatever. It looks like a young father getting shot in the jugular and losing a pint of blood in 0.25 seconds while his family looks on. Again and again and again. On both sides. Could even be YOU! It can’t be allowed happen. This is the one time I actually support cancel culture, if someone is celebrating this they need to be socially ostracized.

J D Vance: "I prayed a lot over the next hour, as first good news and then bad trickled in. “God didn’t answer those prayers, and that’s OK. He had other plans."

Killing people is not the only use for a gun. They can be used for hunting. They can also be used defensively as a deterrent. The threat of getting shot is often enough to stop a criminal without any actual use of force.

None of this changes the point I was making.

And control of the population is another reason the Left pushes gun control. Not all on the Left see it this way, but a disarmed population is much easier to control as a totalitarian government. All they need to do is convince the population it's in their best interest, then they take over. After that, they can do whatever they want with little resistance.

How on earth does this make sense to you? “The left” isn’t a person, so who exactly do you think benefits from the populace being “controlled”?

It truly bewilders me that so many on the right are incapable of understanding basic ideas to the point they have to resort to silly conspiracy theories to make sense of the world. You don’t have to look far at all to come up with a much better explanation for why the left believes in gun control, what happened yesterday is a prime example. Perhaps if we didn’t live in a country where military style weapons can be purchased easier than viagra, or where there weren’t more guns then there are people, we would see less horrific events such as what happened yesterday.

it appears he was killed by a bolt action hunting rifle. I don’t think any policy outside of a total ban on all guns with mass confiscation could prevent that

I don’t deny that. No gun law we could possibly pass would stop every tragedy, especially with the amount of guns already in circulation, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything about it and it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. This isn’t entirely out of our hands.

My point though was really about the conflict in ideology. If you’re of the mindset that loss of life at the hands of gun violence is the price we all have to pay, you can condemn the actions of this individual but you don’t get to act like the “other side” is responsible when things like this happen. It’s your ideology that allows for this environment, own that. (Not you specifically)

I have to agree with everyone else on this site, you are a roundly disgusting person all the way through.

This is what has me so bothered, that some people could be brainwashed so thoroughly as to not just forsake the natural impulse to avoid killing each other, but to actually thrive on the killing. It feels like you Americans are in some sort of blood cult you could never escape.

Really need to wait and see out how nutty was the nut job, I suppose.

Though the supposedly necessary freedom for every Bob, Dick or Harriet to carry lethal weapons unchecked, is undoubtedly going to mean another statistic sooner rather than later.

And the bloke that sticks his head above the parapet and makes a lot of noise, is likely to be a popular candidate.

Like I said, the nut job or the murder does not bother me nearly as much as the socially accepted celebration of killing someone just for saying things you didn't want yourself or others to hear. It's clearly a marker of the decline of civilization and the rise of something much more primal and regressive. Modern feudalism seems to have just about come full circle with the public thirst for bloodsport among the less-than-enlightened parts of society. The death of a one once great culture is more tragic than the loss of one man. You Americans have always had guns since inception, but this relatively new fad of the social acceptance of political murder is terrifying and will have global repercussions for decades as your society falls.

Well, technologically we've moved on apace, though mentally emotionally and hormonally we haven't really moved at all.

There have always been nutjobs.

I think Biden has a lot of issues as a man and as POTUS but one thing he did that I really respected is that when Trump was shot he immediately and unequivocally condemned it and spoke with him in a way that I think was sincere. Despite his personal hatred of the man. Because despite his many flaws (in my opinion at least) he was wise enough to understand the absolute and utter horror that such a thing could’ve, and still could, unleash.

Biden's policies may have been milquetoast leftist president slop, but he was a president of the old type that was ubiquitous just 8 and a half years ago but now probably won't ever exist again: the kind who could at least pretend to be a decent human being and a unifying leader figure for 5 minutes straight. I think he'll be remembered more for that than for anything he actually did, in a vaguely Jimmy Carter-esque sort of way.

Pandora's box has been opened and there's probably no going back to the good old days now. Everything going forward will be populist demagoguery from the highest office in the nation.

Just two things: First, If you are celebrating his death then you are just living on the coat tails of the shooter. You were just to chicken shit to do it yourself.

Second: There are gonna be a lot of unemployed chicken shits after their employers see the videos they post on social media celebrating his death.

It feels like you Americans are in some sort of blood cult you could never escape.

You're not so wrong.

It wasn't so long ago that Trump was almost assasinated. I said back then that some sort of group of loony lefties planned the assasination.

I don't rule out that this murder was also planned and executed by the same terrorist group, because this is what it looks like, an act of terrorism.

Terrorism is when mentally ill people decide to ingrain fear in the population so to deter a certain behaviour or mentality. It's quite clear that the message these terrorists are trying to get across is that anyone who dares to bash the woke movement is going to be knocked off.

Your analogy fails because cars are a necessity for us to function in a developed society. Guns meanwhile have no other purpose other than to kill people, that’s literally what they’re designed to do.

They can be used for hunting, as a deterrent, for self-defense, or as insurance if the government goes to heck (two of those involve killing people, but neither really apply to killing Kirk). I know some would say the government has already gone fascist, but killing Kirk doesn't accomplish any of the things he'd likely advocate their use for.

you need a licence to drive because a car could be dangerous if it's in the wrong hands

Sure, but the point is that supporting a thing being allowed doesn't mean you being killed by that thing somehow proves you wrong. If I think speed limits should be above 10km/hr, and I get hit by a car going faster than that, that's bad luck but doesn't really harm my position. It's not like Kirk said there should be on limits on people owning weapons (like nukes or something), he just supported much broader limits than the average person.

I'm not even saying his views about guns were right, just that his views were pretty consistent with not wanting to be shot.

Also, he's been criticized for being pro-life and yet dying (by the same groups), so it's basically a Kafka trap, even though both of these things are being said in jest. Apparently being shot after saying anything positive about "life" is ironic and somehow worthy of mockery, but it's also ironic to die after supporting a policy that could potentially result in death. Basically two polar opposite reasons people have used as criticisms against him. There's basically no position he could have taken that would avoid mockery along these lines or not be portrayed as somehow ironic.

They can be used for hunting, as a deterrent, for self-defense, or as insurance if the government goes to heck

Non of these refute my main point, especially as we get to military grade weapons which is where most gun control advocates like myself feel far more strongly about the lack of regulations.

but the point is that supporting a thing being allowed doesn't mean you being killed by that thing somehow proves you wrong.

The national disagreement isn’t about guns being allowed. What we’re disagreeing on is how easily and readily they should be available. What democrats support are a ban on assault weapons, extended magazines, universal background checks, and reasonable restrictions on things like open carry, waiting periods, etc. In other words, the left largely believes guns should be treated like any other dangerous product on earth.

Republicans are basically saying “yeah they’re dangerous, but we should do nothing to minimize the harm, and if people die so be it”. Well if that’s your attitude, it’s kind of hard to stay ideologically consistent by condemning that harm when it comes to your doorstep. On the left we don’t have that problem.

Non of these refute my main point, especially as we get to military grade weapons which is where most gun control advocates like myself feel far more strongly about the lack of regulations.

The point about military grade weapons is probably fair, but it's not really what Kirk was defending in the quote he gets criticized for. ("Military grade" can be a misleading term anyway, I've seen cases of people in the military joking that they assume a product is low quality when it's advertised as military grade). I don't think Kirk was arguing for zero limits on any weapons ever (extreme example would be a tank or something). He was killed with a bolt-action rifle, so even if he was wrong about military grade weapons, his death doesn't really establish that.

Republicans are basically saying “yeah they’re dangerous, but we should do nothing to minimize the harm, and if people die so be it”.

I don't think that's really fair...the Republican view is more long the lines of gun control exacerbating other harms outweighing the harms from shootings. For example, someone who would have gotten a gun illegally anyway attacks you and you can't defend yourself. Or the government has an easier time establishing tyranny because citizens aren't armed. I understand that gun control is aimed at getting the best of both worlds, but Kirk would probably say it makes self-defense or fighting the government significantly harder to the extent that the harms outweigh the benefits.

The quote that I'm referring to that keeps getting brought up is him saying that the 2nd Amendment is worth the risks, which is specifically him arguing against a total gun ban. He argued against gun control too, and your points there are valid, I just think it's weird for people to use that quote against him if they aren't prepared to actually oppose the 2nd amendment. I think you and I aren't really in disagreement here, my initial post was just about some people's criticisms of him for arguing what was actually a somewhat reasonable position (though he's gone further against gun control in other cases than I would like).

I think the scandal/questions about his age and health will overshadow everything else about his legacy but yeah the older generations of politicians (and Biden was old enough to potentially have toddler memories of WWII) had a much stronger sense of propriety. Even when though I think of them as detestable swamp creatures in many ways—and they were—I think they understood on a gut level even if they couldn’t articulate it that politics is war by other means and actual war means what happened to Charlie Kirk happening to thousands or even millions of people. Maybe even YOU.

Thats why norms are so important. Trump was necessary to blow up a bipartisan consensus that was no longer doing the people any good but Jeb was right that he was the “chaos candidate” and not in a good way…and honestly even beyond just him there’s just something wrong with generations born post 1980. I really don’t know what it is or how to put it better than that but it ain’t looking good really

This is what has me so bothered, that some people could be brainwashed so thoroughly as to not just forsake the natural impulse to avoid killing each other

actually what’s even scarier is that the natural impulse seems to be TO kill. It took a lot of work, centuries to make going from the type of base savagery enjoyed by people like the Vikings, the Aztecs, plains Indians etc even possible. And even “civilized” peoples can go back on a dime (see the world wars)…I really really don’t want to have to deal with this, especially the culture war stuff we fight about in American politics is absolutely NOT worth it

I disagree; the natural instinct is to protect the tribe. America's problem is that you look at your neighbor like a foreign tribe.

None of this changes the point I was making.

I was refuting the following statement of yours that was demonstrably false: "Guns meanwhile have no other purpose other than to kill people"

But yes, your main point was essentially, "The mockery is disgusting - but the mockers are totally right. Isn't the whole situation ironic?"

How on earth does this make sense to you? “The left” isn’t a person, so who exactly do you think benefits from the populace being “controlled”?

As I said, the totalitarian government benefits from having a population that is easier to control. If you have all the guns, no one really gets to question what you do.

You also seem to not understand the difference between intended effects and actual effects. I understand that you believe gun control will have certain intended effects. What you fail to understand is that you are probably wrong in most of your presuppositions regarding gun control, which means you have a faulty view of what the actual effects will be.

Non of these refute my main point, especially as we get to military grade weapons which is where most gun control advocates like myself feel far more strongly about the lack of regulations.

Military grade weapons pretty much universally have full auto and/or burst capabilities (M4A1, M27, M7, M16, etc), and guns that would qualify for that are heavily regulated in the US at the federal level. They have to be registered with the ATF, and the ATF banned their manufacture for civilian use in 1986. So there is an incredibly limited supply of them out there, as they have to have been in circulation before that date and all of those are tracked very assiduously. And this doesn't even take state law into account - many states flat-out ban such weapons even if they comply with federal law. While the fee is nominal ($200), the extremely restricted supply of these guns means that they can be over 20K and cost multiple times what a civilian rifle like the AR-15 would.

The main issue that most gun owners have with ardent gun control advocates is that they clearly know quite literally nothing about guns, don't care to know anything about them, but still feel fit to weigh in on how they ought to be regulated with no small amount of fervor.

and honestly even beyond just him there’s just something wrong with generations born post 1980. I really don’t know what it is or how to put it better than that but it ain’t looking good really.

So many millennials have a messianic complex which is severely off-putting. They reek of smugness, are impervious to reason, and simply regurgitate whatever was last shitted down their throat by the rest of their social media feed, most of whom received the information in the same way. Wit used to be something you had, a reflection of intelligence and a quick, mercurial verbal instinct. Now 'wit' is just repeating ad nauseum that same stupid snarky quip you've seen 10,000 times from every other idiot on your social media feed. For a generation that supposedly hates the boomers they are basically becoming them, just with even less redeeming qualities.

I wonder if most deaths are ironic?

Hm, possibly only most untimely deaths are ironic?

I've heard it said that comedy is tragedy plus time.

People of a deceased individuals tribe, probably prefer a bit more time than jokes before body is even cold.

Internet technology Era is weird maybe.

Some say people wear masks on the web.

Some say people are unmasked on the web.

Some people say there are more bots than people.

Some people say foreign nation influencer bots abound.

People often find the Darwin Award deaths funny,

Though I am not saying Charlie Kirks death was a Darwin Award.

I am commenting on peoples ability to laugh at deaths.

Even Holocaust receives humor, Seinfeld Episode Shidler's List, Larry David 'multiple episodes on subject.

Course one can argue they are Jewish, and one can argue a lot of time has passed, can argue there are 'types of humor. Some humor seeming more mocking opportunity than good natured humor.

I just think it's weird for people to use that quote against him if they aren't prepared to actually oppose the 2nd amendment. I think you and I aren't really in disagreement here

Mostly yes. Again, I am not condoning the way many have used that quote to mock or gloat, just pointing out that there is a real irony worth reflecting on when someone talks about some loss of life being acceptable the to then become a high profile example of exactly that cost.

We can get lost in the details all day long, but the greater point here from my view is that the sentiment he expressed about some loss being acceptable isn’t horrific because it’s technically incorrect, but because it’s being used to defend an approach to this issue that is indefensible. Hunting, self defense, etc. don’t require the proliferation and total lack of checks that we have today. At some level we have to take reasonable precautions to prevent unnecessary deaths. And if you don’t believe that there’s not much you can really say when you become the victim.

I was refuting the following statement of yours that was demonstrably false: "Guns meanwhile have no other purpose other than to kill people"

Yeah, and you decided to refute the part of my statement that was irrelevant while ignoring the actual point. So congrats on the gotcha, I guess.

As I said, the totalitarian government benefits from having a population that is easier to control. If you have all the guns, no one really gets to question what you do.

And as I’ve already pointed out, the totalitarian government isn’t actually a thing that exists. You can’t point to it and go that’s the totalitarian government right there. What you can point to are individual people who represent it, and it’s those individual people who make decisions on its behalf.

So I ask you again, who are the people that you think benefit from this? Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton? Cause none of them control jack shit right now, so I don’t see how any of them would have benefited from this conspiracy of sorts you seem to have concocted.

I understand that you believe gun control will have certain intended effects. What you fail to understand is that you are probably wrong in most of your presuppositions regarding gun control

Ok, let’s start with the most basic. True or False:

More guns = more gun violence

?