Charlie Kirk: Just another death or a moment for change?

If you are celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death, please don’t ever speak to me again. Truly. There is no place in my life for people who find joy in the murder of another human being. This kind of gleeful cruelty doesn’t just reveal a lack of compassion—it exposes the very sickness at the heart of our society.

When someone is assassinated because of their politics, the correct response isn’t celebration. It’s grief. It’s horror. It’s reflection. It’s the deep, unsettling realization that our country has crossed another line we swore we’d never cross. Political disagreement should never end in blood. The moment it does, we all lose—because the message it sends is that violence is an acceptable replacement for debate. And if we go down that road, America as we know it cannot survive.

I don’t know how else to say this, but this is not a political issue. It never has been. This is about human life. It’s about whether we want to live in a country where kids can go to school, people can attend church, parents can shop for groceries, or speakers can hold public events without the risk of being gunned down. If your first instinct is to view Charlie Kirk’s assassination through a partisan lens—cheering or sneering depending on whether you liked him—you’re part of the problem.

Leaders Have Failed Us

Since the Columbine massacre on April 20, 1999, America has endured thousands of mass shootings. Thousands. The names of the places have become etched into our national consciousness like a grim roll call: Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde, Las Vegas, Pulse, Buffalo. And now, Utah Valley University.

What has been done to stop it? Honestly—very little. Every president in my lifetime has faced mass shootings. Every single one. Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden. And what’s the common thread? They all respond with the same predictable formula: a press conference, a carefully worded speech, and “thoughts and prayers.” Maybe some symbolic legislation that gets passed and touted as a win, but in reality, does nothing to prevent the next shooting.

This isn’t a partisan critique. It’s a reality check. The politicians you think are fighting for you? They’re not. They’re fighting for optics, reelection, and donor approval. If they truly cared, we wouldn’t be burying kids year after year, community after community. The truth is, it’s easier to hand out condolences than to take on the lobbyists who bankroll campaigns. It’s easier to make excuses about freedom than to write laws that balance rights with responsibility.

We keep waiting for a leader to step up, but no one does. And so the cycle continues.

Sandy Hook: The Moment We Should Have Changed

On December 14, 2012, a gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and murdered 20 children and 6 adults. The victims were mostly first graders—tiny, innocent children who had just learned how to read, who still believed in Santa Claus, who carried backpacks bigger than their bodies.

The details are unbearable, but they need to be faced. Many of the children were shot multiple times, some at close range. Their wounds were so devastating that several parents had to identify their little ones not by their faces, but by clothing or even dental records. Imagine that for a moment—sending your child off to school with a smile in the morning, only to be handed a blood-stained piece of fabric hours later as proof that they were gone.

I’ll never forget where I was that day. I was at a company holiday party when the news broke. My friend and I slipped away into the corner, sat down, and cried. We cried for the parents, for the teachers, for the tiny lives that were ended before they’d even begun. It felt like the whole country cried that day. It felt like a moment so tragic, so raw, that surely—surely—we would change.

President Obama stood before the nation that night and said what so many of us were feeling. With tears in his eyes, he said:

“We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years… And we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”

He promised “meaningful action.” He promised it wouldn’t just be more “thoughts and prayers.” And yet, when the political storm raged, nothing happened. A modest background check bill—something supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans—was introduced in Congress. It failed. The NRA flexed its political muscle. Lawmakers caved. And just like that, the moment slipped away.

If slaughtering 6- and 7-year-olds in their classrooms wasn’t enough to force change, what would be? That’s the question that has haunted me ever since. And the truth is, that was the moment the numbness began. That was the moment I realized America might never change, no matter how bloody the headlines get.

Stop Making This About “Us vs. Them”

Here’s the most important truth: this isn’t about Democrats versus Republicans. It’s not about liberals versus conservatives. And it’s sure as hell not about me versus you. But until we stop treating it that way, nothing will ever change.

We’ve turned politics into a sport. Instead of two sides trying to govern a nation together, we treat it like rival football teams—cheering when “our side” scores points, booing when the “other side” does, and waiting for the next season to start. The problem is, politics isn’t a game. It’s supposed to be about governing people’s lives. And when we act like it’s about scoring wins, real people get hurt.

If you want to fix this from the ground up, start with something simple: take down the political signs. Stop turning your lawn into a battlefield. You don’t need a giant banner with Trump’s face photoshopped onto Rambo’s body. You don’t need a neon-colored sign screaming “Liberals are pussies.” You don’t need Biden signs rotting in your front yard years after the election. All of this is noise, and none of it helps. It's literally pointless to have any of this stuff and unless you purchased it from their website, it's likely that your purchase did nothing to actually support that campaign.

You want to show your true support for this country? Hang an American flag instead. A flag is a symbol of shared identity, of unity, of the fact that—like it or not—we’re in this together. Because the more we turn politics into a brand, the deeper our division grows. And the deeper that division grows, the more likely it turns into violence.

The Seatbelt Analogy

Every time the idea of safer gun laws comes up, the same tired argument gets thrown back: “You’re trying to take away my freedom.”

But let’s get real. Saying gun laws violate freedom is like saying seatbelts restrict your right to drive. Nobody believes that. We all know seatbelts are a basic safety measure. They don’t stop you from driving. They just make it less likely you’ll die in a crash.

Think about all the safety laws we already accept without question. We have speed limits. We have stop signs. We have child car seat requirements. We have DUI checkpoints. We have food safety regulations. We have air traffic control systems. We have workplace safety laws. None of these are controversial. None of them are seen as “tyranny.” They’re common sense measures to keep people alive.

So why are guns different? Why is the only product specifically designed to kill exempt from the same kind of safety standards we apply everywhere else? Why do we treat them as sacred, untouchable, beyond compromise? The argument that safety equals oppression is absurd, and deep down, most people know it.

A Nation Gone Numb

Charlie Kirk’s assassination didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened in a country so desensitized to violence that mass shootings barely make the news anymore.

On the same day Kirk was shot, there was a school shooting in Colorado. And how much attention did it get? Barely a mention. A few blurbs here and there, buried beneath the headlines. Think about that: an American school was just attacked, and it didn’t even register as major news. That’s how numb we’ve become.

We scroll past headlines of violence like they’re weather updates. Another shooting, another tragedy, another set of families shattered. And then we move on with our day. That numbness is a survival mechanism, sure, but it’s also incredibly dangerous. Because the moment we stop feeling, we stop demanding change. And when we stop demanding change, the violence only escalates.

A Moment of Choice

Charlie Kirk’s assassination can either become another entry in the long list of American tragedies, or it can be a turning point. But if we’re being honest, history doesn’t give me much reason to hope.

If the slaughter of first graders in Sandy Hook wasn’t enough to change our laws, what will be? If watching children run for their lives in Uvalde wasn’t enough, what will be? If seeing people massacred in their churches, their grocery stores, their concerts, and now a university campus wasn’t enough, what will be?

The sad truth is, we’ve become experts at moving on. Each tragedy feels like the one that will finally spark real change—and then it fades into the background noise. We light candles, we post hashtags, we argue online, and then we forget. Until it happens again.

This is Trump's chance to shine

This is President Trump’s chance to break that cycle. Last night, he addressed Charlie Kirk’s assassination from the Oval Office and on social media, calling it a “dark moment for America.” He blamed “the radical left” for the shooting, saying their rhetoric—comparing people like Charlie Kirk to Nazis and the worst criminals—had incubated the violence we see today.

The response, using devicive language and harsh words that continue to devide the nation is not what we need. We also do not need hollow words or symbolic gestures. We need real leadership. Real courage. Real action. The kind of action that refuses to bow to party lines or political donors.

He also ordered flags on federal buildings to be flown at half-staff in Kirk’s honor, and he vowed that his administration would “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity, and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it.”

But here’s the problem: blaming Democrats—or any political group wholesale—for what happened last night is like blaming every person who drives a Mazda if there’s a Mazda involved in a deadly crash. It’s unfair, it’s irresponsible, and it only fuels the very division that allowed something like this to happen in the first place.

We all know that rhetoric from every side has grown darker. We all know that political tribalism has escalated to a dangerous level. But if our leaders keep pointing fingers instead of working together, nothing productive will ever be done. What this country needs is for Trump, Biden, Congress, and every person with real influence to stop deflecting, stop scoring partisan points, and tell the lobbyists to go scratch. Until then, it’s all just noise.

What we should be demanding are real solutions—laws that make it harder for the next shooter to get a weapon, safeguards that make our schools and public spaces safer, and leaders who use their platforms to calm tensions instead of inflame them. America doesn’t need more division; it needs people with courage enough to say that our safety, our unity, and our shared humanity matter more than party loyalty or political donations.

Because until our leaders decide to work together, until they realize that making America great and safe means protecting people’s lives more than protecting their partisan brand, this cycle of violence will not end. And the tragedy of Charlie Kirk’s assassination will only become another entry in a long, heartbreaking list of moments when our country could have chosen to change, but didn’t.

Because if we can’t unite around the idea that protecting human life matters more than protecting partisan points, then we have already lost.

Final Word

We’re at a crossroads. We can keep treating politics like a brand, cheering when “our side” wins and jeering when “theirs” loses, all while the body count rises. Or we can choose a different path.

Take down the political signs. Stop dehumanizing your neighbors with insults and memes. Stop pretending that safer gun laws are an attack on your liberty. Start demanding more—from leaders, from communities, and from ourselves.

Charlie Kirk’s death should not fade into the endless list of tragedies we’ve normalized. It should be the wake-up call that finally jars us out of our numbness, out of our tribalism, and into action.

If not now, then when?