Charlie Kirk died at the hands of an assassin with a rifle. A young man who was cold and calculating and calm as he carried out the deed, unlike the young man who took shots at (? Or was he just shooting up the crowd?) at the Trump rally in Butler. Both Kirk and Trump have extensive records decrying any attempt at gun control. Kirk even is on camera saying the price of deaths from gun violence are acceptable in order to maintain the second amendment. Chew on THAT. On a personal note I’ll say I know from experience (more than once) how, when something suddenly happens and you realized you’re going to die time sometimes slows down. A few seconds can feel like twenty or thirty seconds. Plenty of time for ‘last thoughts.’
We don’t know why the guy who who murdered Charlie Kirk with a rifle did it. Team Trump has Kash Patel out in Utah working like hell to paint a false picture. In this is ALL the fault of ‘liberalism” run amok inflaming all liberals to violence. To which I say WTF? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! It’s our side that loudly denounces violence and ostracizes those in our ranks who even suggest it’s not necessarily always bad. However there is much to learn about the murderer and his motivations. In the meantime, both of the questions in the title are more than intriguing.
Trump and other conservatives are trying to paint Charlie Kirk as a good, virtuous guy who never had an unkind word about anyone. An effing saint gone so they say to heaven far too early. Reality tells a different story. Kirk was outspoken as was his right. He expressed a lot of hateful things about not just certain groups but even individuals. He was smart enough to not cross over the line into ‘actionable’ (as in enough to get him sued) rhetoric but he regularly danced right alongside it. Lots of comments suggesting that if really bad things happened to certain people or groups well, maybe they had it coming. He even used the freaking bible to justify his bullshit.
More to the point of why I’m writing is that while I don’t condone settling political differences with violence we live in a country where it’s growing increasingly common. And our country is awash in guns, including high powered rifles that are made to kill from a distance. Most of the high powered rifles out there had been designed for hunting game. Or killing predators. (I’ll not get into the issue of say killing wolves to protect livestock) Some rifles were designed for military use, and we’d come to have a class of military assault weapons designed not so much for old-style combat but killing lots of people at both short and long range. Those got mass marketed in semi-auto versions and millions of people indoctrinated NOT to trust authority have them.
The vast majority of them are Right-Wing hard core conservatives. And plenty of the same kinds of people have regular hunting rifles. Weapons that in the hands of someone with ill intent can be used to kill another human being as easily as killing a deer or other game. All it takes is practice, and the nerve to remain calm when shooting. That’s something many a deer hunter can’t quite do, and it’s even more difficult when aiming at another human as the Butler assassin showed. Kirk had the misfortune to be the target of someone smart and skilled, who could keep his nerve as he carried out his carefully planned attack and escape.
You can read an excellent article by Ursula here on Politizoom about Kirk’s comments on gun deaths and the second amendment. It’s well worth your time but I’ll include a telling bit of video of Kirk in his own words:
Charlie Kirk: “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment”https://t.co/uoM6TqnAgJ pic.twitter.com/mbJSa2Lzmi
— Jason S. Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) April 6, 2023
I apologize for the long windup to this point but hope I’ve kept your attention because ever since I read Ursula’s article I’ve been thinking. Comparing personal experience of times when I was sure I’d be dead when it was all over and Kirk before he lost consciousness. He was shot not in the head which would have resulted in instant death, but instead in the neck which was bound to be fatal. It would just take a bit more time. But he likely WAS conscious for at least a few seconds. What thoughts went through his mind?
Was he astonished that HE would be a target of a killer instead of the people/groups he condoned violence against. Did he lament not being literally bullet proof? Did he think about the irony of comments (like above) he’d made that some tragic deaths were just the price Americans have to pay to have the second amendment? Was he shocked to find out HE was as vulnerable to being one of the statics as anyone else? Did he think about the irony of it all, and wonder if Karma had decided to give Irony some help?
I’ll not go into what my own thoughts are about how he might have processed those and other questions. But I hope anyone reading this will think about it and wonder just what his final thought were, accepting the fact that as many of us have survived seemingly certain death can assure those who haven’t that while not always, sometimes time does in fact slow down. A lot.
As for Trump. He makes a BFD about ‘getting shot’ or ‘taking a bullet’ but the fact is he was hit by shrapnel. People near him were struck by actual bullets and a guy twenty feet away took a round to his head and died. Some folks have advanced a theory that the shooter never meant to hit Trump at all, but had been duped into shooting into the crowd to create a Trumpian “I survived an assassination attempt’ stunt. That’s a tough theory for me to swallow. Maybe the kid knew he sucked and figured he’d at least be famous. In the history books and gullible enough to think he’d live to enjoy the attention. I doubt that’s what happened but IF there’s truth to that I can see Trump being supremely pissed at getting hit by shrapnel. All that bleeding.
But I think the Butler shooter was hit by a shooting at a human case of ‘deer fever’ and wasn’t that great a shot to begin with. I have no doubt Trump has woken up in a cold sweat many a night since then realizing a skilled and calm shooter could have put him in his grave. And HATING himself over the fear. I have no doubt at all Trump suffers from PTSD over that and being Trump there’s no way in hell he’d get treatment. Which when you think about it is terrifying. A President who was incompetent and crazy at his best, and ALSO suffering from PTSD!
That’s the second question in the title. Trump knows how lucky he was, and is suffering from psychological trauma he’s too proud to seek help for but given the security failures in Butler knows what in theory COULD happen. However with two would be assassins as incompetent as Trump is he’s probably figured he’s safe. That anyone who carry out an assassination of a high profile political figure regardless of the means (i.e. the guy who went to the Pelosi home in San Fransisco intending to commit murder with a hammer) is crazy.
NOW however he knows people who are smart, good shots AND have nerve are out there. Not crazy idiots like those who broke through and tried to kill Ford and Reagan with handguns, or who panic in the moment like the guy in Butler or the dude in Florida who let himself get spotted by the Secret Service are out there. I’ll guarantee Trump is thinking all the time since Kirk died that someone might out there that would and more importantly COULD do to him what was done to Kirk.
It takes someone made of stern stuff to live with the kinds of threats Presidents and other Head of State live with. Trump doesn’t have what it takes. He never did. It was clear during the campaign even before Butler that Trump had devolved. Since he was sworn in this time he seems to devolve more with each passing week. Now a political ally is dead at the hands of a 22 year old assassin who didn’t even have military training. I wonder if Trump thinks about anything else now, worrying that HE can’t be completely protected. There are he knows snipers who can kill from as much as a mile away. Given his health a head shot wouldn’t be necessary. A bullet from a .50 caliber sniper rifle hitting him in his fat torso from a half mile or even closer to a mile away would do the job.
That’s something any President has to deal with as I’ve said. Most have learned to live with and function at the level the job demands. However as I’ve noted Trump is a weak little (in character and intellect) man. That’s why I say a question that SHOULD be being publicly talked about is how Trump is actually reacting to Kirk’ murder. It’s uncomfortable to be sure but when you think about the power at Trump’s disposal and how irrational he is we should be openly considering the worst.
Ro any reader than stuck it out to this point I thank you. Yes, this was one of those deep in the weeds posts I became known for long before I started posting on PZ. But we are in territory so dangerous we really need to be paying close attention. And pressuring both politicians and pundits to face the issue. I shudder at what might happen if people who can do something don’t step in.
