Editorial: The Assassination of Charlie Kirk

America has historically gone through periodic bouts of political assassination - the mid 1800’s; the early 1900’s; and the 1960’s 70’s and 80’s - but until the past year we had gone a long stretch without any serious attempts.

That changed in 2024 with the multiple assassination attempts against Donald Trump, and now the campus sniper murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Kirk was a 31 year old husband and father of two young children.  His political and religious work consisted of giving speeches at America’s universities - advocating for conservative principles, but also engaging and debating leaders of the Democratic Party and the political Left.

One of his recent debate partners was California Governor Gavin Newsom - a leader in the national Democrats.

Kirk’s murder was at the hands of a left-wing political nut - a man in intimate relations with a sexually “transitioning” man, who had become radicalized on a diet of rabid leftist social media.

National leaders - from President Trump down to our local political and media leaders - have tried to explain how such a tragedy and the waste of a productive life could happen.

But the answer is not that hard: any isolated or alienated person immersed in a cult-like bubble like the tranny world - fed a diet of hate and paranoia - and bombarded with the demonization of other people as “Nazis” and “criminals” - can be led astray.

The killer was an honors student with two loving parents - but fell in with a “bad crowd” and was turned into a monster.

Human beings are often weak vessels.  Look at the mass suicide by 900 members of the People’s Temple at Jonestown.  Or the mass hysteria and madness of cults like the Nxivm sex slave cult - right here in New York state.

The Charlie Kirk murder is a direct result of toxic and vile social media chat rooms.

We all need to monitor poisonous groups - physical and virtual - and shut them down when they vilify people for nothing more than peacefully disagreeing.

We need to relearn the lesson that Charlie Kirk taught and lived - that we can disagree and debate and argue - but that a civil society allows us to see our mutual humanity - and that those debates and disagreements stay civil and non-violent.