#political-violence

#political-violence

There's no universal definition for a mass shooting, so data can vary based on the number of victims killed or injured, where the shooting took place, and whether it was related to gang activity or terrorism. For example, the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the Rockefeller Institute of Government, a nonpartisan think tank, only tracks shootings that occur in public or populated places, involve at least two victims (injured or killed), and excludes incidents related to gang violence or terrorist activity. By their definition, there have been 12 mass shootings in 2025.

expressing disgust, outrage and sadness at this apparent politically motivated attack

There have been other acts of political violence as well when it comes to targeting Democrats. I mean, we've seen that with a lawmaker who was killed in Minnesota this summer alongside her husband. In June, Minnesota Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman (D), her husband, and her dog were shot and killed. Another lawmaker, state Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife were also shot, but survived. Prosecutors say the shooter was 57-year-old Vance Boelter and stated that he had a hit list containing the names of Democratic officials in multiple states, as well as some abortion providers.

House Republicans are proposing increasing security funding by $30 million in the wake of growing concerns about political violence in the country. The funding is included in a stopgap bill to fund the government that Republican leaders hope to approve this week ahead of a Sept. 29 deadline. It is unclear if the legislation has enough votes to pass. House Administration Chair Bryan Steil, R-Wis., briefed House Republicans about existing safety resources for members during a closed-door weekly conference meeting Tuesday morning.

But in fact, the alleged shooter was not someone on the left. The alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, is a young white man from a Republican, gun enthusiast family, who appears to have embraced the far right, disliking Kirk for being insufficiently radical. Rather than grappling with reality, right-wing figures are using Kirk's murder to prop up their fictional world. Briefly, they claimed Robinson had been radicalized in college. Then, when it turned out he had spent only a single semester at a liberal arts college before going to trade school, MAGA pivoted to attack those who allegedly had celebrated Kirk's death on social media.

Lee said he wants to calm the "charged atmosphere" in the wake of Kirk's death. Bittner said the violence briefly gave her pause about running for office, but she concluded that "there's no way to solve this problem if we shrink back in fear." Lee, a former Brooklyn Park City Council member, easily won a three-way Democratic primary in August. Bittner, a real estate agent, was the sole Republican on the primary ballot for the seat in the heavily Democratic district.

REPORTER: Do you think it would have been fitting to lower the flags to half-staff when Melissa Hortman, the Minnesota House Speaker, was gunned down by an assassin as well? TRUMP: I'm not familiar. The who? REPORTER: The Minnesota House Speaker, a Democrat TRUMP: Oh. REPORTER: who was assassinated this summer, and the TRUMP: Well, if the Governor had asked me to do that, I would have done that, but the Governor of Minnesota didn't ask me.

a visa "means you're a visitor to the United States" and "we are not in the business of inviting people to visit our country who are going to be involved in negative and destructive behavior."

That led some in MAGA to question whether Patel was capable of leading the Kirk investigation, much less the crackdowns on political violence the movement desires. What they're saying: Patel "performed terribly in the last few days, and it's not clear whether he has the operational expertise to investigate, infiltrate, and disrupt the violent movements - of whatever ideology - that threaten the peace in the United States," right-wing writer Christopher Rufo wrote on X.

The public response to the murder of Charlie Kirk in cold blood, has revealed how drastically our democracy our belief in the importance of free speech and in the irreplaceable life of each and every individual has deteriorated over the last half century. I was a senior in high school when John F Kennedy was assassinated, and a senior in college when Robert F Kennedy and Martin Luther King were killed.

Moulton pointed to statistics that, while four percent of extremists killings are perpetrated by left-wing extremists, right-wing extremists are responsible for 76 percent of killings. "There are people who are trying to polarize us further, divide our nation further and just blame the left, even while those of us on the Democratic side, by and large saying we all need to turn down the rhetoric, so let's be serious about where this violence is coming from," Moulton said.

"What he would want more than anything is for people to channel their anger into proper activism," Bowyer told Johnson, a few minutes later advising viewers: "Consider yesterday that moment-that turning point for you-of thinking about getting involved in your local community or running for office."

The student, he said, wondered whether recent events carried any echoes of the past. Hyperbolic comparisons between modern political conflict and the horrific bloodshed of past centuries have previously been the stuff of doomsday prepper threads on Reddit, but this week's shooting made it a mainstream topic of conversation. While cautioning that the country is nowhere near as fractured as it was when the Civil War erupted, Waite and other scholars of the period say they do increasingly see parallels.