"Three thousand people attended the Turning Point USA event at which Charlie Kirk spoke on Wednesday, on an outdoor green at Utah Valley University. The sheer size of that crowd-in the morning, at a school in a suburb of Provo, and even if some were there to protest-is just another piece of evidence that Kirk, in his years-long campaign to inspire a hard-right turn among people in their teens and twenties, had built a formidable movement."
"There was a Q. & A. portion, and someone asked how many transgender Americans had been mass shooters in the past decade, to which Kirk replied, "Too many." The person next asked, "Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last ten years?" Kirk said, "Counting or not counting gang violence?" Then, in videos, there is a single, audible crack, and Kirk's body jerks and then goes limp. In the audience, heads turn: someone had shot him, apparently from an elevated position about a hundred and fifty yards away."
"Kirk's death was brutal, and tragic. It also had the effect that terrorists aim for, of spreading political panic. In the immediate aftermath of a killing with obvious political resonance, there is a period of nervous foreboding, as the public waits for news of the perpetrator's identity and for any hints of what might have motivated the terrible act, and braces for the recriminations to come."
About three thousand people gathered at an outdoor Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University where Charlie Kirk spoke. During a Q&A, Kirk exchanged questions about mass shooters and transgender Americans before an audible gunshot rang out and his body went limp; he was hit from an elevated position roughly 150 yards away. Kirk, thirty-one, left a wife and two young children, and flags were ordered at half-staff by President Trump. The killing spread political panic and prompted a period of anxious waiting for information that often fails to clarify a perpetrator’s motives.
Read at The New Yorker
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