There was another school shooting this week. Given that it was the 47th this year alone, I was unsurprised. More surprising was the news that, on the same day, conservative media personality and activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated via rifle on a school campus in Utah. Gun violence dominated the news cycle again, for the seemingly millionth time since I have been conscious enough to consume media.
Many things in life scare me — answering a question incorrectly, being kidnapped, losing my friends and family — but few give me as visceral and terrifying nightmares that guns have. Ever since middle school, I’ve woken up in a cold sweat from a school shooting dream at least once a year. The bullets ring in my ears, I see a student bleeding, I feel my breath catching as I run away. Social media has been abuzz with discourse surrounding Kirk’s death, debating the morality of grieving a public figure and comparing various political failures or tragedies, but the main conclusion I’ve drawn is this: we need stronger gun legislation.
Kirk once said, “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”
I disagree. No one’s life is worth the proliferation of arms, a billion-dollar industry that continues to grow despite the staggering number of gun-related deaths. No one’s life is worth a political agenda or policy goal — not the students killed in school shootings, not the accidental in-home deaths from a misplaced handgun and certainly not Charlie Kirk.
No, guns do not guarantee violence. But studies have shown that gun ownership is a significant predictor of firearm homicide rates. Intuitively, there is a much higher likelihood of being shot in a household with a gun than being shot in a household without one. And in Utah, where Kirk was shot, rifles are legal on college campuses and can be purchased and concealed carried without a permit. These flimsy regulations do not grant people autonomy, they allow citizens to commit violence with more ease. Kirk’s death was the latest in a long string of gun violence in America; this political violence will not end without proactive measures that legally prevent gun use and cultural change that promotes debate with the end goal of mutual respect rather than winning, something Kirk’s hostile and hateful rhetoric failed to encourage.
On a 2022 episode of the Charlie Kirk Show, Kirk said, “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage.” He was referring to the performative nature of politicians who claim they identify with voters’ pain, manipulating emotions rather than affecting change.
In some ways, he had a point. Too often, politicians fail to see the forest in favor of the trees, preferring to find a sound bite rather than commit to solving a complex issue. But he missed the truest, most important part of a democratic political system, the voters. When we as individuals embrace each other’s lived experiences and open ourselves up to how everyone, from our friends to our enemies, might feel, we push politics towards a collaborative, community-based effort centered around people. Empathy is not just helpful to politics, it is essential to building a society of “us” instead of “me.”
Hate and violence have never, and will never, be the answer to our problems. When Kirk said “trans is a mental delusion,” he did not eradicate transgenderism. Demeaning groups and alienating people we consider “the other” does nothing but reinforce polarization and impede any chance of progress.
Likewise, his death will not erase the wave of conservatism sweeping the nation. Kirk was not the first right-wing media personality, and he will not be the last. Political violence against figureheads only further entrenches everyday people’s beliefs, separating us further without any kind of progress. I do not mourn Charlie Kirk as a public figure. I do not mourn a man who spouted racist rhetoric, who dismissed women’s autonomy and who took advantage of viral “gotcha” moments to embarrass college students instead of thoughtfully engaging with them. But I did not wish him dead. And any life lost to gun violence is a tragedy that could have been stopped.
In a culture war fought by guns, there can never be winners — only survivors, filled with recycled hate and fear. But empathy, contrary to what Kirk believed, offers us a way forward. If we can see one another not as enemies to defeat but as people to protect, our policies can shift from endless division to meaningful change. Stronger gun legislation is not just about law; it is about choosing life, community and mutual respect over violence. That choice must begin with empathy.