What the left and the right miss about Charlie Kirk’s death – San Bernardino Sun

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination last week, voices on the left and the right have both scrambled to place blame, with varying degrees of truth to back up their claims, on the other side: It’s right-wing extremism or it’s left-wing extremism.

Close, but not quite right. The blame should always first fall on the shooter. People are not mere automatons driven by the forces of society. The shooter, not “society” or “a divided America,” ultimately pulled the trigger.

But, extremism plays a role as well, in that people are influenced by what others, especially those in positions of authority, say. It’s extremism from all sides fanning the flames.

Placing the blame first on the shooter sounds a “duh” statement, but with so many tragedies we seem to forget that premeditated murder is a diabolical action most people would never take.

The left in particular forgets this all the time with shootings, seeking to blame the gun instead. But if there are around a half billion privately-owned firearms in the United States and yet only 18,000 or so gun-involved murders a year, so math tells me there’s a missing ingredient: the individual.

Again, I know this sounds “duh,” but the debate over Kirk’s murder largely ignores this. Sure, people blame the shooter to an extent, but in trying to paint one of America’s two predominant political cultures absolves the shooter of responsibility. It’s no longer him who is to blame; it’s “them.”

It’s actually a very sick reaction. Tragedies can bring out the worst in us and blame is common, but not enough of us look at ourselves and our own side.

My heart broke at the thought that daddy wasn’t coming home for two little kids, and that poor mommy would have to try to explain what happened, endure sleepless nights, and try to move on with her family torn apart. Videos of Kirk’s assassination are easily accessible and one day his poor kids will probably see one. I thought of my wife and two kids in that same position and it made me cry. It still makes me cry. It’s tragic.

Many people had this reaction, but then too quickly turned to a more terrible reaction. Congressman Dave Min is a perfect example.

On the day Kirk was killed, the Orange County Democrat posted on X: “Political violence is unacceptable. Full stop. Whether ‘left wing’ or ‘right wing’ or anything else, no one should feel threatened because of their political views.”

That’s normal enough. But the next day, after a media narrative started to build that the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, leaned to the right politically, Min posted: “Now that the Charlie Kirk assassin has been identified as MAGA, I’m sure Donald Trump, Elon Musk and all the insane GOP politicians who called for retribution against the ‘RADICAL LEFT’ will now shift their focus to stopping the toxic violence of the RADICAL RIGHT.”

It’s very sad that this post likely had multiple levels of review internally before going live, meaning multiple people agreed it was a good idea. What’s sadder is that now that it’s clear that Robinson does not fit neatly into the MAGA box, the post remains.

The perpetrator is obviously deranged, but posts like Min’s might rile up and radicalize the next deranged person. Maybe Min really believes the content of his post, or maybe he just thinks it’ll turn out voters, but he should remove it either way.

It’s not just Min, of course. In his State of the State letter to the Legislature, Gov. Gavin Newsom blamed many of the state’s and country’s problems on the “poisonous populism of the right” and has in the past compared President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. It’s easy to predict how deranged people might react to this kind of overheated rhetoric – over the past decade, this kind of talk has been everywhere.

To his credit, Newsom postponed what would have been a highly inflammatory political event until a week after Kirk’s death, changed the event’s name from “F– Around and Find Out” to something more benign and has spoken of Kirk’s death humanely and responsibly.

It would be irresponsible of me to avoid pointing out that many on the right have had similarly incendiary claims.

The U.S. Senate Republican X handle, overseen by Sen. Tom Cotton, recently tried making the case that both sides endure political violence, which is true, but then pivoted to saying the left was more to blame, citing recent polling showing 42% of liberals saying some political violence is justified, compared to a tiny sliver of conservatives agreeing.

But it’s not a competition. The few conservatives and the much larger group of liberals are both wrong. Political violence is not ok. Sure, there have been some high profile acts of political violence perpetrated against right wing figures like Kirk and Donald Trump, but that means little to the two liberal Minnesota lawmakers who were shot earlier this year.

As North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis pointed out recently, popular far right podcasters like Steve Bannon have said Kirk was a victim in a “political war.”

In a reply to a video of Tillis’ comments a Los Angeles Republican Party official posted: “If they’re killing our leaders and our children, what else do you call it besides a war?”