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The answer was pointing out how much of 'gun violence' is gang violence, which is a valid point but seems some gloss over the gang problem so they don't look racist, so they just tell you you're 'downplaying' for mentioning it.
Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
871–880 of 1001 posts
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#872[flagged]
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#873Leaving personal feelings about the person. What exactly does 2nd amendment guys think using guns to fight "tyranny" looks like? People rising up to a group of people clad on black clothes and an eerily fascist reminiscent symbol ala rickandmorty? Some people using guns to defend themselves against who they believe are the harbingers of this authoritarian State is 2nd amendment working as intended. Not a "tragic but…
Apropos, you can listen to Charlie Kirk answering that precise question, during the Biden presidency in 2021. (I assume Kirk is fairly a representative voice of the far-right movement?)
https://bsky.app/profile/chrisjustice01.bsky.social/post/3ly...
He was asked this question: "When do we get to use the guns?" "How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?" [sic]
I think it's best to watch his answer in full, and decide the nuances for yourself.
From my PoV, he agrees with the spirit of that comment. His response to "When to do we get to use the guns?" is to concede: "We *are* living under fascism. We *are* living under this tyranny" [sic]. In the context of that 2nd Amendment question about shooting tyrants, he identifies President Joseph Biden as a tyrant.
It's not ambiguous who these people think deserve to be shot.
I think it's highly remarkable that in that answer, Kirk actually never once condemns political violence. Listen to it and hear: not a word breathed to say killing political opponents is wrong, or immoral, or abhorrent to civics or American democracy, or, well: murder. His non-response is in a qualitatively different direction: he explains to the "When do we shoot them?" guy that murdering leftists would instigate a draconian law-enforcement response (by that same US government he had identified as "fascist" and "tyrannical"), and that that would set back far-right causes. That is, beginning to end, the entire substance of his response to "Why not shoot them?": fear of consequences.
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#874Am I wrong in thinking this guy isn't/wasn't a very influential person, outside of Twitter and the people that stay on there 24/7? If so, why even target the poor guy? What change was the person who shot him hoping to elicit? Either way, I hope he makes it, even though it looks like it was a fatal blow
Paranoid time: Target him because he's notable for being willing to actually talk to the other side. Without people like him, all we have is people on both sides yelling at each other as hard as they can.
Why would someone target him? If they want more division. Maybe even if they want a civil war.
Who would want that? Maybe someone in government who wants disorder as an excuse to impose order by force. Maybe someone in Russia who wants a world order not let by America.
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#875[flagged]
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Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#876The sad irony is that he's at a college campus debating/arguing with people. At their best that's what college campuses are for. I know they haven't been living up to it lately but seeing him gunned down feels like a metaphor. I know he liked to publicize the exchanges where he got the best of someone, and bury the others, and that he was a far, far cry from a public intellectual. Still, he talked to folks about idea…
It is a performance that appears as a debate.
Every debate is a performance, so of course it was.
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#877The sad irony is that he's at a college campus debating/arguing with people. At their best that's what college campuses are for. I know they haven't been living up to it lately but seeing him gunned down feels like a metaphor. I know he liked to publicize the exchanges where he got the best of someone, and bury the others, and that he was a far, far cry from a public intellectual. Still, he talked to folks about idea…
I read an account of the "debate" immediately preceding his murder, it was quips and dodges. If that's at all representative of his conduct, he actively hurt the national dialogue by convincing people that that's what a debate looks like.
> what a debate looks like
Debates take all forms, and Charlie's form was just as valid as yours or anyone else's. Gatekeeping is falling out of fashion, just sayin...
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#878[flagged]
We're legit not. We're showing anger at the attitude that just because someone's an obnoxious mouth-runner, it's OK he's shot.
Guess what, there's plenty of people out there - on either side - who would be genuinely happy if they got their civil war, their opportunity to replace their dull lives with the Viking-like excitement of slaying enemies.
The rest of us in the middle will, to put it bluntly, very much not enjoy it if they get their wish.
The path to that future is precisely the retarded shit-headedness being displayed around this. Someone shooting him, and then seemingly a horde of people on the internet very freely expressing that not only does that not bother them, the thing that does bother them is the stuff he'd said before he got shot.
So while I think some people would deserve the future they endorse, the rest of us would prefer that future didn't happen.
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#879[flagged]
I empathize with others for my sake, not theirs
The ones refusing to empathize only serve to prove him right
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#880the entire situation is dripping in macabre irony the question about gun rights, the "prove me wrong" tent, the "constitutional carry" state the event is held in
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