"Them"

The same people who have been telling us that “guns don’t kill people; people kill people” are blaming Charlie Kirk’s death on “them.” I’m not sure exactly who they’re talking about, but I suspect it might be me and a lot of the people I know. Conservatives are all over the internet blaming “the left.” In other words, an ideology killed Kirk.

The whole implication of “guns don’t kill people; people kill people” is that individuals are responsible for their actions. Suddenly, that rule no longer applies. The left, whoever that is, is responsible for Kirk’s death. Donald Trump blamed the “radical left” for political violence in the country while justifying right-wing violence as being rooted in anti-crime. I doubt Melissa Hortman would agree.

If we’re going to go down that road of blaming disconnected groups for the murder, then maybe it was pro-gun ideology that killed Charlie Kirk. The shooter was raised in a family that revered guns. Photos are all over the internet showing the kid with various types of high-powered weapons. Many were posted by his mother. He didn’t learn to shoot accurately at 200 yards in a vacuum. Maybe if his family had not embraced gun culture, Charlie Kirk would still be alive.

We’ve had horrific school shootings since the 1990s and the right has insisted that guns aren’t to blame. They’ve offered thoughts and prayers and given lip service to improving access mental health services, but have done little to limit availability of firearms to people who probably shouldn’t have them. Instead, they’ve advocated for easier access and less restrictions, making it easier for the people who kill people to kill people. That, in part, is what happened to Charlie Kirk.

But right-wing social media warriors and MAGA elected officials are not going to blame guns or mental illness for Kirk’s assassination. They’re going to blame “them.” It’s who they’ve been blaming my entire life.

Growing up in the rural South in 1960s and ‘70s, “them” were African Americans who wanted to take over their schools and pools and everything else that was reserved for white people. Later, it was Muslims, “towel heads” or “sand n*****s, as they referred to them. Today, immigrants, gay-rights activists, transgender people, pro-Palestinian activists, and university professors have been added to the mix.

In reality, one man with a gun killed Charlie Kirk, not “them.” Or, as I should say, not us.