Now this is absolutely a tragic event, and it is horrific it happened. I feel nothing but empathy for his family and wish them nothing but healing and happiness. It is also horrible to celebrate a death especially like this of someone you could justifiably hate. Even down to the most selfish level why give your brain those neural pathways? I wouldn't want that type of person in my workplace or work with them, for sure. All that said, I think that we need to keep in mind that people are also pointing out he was a horrid person in opposition to the angelic remembrances he is receiving and need to be heard; it isn't disrespectful to refuse to misremember who he was. He has vouched for absolutely insane things, not even left/right policies that sound like a Victorian novel villain's takes. Paraphrasing some of his arguments: children should watch live executions, empathy is wrong and newage, gun violence and shootings are worth the freedom of the Second Amendment(in response to a school shooting).
What we need is for politicians to not keep labeling their opposition with violent rhetoric. Everything from punch a Nazi, to death to communism, we've got to get the violent rhetoric out of politics. Too many unstable people.
The most disconcerting thing about this murder is that it seems like the killer was relatively normal beyond being excessively involved in online politics. In many of these things there's fairly obvious symptoms of major mental illness, or at the minimum it's some guy who's basically way down out in life. This was a young seemingly smart guy who just decided to throw his life away, and murder somebody else, probably as a result of spending way too much time in online circle jerks.
Inducing rage and anger is what algorithms on social networks are optimized for. So we are sooner or later getting governments to regulate almighty algorithms driving social networks of today.
That completely misrepresents the situation because the deceased was very active offline. It wasn't merely an online matter. Calling someone mentally ill simply because you don't agree with their reasoning is the definition of insanity. For the most part, unless they have a diagnosis of schizophrenia, people know what they're doing. As for the deceased, he had been minting millions of dollars with his hate speech.
I was borderline, almost, kinda, 10% rethinking whether I was actually wrong to label MAGA fascists.
Then Kilmeade (multi-decade Fox News host) just casually dropped “we should lethal inject homeless people who refuse help” a day or two ago, and his co-hosts didn’t even miss a beat.
I mean, that’s literal Nazi shit. They say literal Nazi shit, this isn’t isolated. What do you call it? WTF. Elon sieg-heils twice at the inauguration and they don’t disown him. What is it going to take before we get folks who still think calling them fascists is the problem, actually, to blame the party that twice elected a guy president who told his supporters they could shoot his opponent if she won?
Yes. Yes, it is a tragic event. Apart from it being simply morally utterly reprehensible, it is an extremely primitive and counter-productive way to fight against ideas and the messengers of those ideas.
Again, morally reprehensible and it doesn't fucking work. It only shows 'the other side is just as bad/worse', turns the messenger into a martyr, and galvanizes support.
What is actually tragic is that spreading lies, as he did, and the liar-in-chief has been doing for decades, works exceedingly well. Do you have a solution for that? People have no critical thinking skills, and believe anything if they hear it repeatedly when uttered with confidence! Our schools are a business that are focused on maximizing tax revenue for themselves while minimizing education and critical thought.
If there’s anything that this horrific event has taught me it’s to step away from social media political rabbit holes. These places amplify and feed upon themselves, and can lead you to a dark place where you’d glorify this kind of death.
After all this is exactly how to shooter himself ended up thinking he had to assassinate Kirk.
> If there’s anything that this horrific event has taught me it’s to step away from social media political rabbit holes.
This presents a conundrum to somebody wanting to stay abreast of current events. The president of the US is always-online to the point that not posting to twitter for a few hours sparks rumors that he's died. And if you look back a few decades in American history, assassination of politicians and activists happened long before the advent of social media.
I’m not sure there’s much use to “staying abreast of current events” for most people. Media (social/traditional) focuses on amping up your anxiety and putting your side against there’s. Rather than a balanced view of the details. Alarmist headlines and hand wringing tweets are engineered to anger and outrage you. It’s very hard to keep up with news while keeping your rational brain engaged.
If something truly momentous happens about it, you’ll hear about it.
If something happens that impacts you, you’ll find out when it happens and then you’ll get informed if there’s anything you can do about it.
I got flagged here on HN for stating (right as the news was breaking) that the shooter could just as likely be right wing as left, and nothing was known right now. Literally facts, and people downvoted them. (I'll probably get downvoted again for this lol)
> I got flagged here on HN for stating (right as the news was breaking) that the shooter could just as likely be right wing as left
I don't think you should have been flagged for such an observation in general, but assigning a prior of equal probability strikes me as frankly absurd. It would be much harder for someone on the same ideological "side" to have a motivation to murder. False flags really aren't that common, in general. This is the same kind of conspiratorial thinking behind Alex Jones' "crisis actors".
Also, your comment was off-topic to the sub-thread. People were discussing whether Kirk would be seen as a martyr. The ideology of the shooter has quite little to do with that.
> (I'll probably get downvoted again for this lol)
Commentary like this is inherently obnoxious, and tends towards self-fulfilling prophecy.
Far as reporting goes, theres two tracks. Either he was upset with charlie not being far right enough, or somehow he was influences by the far left.
There is an objective way to understand the fuzzy logic problem media provides, but that leads to one type of politic.
The problem is rational thinking is whats under attack. Particularly when it leads to future predictions. Thats the danger because you can create a self fulfilling prophecy.
The far right in every country is trying to spread isolationism to reduce the capacity of society to benefit the most people because economic slavery is the only way oligarchy survives.
> Either he was upset with charlie not being far right enough, or somehow he was influences by the far left.
I don't think you can get much further right than he was though. When I hear of all the stuff he was saying. I don't think even Trump has ever said some of that stuff. Like that women should be secondary to men.
Apparently he also said that "a few deaths a year are a small price to pay for access to weapons". I wonder if he still felt that way knowing what was coming. I don't have the source link to hand though. News goes so fast now and I don't archive everything.
Personally I'd never heard of the guy but I'm not in the US (and very glad about that right now, the country seems to be tearing itself apart)
PS Also I'm not trying to defend the far right, I'm very left (especially by US standards which doesn't really have a 'left' compared to Europe, liberalism here is a moderate right-wing thing). But murder is definitely not ok in my book, of course. I would grin when I see a tesla dealership graffiti'd or a "swasticar" or "from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds" poster at a bus stop. but that's about as far as it goes. You don't touch people ever. Or really destroy stuff of value.
How does that square with the issue that he texted his trans significant other to go pick up his rifle which he could not do as feds found the rifle first. [1] The feds are interviewing the trans partner as we speak. To be clear I am not anti-trans, rather just confused how he could also be a Groyper. Maybe this is possible, just a new concept to me.
When Nick Fuentes first appeared, him and his little gang of nerds were definitely more far right than Kirk. TPUSA had a gay man on staff, and put him all over those little memes they made.
Israel is about the only thing Charlie and Nick disagree on now.
You'll want to look into the "groypers," who are the group the alleged shooter may have been most closely affiliated with. They and Kirk's Turning Point USA had a falling out over TPU's unwillingness to be as ultra-nationalist, isolationist, or white supremacist as the groypers are. They assert that Kirk's brand of conservatism was carrying a kind of stolen valor over claiming they got Trump elected when the groypers would argue they were the ones most instrumental in cementing Trump's support among traditionally disenfranchised white nationalism.
It's too early to know, but it may be the case that this shooting was the right-wing equivalent of Stalin having Lenin removed as an ivory-tower elite obstacle to "true communism."
I'd be interested to know your sources. Information is flowing fast (as it often does in such a tragedy); I'd be interested to know what's being said outside my sphere.
The bullet engravings are well known (and people pushing the groyper theory seem to believe the engravings support their theory just as well).
There is a claim circulating that Robinson had a transgender/transitioning (MtF) roommate/partner. A simple web search will easily find multiple sources for this claim, but most of them aren't exactly what you'd consider authoritative or journalistic.
Many sources similarly assert that Robinson's father "recognized" him in photos and "encouraged him to turn himself in" (see e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/09/12/tyler-rob...). However, I don't know anything specific about his "testimony".
Howard Stern noted once how people who disliked him spent more time listening to him than those who liked him.
Kirk seemed to have invested heavily in aggravating people in order to make an audience. It seemed so obvious to me that I don't understand why those who disliked him would waste their time trying to debate him.
While yes, echo chambers certainly exacerbated the issue, the main problem is very simple. The american public is becoming so desperate that the only options left are increasingly violent. Our government is shutting down peaceful means of protest with incredible violence, and historically this only ends one way: revolt.
The assassinations will continue until morale improves, basically.
What is the point of voting when gerrymandering decides the outcome? We don't have a functional voting system by any stretch of the imagination. If we did, gerrymandering wouldn't be a thing, and we'd be using ranked-choice or range-voting. So many of the right-wing states have banned these superior voting methods because they're so afraid the ones in power will lose immediately. Granted, it's true that Trump won the popular vote in 2024, but note that voting rights have unfairly been denied to many citizens, especially in right-wing states.
Stephen King made the mistake of chiming in on X then having to apologize.
I never heard of Mr Kirk until the shooting so I don’t want to support his beliefs or dismiss them but I think we need to promote freedom of speech/expression. People say things we disagree with, things that are truly horrible, etc. At least in the United States, we should be a bit more tolerant when we disagree.
The things is... The things said do have consequences. Stochastic terrorism is real. Say people deserve to die (or are expendable) long enough and loud enough and someone ends up convinced.
Kirk literally died in the act of making the case that mass shootings aren't statistically meaningful because most violence is black-on-black gang crime. He didn't get to finish his thought because someone turned him into one of those bloodless statistics.
It seems that what many are reeling from in this moment is the consequences of speech like this had never blown back to harm someone they identified with, who looked and acted enough like them to engage all their empathy.
Who is "the media" in this context? MSNBC just let someone go for even suggesting Kirk deserved what happened. If anything, it seems at least mainstream media is very conservative about the labels it assigns to political speakers.
“””
“We don’t know if this was a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration,” MSNBC contributor Matthew Dowd told anchor Katy Tur shortly after Kirk was shot at a Utah university Wednesday
“””
I wonder what Kirk would have thought about these firings.
I had never heard of the man before, but now his quotes and fragments of quotes are being weaponized on all fronts, making it hard to see what he actually believed.
> He created the "Professor Watchlist". You can imagine what thats for.
According to its About page, it's for documentation only; "TPUSA will continue to fight for free speech and the right of professors to say whatever they believe".
> He also said Medhi Hasan should be deported.
Apparently, Kirk said Hasan's visa should be revoked, as he was unaware of Hasan's citizenship. But Kirk also said in his rant to "get him off TV", which indicates that his instinctual reaction does include silencing people he disagrees with.
> According to its About page, it's for documentation only; "TPUSA will continue to fight for free speech and the right of professors to say whatever they believe".
You are engaging in an obnoxious form of rhetoric (referred to as "darkly hinting" in the rational community). It is counterproductive and doesn't, in my view, meet the standards described in the HN commenting guidelines. Please stop.
If you believe that the watchlist serves some sinister purpose, the burden is on you to a) state it explicitly and b) proactively provide evidence. Persuading people that you're right requires accepting and working with the fact that they don't already hold your worldview and prior assumptions.
And I could "provide evidence" of his intentions by simply posting a list of quotes thats he has said over his career, but that would DEFINITELY go against HN commenting guidelines.
With this, we see that you did not, in fact, stop darkly hinting.
> And I could "provide evidence" of his intentions by simply posting a list of quotes thats he has said over his career, but that would DEFINITELY go against HN commenting guidelines.
Indeed, it would. Most importantly, because that is not how evidence and rational argumentation work.
You don’t have to rely on second-hand reporting, there’s no lack of material from the man himself to form an opinion from, like for example: https://www.youtube.com/@RealCharlieKirk/videos
I doubt Kirk believed in anything, but he was happy to say whatever would get him attention and keep his benefactors happy. He wasn't particularly ideologically consistent, though to be fair, Republicans of his time weren't either.
We shouldn't care too much on what Kirk thought. Obviously it's horrible he was assassinated, but partisan hacks who make their living dividing people are not people we should try to emulate, even if they're dead. I'm sorry for his family and sorry for violence, but it's worrying how much people are demanding respect for him
I don't know the specifics about most of the firings. I think saying it's good someone was killed is inflammatory and not something people should do and expect no consequences. That MSNBC guy getting fired was ridiculous though. Kirk isn't suddenly due respect and zero criticism because he died.
Huh? The link you posted shows that Trump condemned the shooting, calling it "horrific" and saying the shooter will prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. You're equating not flying flags at half mast, despite condemning the violence, to gloating over murder. You're trying to justify the gloating and celebration of violence and it's disgusting.
This is exactly right. People get fired over social media posts all of the time. The 1st amendment absolutely gives people the right to boycott these employers if they see fit though.
I’m not trying to make a point. I was trying to understand if it’s legal to sack someone in the US if you don’t like their views and I didn’t read your comment carefully enough.
No, you can't fire someone for their views. That's 100% illegal, but given the track record of our current Supreme Court, I don't see that being the case for long.
Yes, in general a private employer can legally fire an employee for their political views. There are exceptions in some states, including California, New York, Colorado, North Dakota, that have protections for firing by political affiliation or activities, but that's the exception to the rule. Another exception applies to any public employee, since the first amendment applies to their employer.
The default employment rule is at-will employment, meaning someone can be fired for any reason not explicitly prohibited. Political affiliation is not a federally protected category.
I saw that a lot online from lefties in previous years. The thing the left doesn't seem to understand is that every new weapon you create will eventually be used against you.
Relating to the topic of the article, lefties rejoicing in Kirk getting shot are getting doxed and losing their jobs. That was a tactic pioneered by the left over the past decade. Now the same tactic is being used against them.
I suspect the consequences they're referring to are the consequences the right is currently trying to manufacture consent for. Stochastic violence against the transgender community, the government proscribing leftist political orgs as terrorist groups, Trump sending the national guard into blue states to "crack skulls," that sort of thing.
Trump orders all flags in the nation at half mast and Kirk is being treated like a fallen statesman and hero, the State Department claiming it will revoke the visas of any immigrant who speaks negatively of Kirk, the breathless media coverage, Trump ranting about "leftist violence", the right wing's endless calls for violence and war on social media (going entirely unclamped-down upon,) and the narrative being created that Charlie Kirk was a peaceful intellectual scholar and activist of the likes of MLK Jr and Jesus Christ.
It's obvious a stage is being set here. And of course when whatever happens happens, it will be blamed on the left.
A. I'm actually fine with people getting fired for openly celebrating or claiming murder is a good thing.
2. People getting fired for simply pointing out that Kirk is a victim of a system he helped build are getting fired, which is a completely different situation.
3. The Trump admiration openly going after people is infringing on freedom of speech.
It's been amazing to watch the chair occupants change on this subject (free speech) in the last few years. I still remember "freeze peach" and https://xkcd.com/1357/
Unlimited free speech for everyone, but consequences for saying things that harm or offend.
If you say "Democrats suck", don't expect them to buy your product. If you say "God doesn't exist," don't expect Christians to come to your business. If you say "I hate gays", expect to get fired from your medical clinic job.
Have free speech, but use it wisely.
Having free speech serves to diffuse social tension. It ensures we don't wind up as cattle, like in 1984. Just don't expect that you can praise the death of certain people and expect everyone to love you for it.
Maybe above all you should be kind. Regardless of your politics. Articulate what you don't like with your free speech, but don't be an asshole.
Unfortunately social media encourages fast engagement with little nuance, so we see a sewer instead of a noble land of open thought and debate.
But we shouldn't throw free speech out with the bath water.
Fascinating how the guardian can spin people celebrating one of the most destabilising acts of evil committed this year into a free speech issue. There's something very wrong with people when they celebrate cold blooded murderers like luigi miagione. Reddit is full of people almost openly gleeful about this and the Guardian chooses to take their side.
I think it's easy for people to forget sometimes because the interface doesn't make it particularly obvious that much of social media is screaming from a soapbox in some of the world's largest agoras.
The interface makes it feel like you're having a polite conversation among like-minded folk. In reality, you're like one of those folks on a street corner with a megaphone and most of the time the rest of the world isn't listening to you. But they can tune you in anytime they want, and there can be consequences for holding a strong opinion incompatible with the strong opinion of other people you will be wanting to do business with.
... That of course includes this medium. Watch what you say today everyone, your future and current employers are reading Hacker News.
This is a talking point I have seen repeated constantly throughout the discussion. It does not accurately represent the point being made, as explained in the sibling comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45234349 .
I actually have witnessed the concept of empathy used on many occasions for a sort of rhetorical abuse, by alternately demanding it of people and then denying that they are fundamentally capable of it in a given situation due to identity differences. In the literal sense, empathy requires (https://www.simplypsychology.org/sympathy-empathy-compassion...) a deeper understanding of negative emotions based in "putting oneself in another's shoes"; but many will argue that this simply can't be properly done.
A simple example is that men are accused of lacking "empathy" for women who feel endangered in social/dating circumstances where the man might feel empowered. But we simply cannot spontaneously change our perspective on a given circumstance. (And, of course, it is treated as offensive to turn the example around; but that's another discussion.)
Indeed, your empathy is not being expected here by anyone. But your sympathy is. You are being expected to treat murder as a crime and the loss of a healthy adult life as a tragedy. Kirk had many ideas about how people should go about their lives that you might strongly disagree with, or even consider unconscionable. He also had many ideas about the reality of how businesses and other institutions operate, or about what is fair in that context, similarly.
But from what I can tell, nothing he ever said rose to the level of supposing that ending someone's life is an appropriate response to that person having the wrong ideas. (And the bit you're quoting is so incredibly far from that, that it's hard to assume good faith when people make this argument.)
His killer apparently disagreed. And many people on social media also seem to disagree, although they haven't taken action on it.
Does that, in your mind, apply to everyone? For example, would it be okay to execute a few of the people people who protested in support of Oct 8 just when it happened, long before there was any reaction?
I would also like to point out there is a very large difference between firing and killing. So no, people getting fired is not somehow equivalent to a killing.
There are incredible numbers of people who support, even celebrate deaths. And we're not even talking about the other difficulties, like perspective (e.g. the death of a Russian father fighting in Ukraine, do you celebrate or mourn?)
Sure, but the HN guidelines apply to us all, not matter who or what you're commenting about. If someone else posts a comment that's against the guidelines, flag it and/or email us (hn@ycombinator.com ). If you disagree with it, respond in a way that is within the guidelines, or don't respond at all, please.
"I think it's worth to have a cost of unfortunately some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the 2nd Amendment."
Charlie Kirk was callus about gun deaths in the United States, and was praised for it. Not sure why those same people are surprised people might be callus about his death.
The 4th Amendment prevents police from conducting searches without a warrant. There are criminals who are going to escape detection because of that, and there are known criminals who go free because of that, and every year some of those criminals are going to commit murder and other crimes that they would not have been able to commit if it weren't for the 4th Amendment. And the 4th Amendment is not the only other amendment in the Bill of Rights that makes it harder to catch and prosecute criminals.
Is it worth it to have a cost of some deaths every year so that we can have the Bill of Rights? Yes, it is. If you think that makes me callus, you need to develop a thicker skin.
> If you think that makes me callus, you need to develop a thicker skin.
Since GP also made the typo, I don't know if/to what extent a joke was intended here.
(The adjective, here intended to mean "emotionally hardened", is "callous". A callus (noun) is a region of literal thickened skin. Although "callous" can also literally refer to skin which has calluses.)
I didn't like or respect the guy but really that is probably the most reasonable thing he ever said (other than release the Epstein Files), if you believed the 2nd Amendment is important to have then you are essentially arguing for some gun deaths every year.
Note: I believe the 2nd Amendment is really the proof that the founding fathers weren't the super geniuses the mythology has them as, but hey, too late now.
Pretty much everything out of the guys mouth was either stupid or horrible. This just happens to be one of the most relevant to the current conversation
Do you think the same thing about "give me liberty or give me death?"
"...cost of unfortunately..." Is that not clear? The context was he was responding about a question about the 2nd amendment. clearly the first order thinking would make it clear it's not the rule, it's the purpose of the rule that's important.
The purpose is so you don't get arrested for some social media comment or other rights, like what is happening in the UK right now.
Do you have any detailed thoughts on what these people should have done or said, and what they actually did or said?
This seems like you are feeling quite offended -- to judge (now ex?) friends as "inhuman", and to further alienate them by labeling them as "liberals".
This is much more reasonable than getting fired over questioning mass experimental gene therapy or smiling in a photo with a Native American, or making the "ok' hand sign. Or ...
Now this is absolutely a tragic event, and it is horrific it happened. I feel nothing but empathy for his family and wish them nothing but healing and happiness. It is also horrible to celebrate a death especially like this of someone you could justifiably hate. Even down to the most selfish level why give your brain those neural pathways? I wouldn't want that type of person in my workplace or work with them, for sure. All that said, I think that we need to keep in mind that people are also pointing out he was a horrid person in opposition to the angelic remembrances he is receiving and need to be heard; it isn't disrespectful to refuse to misremember who he was. He has vouched for absolutely insane things, not even left/right policies that sound like a Victorian novel villain's takes. Paraphrasing some of his arguments: children should watch live executions, empathy is wrong and newage, gun violence and shootings are worth the freedom of the Second Amendment(in response to a school shooting).
What we need is for politicians to not keep labeling their opposition with violent rhetoric. Everything from punch a Nazi, to death to communism, we've got to get the violent rhetoric out of politics. Too many unstable people.
How do you apply what you’re saying?
Apply it to current US politicians. Who is doing this, how do you stop them?
The most disconcerting thing about this murder is that it seems like the killer was relatively normal beyond being excessively involved in online politics. In many of these things there's fairly obvious symptoms of major mental illness, or at the minimum it's some guy who's basically way down out in life. This was a young seemingly smart guy who just decided to throw his life away, and murder somebody else, probably as a result of spending way too much time in online circle jerks.
Kirk earned a living by intentionally inciting rage. The dividends of rage are violence, sadly.
I see no reason whatsoever to believe that he had any such intent. He simply had strongly held opinions that you and others find disagreeable.
His material’s all over the internet. So. May everyone go see for themselves.
you're still burying your head in the sand.
you realize it too.
Inducing rage and anger is what algorithms on social networks are optimized for. So we are sooner or later getting governments to regulate almighty algorithms driving social networks of today.
That completely misrepresents the situation because the deceased was very active offline. It wasn't merely an online matter. Calling someone mentally ill simply because you don't agree with their reasoning is the definition of insanity. For the most part, unless they have a diagnosis of schizophrenia, people know what they're doing. As for the deceased, he had been minting millions of dollars with his hate speech.
I was borderline, almost, kinda, 10% rethinking whether I was actually wrong to label MAGA fascists.
Then Kilmeade (multi-decade Fox News host) just casually dropped “we should lethal inject homeless people who refuse help” a day or two ago, and his co-hosts didn’t even miss a beat.
I mean, that’s literal Nazi shit. They say literal Nazi shit, this isn’t isolated. What do you call it? WTF. Elon sieg-heils twice at the inauguration and they don’t disown him. What is it going to take before we get folks who still think calling them fascists is the problem, actually, to blame the party that twice elected a guy president who told his supporters they could shoot his opponent if she won?
"...or you know, involuntary lethal injections. Just kill em." -Brian Kilmeade, Fox and Friends
[flagged]
Yes. Yes, it is a tragic event. Apart from it being simply morally utterly reprehensible, it is an extremely primitive and counter-productive way to fight against ideas and the messengers of those ideas.
Again, morally reprehensible and it doesn't fucking work. It only shows 'the other side is just as bad/worse', turns the messenger into a martyr, and galvanizes support.
What is actually tragic is that spreading lies, as he did, and the liar-in-chief has been doing for decades, works exceedingly well. Do you have a solution for that? People have no critical thinking skills, and believe anything if they hear it repeatedly when uttered with confidence! Our schools are a business that are focused on maximizing tax revenue for themselves while minimizing education and critical thought.
If there’s anything that this horrific event has taught me it’s to step away from social media political rabbit holes. These places amplify and feed upon themselves, and can lead you to a dark place where you’d glorify this kind of death.
After all this is exactly how to shooter himself ended up thinking he had to assassinate Kirk.
> If there’s anything that this horrific event has taught me it’s to step away from social media political rabbit holes.
This presents a conundrum to somebody wanting to stay abreast of current events. The president of the US is always-online to the point that not posting to twitter for a few hours sparks rumors that he's died. And if you look back a few decades in American history, assassination of politicians and activists happened long before the advent of social media.
I’m not sure there’s much use to “staying abreast of current events” for most people. Media (social/traditional) focuses on amping up your anxiety and putting your side against there’s. Rather than a balanced view of the details. Alarmist headlines and hand wringing tweets are engineered to anger and outrage you. It’s very hard to keep up with news while keeping your rational brain engaged.
If something truly momentous happens about it, you’ll hear about it.
If something happens that impacts you, you’ll find out when it happens and then you’ll get informed if there’s anything you can do about it.
> If something truly momentous happens about it, you’ll hear about it.
From who? And where are they getting their information?
It bears mentioning that you're presently participating in a political conversation on social media.
I got flagged here on HN for stating (right as the news was breaking) that the shooter could just as likely be right wing as left, and nothing was known right now. Literally facts, and people downvoted them. (I'll probably get downvoted again for this lol)
> I got flagged here on HN for stating (right as the news was breaking) that the shooter could just as likely be right wing as left
I don't think you should have been flagged for such an observation in general, but assigning a prior of equal probability strikes me as frankly absurd. It would be much harder for someone on the same ideological "side" to have a motivation to murder. False flags really aren't that common, in general. This is the same kind of conspiratorial thinking behind Alex Jones' "crisis actors".
Also, your comment was off-topic to the sub-thread. People were discussing whether Kirk would be seen as a martyr. The ideology of the shooter has quite little to do with that.
> (I'll probably get downvoted again for this lol)
Commentary like this is inherently obnoxious, and tends towards self-fulfilling prophecy.
Far as reporting goes, theres two tracks. Either he was upset with charlie not being far right enough, or somehow he was influences by the far left.
There is an objective way to understand the fuzzy logic problem media provides, but that leads to one type of politic.
The problem is rational thinking is whats under attack. Particularly when it leads to future predictions. Thats the danger because you can create a self fulfilling prophecy.
The far right in every country is trying to spread isolationism to reduce the capacity of society to benefit the most people because economic slavery is the only way oligarchy survives.
> Either he was upset with charlie not being far right enough, or somehow he was influences by the far left.
I don't think you can get much further right than he was though. When I hear of all the stuff he was saying. I don't think even Trump has ever said some of that stuff. Like that women should be secondary to men.
Apparently he also said that "a few deaths a year are a small price to pay for access to weapons". I wonder if he still felt that way knowing what was coming. I don't have the source link to hand though. News goes so fast now and I don't archive everything.
Personally I'd never heard of the guy but I'm not in the US (and very glad about that right now, the country seems to be tearing itself apart)
PS Also I'm not trying to defend the far right, I'm very left (especially by US standards which doesn't really have a 'left' compared to Europe, liberalism here is a moderate right-wing thing). But murder is definitely not ok in my book, of course. I would grin when I see a tesla dealership graffiti'd or a "swasticar" or "from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds" poster at a bus stop. but that's about as far as it goes. You don't touch people ever. Or really destroy stuff of value.
> I don't think you can get much further right than he was though.
Groypers.
Groypers
How does that square with the issue that he texted his trans significant other to go pick up his rifle which he could not do as feds found the rifle first. [1] The feds are interviewing the trans partner as we speak. To be clear I am not anti-trans, rather just confused how he could also be a Groyper. Maybe this is possible, just a new concept to me.
[1] - https://nypost.com/2025/09/13/us-news/charlie-kirk-shooter-t...
Link:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groypers
When Nick Fuentes first appeared, him and his little gang of nerds were definitely more far right than Kirk. TPUSA had a gay man on staff, and put him all over those little memes they made.
Israel is about the only thing Charlie and Nick disagree on now.
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You'll want to look into the "groypers," who are the group the alleged shooter may have been most closely affiliated with. They and Kirk's Turning Point USA had a falling out over TPU's unwillingness to be as ultra-nationalist, isolationist, or white supremacist as the groypers are. They assert that Kirk's brand of conservatism was carrying a kind of stolen valor over claiming they got Trump elected when the groypers would argue they were the ones most instrumental in cementing Trump's support among traditionally disenfranchised white nationalism.
It's too early to know, but it may be the case that this shooting was the right-wing equivalent of Stalin having Lenin removed as an ivory-tower elite obstacle to "true communism."
From what I read everything pointed at a killer from the extreme left
(bullet engravings, his partner, his father's testimony)
I'd be interested to know your sources. Information is flowing fast (as it often does in such a tragedy); I'd be interested to know what's being said outside my sphere.
The bullet engravings are well known (and people pushing the groyper theory seem to believe the engravings support their theory just as well).
There is a claim circulating that Robinson had a transgender/transitioning (MtF) roommate/partner. A simple web search will easily find multiple sources for this claim, but most of them aren't exactly what you'd consider authoritative or journalistic.
Many sources similarly assert that Robinson's father "recognized" him in photos and "encouraged him to turn himself in" (see e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/09/12/tyler-rob...). However, I don't know anything specific about his "testimony".
Howard Stern noted once how people who disliked him spent more time listening to him than those who liked him.
Kirk seemed to have invested heavily in aggravating people in order to make an audience. It seemed so obvious to me that I don't understand why those who disliked him would waste their time trying to debate him.
His rallies didn’t seem to be full of people who didn’t like him.
While yes, echo chambers certainly exacerbated the issue, the main problem is very simple. The american public is becoming so desperate that the only options left are increasingly violent. Our government is shutting down peaceful means of protest with incredible violence, and historically this only ends one way: revolt.
The assassinations will continue until morale improves, basically.
> the only options left
There are lots of options left. The big one would be to vote and to help others vote. In 2024, only 42% of young people cast a ballot.
What is the point of voting when gerrymandering decides the outcome? We don't have a functional voting system by any stretch of the imagination. If we did, gerrymandering wouldn't be a thing, and we'd be using ranked-choice or range-voting. So many of the right-wing states have banned these superior voting methods because they're so afraid the ones in power will lose immediately. Granted, it's true that Trump won the popular vote in 2024, but note that voting rights have unfairly been denied to many citizens, especially in right-wing states.
what "peaceful means of protest" has the government shut down exactly?
Cutting university funding if they don’t block protests. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqly0zrnnv3o
The ones at many Ivy League schools.
Literally every Israel protest.
Whoever just downvoted this, how about using your words instead.
Stephen King made the mistake of chiming in on X then having to apologize.
I never heard of Mr Kirk until the shooting so I don’t want to support his beliefs or dismiss them but I think we need to promote freedom of speech/expression. People say things we disagree with, things that are truly horrible, etc. At least in the United States, we should be a bit more tolerant when we disagree.
The things is... The things said do have consequences. Stochastic terrorism is real. Say people deserve to die (or are expendable) long enough and loud enough and someone ends up convinced.
Kirk literally died in the act of making the case that mass shootings aren't statistically meaningful because most violence is black-on-black gang crime. He didn't get to finish his thought because someone turned him into one of those bloodless statistics.
It seems that what many are reeling from in this moment is the consequences of speech like this had never blown back to harm someone they identified with, who looked and acted enough like them to engage all their empathy.
> Say people deserve to die (or are expendable)
> the act of making the case that mass shootings aren't statistically meaningful because most violence is black-on-black gang crime
These are not even remotely the same thing.
> He didn't get to finish his thought because someone turned him into one of those bloodless statistics.
Killing someone with a gunshot to the neck is absolutely not "bloodless".
You mean the Stochastic terrorism perpetrated on Charlie Kirk by the media relentlessly brandishing him a Nazi?
Who’s the media? I don’t follow a lot of news and I didn’t know Mr Kirk until last week.
People are in these media bubbles where they’re amped up all the time. Each side does a lot of name calling.
Each group boils it down to us vs them.
Who is "the media" in this context? MSNBC just let someone go for even suggesting Kirk deserved what happened. If anything, it seems at least mainstream media is very conservative about the labels it assigns to political speakers.
Here’s exactly what was said.
“”” “We don’t know if this was a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration,” MSNBC contributor Matthew Dowd told anchor Katy Tur shortly after Kirk was shot at a Utah university Wednesday “””
I wonder what Kirk would have thought about these firings.
I had never heard of the man before, but now his quotes and fragments of quotes are being weaponized on all fronts, making it hard to see what he actually believed.
You don't need to wonder too hard. He created the "Professor Watchlist". You can imagine what thats for. He also said Medhi Hasan should be deported.
He was not pro-free speech. It is not hard to see what he actually believed. Maybe it is right now with all of the news happening.
> He created the "Professor Watchlist". You can imagine what thats for.
According to its About page, it's for documentation only; "TPUSA will continue to fight for free speech and the right of professors to say whatever they believe".
> He also said Medhi Hasan should be deported.
Apparently, Kirk said Hasan's visa should be revoked, as he was unaware of Hasan's citizenship. But Kirk also said in his rant to "get him off TV", which indicates that his instinctual reaction does include silencing people he disagrees with.
> According to its About page, it's for documentation only; "TPUSA will continue to fight for free speech and the right of professors to say whatever they believe".
Well that clears things up...
> He created the "Professor Watchlist". You can imagine what thats for.
Yes; it's for freely expressing the idea that the people on the list have expressed harmful ideas with their own freedom of speech.
Or, in at least one case (Eric Clanton), that they have committed serious physical violence for ideological reasons.
Please continue. What is the end goal here? To inform students so that at class signup time, they don't pick these professors?
Or is it something else?
You are engaging in an obnoxious form of rhetoric (referred to as "darkly hinting" in the rational community). It is counterproductive and doesn't, in my view, meet the standards described in the HN commenting guidelines. Please stop.
If you believe that the watchlist serves some sinister purpose, the burden is on you to a) state it explicitly and b) proactively provide evidence. Persuading people that you're right requires accepting and working with the fact that they don't already hold your worldview and prior assumptions.
Fine. I'll stop "darkly hinting".
It's to get them fired, or worse.
And I could "provide evidence" of his intentions by simply posting a list of quotes thats he has said over his career, but that would DEFINITELY go against HN commenting guidelines.
> or worse.
With this, we see that you did not, in fact, stop darkly hinting.
> And I could "provide evidence" of his intentions by simply posting a list of quotes thats he has said over his career, but that would DEFINITELY go against HN commenting guidelines.
Indeed, it would. Most importantly, because that is not how evidence and rational argumentation work.
You don’t have to rely on second-hand reporting, there’s no lack of material from the man himself to form an opinion from, like for example: https://www.youtube.com/@RealCharlieKirk/videos
I doubt Kirk believed in anything, but he was happy to say whatever would get him attention and keep his benefactors happy. He wasn't particularly ideologically consistent, though to be fair, Republicans of his time weren't either.
We shouldn't care too much on what Kirk thought. Obviously it's horrible he was assassinated, but partisan hacks who make their living dividing people are not people we should try to emulate, even if they're dead. I'm sorry for his family and sorry for violence, but it's worrying how much people are demanding respect for him
Your comment seems critical of him.
So where is the line? What commentary on his death is acceptable and won’t get a person sacked or sanctioned from a government job?
I don't know the specifics about most of the firings. I think saying it's good someone was killed is inflammatory and not something people should do and expect no consequences. That MSNBC guy getting fired was ridiculous though. Kirk isn't suddenly due respect and zero criticism because he died.
Is this the cancel culture people got so upset about?
Interview with the guy who was talking to kirk as he got shot: https://youtu.be/18FNK6ZNGuo?si=CcBpH4n1E90817cc
This is actually the interview medly that turned me off C5
anyone from the administration?
is it limited to people sharing a certain sentiment or common statement?
The only problem I have with this is:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/people-are-calling-o...
No reaction occurred when Melissa Hortman was killed to people doing the same thing as people are doing now with Kirk.
Edit: make things a little bit clearer, AFAIK, no one was fired due to their insensitive comments about her and her husband.
What are you talking about, tons of people were asking for the guy to get investigated and his manifesto to be released.
At least on X/Twitter.
Huh? The link you posted shows that Trump condemned the shooting, calling it "horrific" and saying the shooter will prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. You're equating not flying flags at half mast, despite condemning the violence, to gloating over murder. You're trying to justify the gloating and celebration of violence and it's disgusting.
It is disgusting.
And it’s also free speech to gloat about it. Is it legal to sack someone who is gleeful?
The consensus on Hacker News was that New Zealand made an error blocking and banning the video of the Christchurch mosque shootings.
What’s the right way to handle these scenarios? Kirk was a free speech advocate with strong views on gun violence, further complicating things.
This whole "Kirk was a free speech advocate" nonsense needs to stop. It wasn't true then, and it certainly isn't true now.
https://www.professorwatchlist.org
>This whole "Kirk was a free speech advocate" nonsense needs to stop.
That’s different. ‘They’ don’t have the right to say those things, but Kirk maintained his right to say what he liked.
The 1st amendment doesn't protect your job, never has.
This is exactly right. People get fired over social media posts all of the time. The 1st amendment absolutely gives people the right to boycott these employers if they see fit though.
Do you mean ‘The 1st amendment absolutely gives people the right to boycott these employees if they see fit’.
Sorry, I’m not American so have little idea how it works.
No, I meant what I said.
I also did not agree against the legality of being fired for a social media post. It's been happening since social media first existed.
You also can't boycott an employee. I really don't know what point you are trying to make here.
I’m not trying to make a point. I was trying to understand if it’s legal to sack someone in the US if you don’t like their views and I didn’t read your comment carefully enough.
No, you can't fire someone for their views. That's 100% illegal, but given the track record of our current Supreme Court, I don't see that being the case for long.
Yes, in general a private employer can legally fire an employee for their political views. There are exceptions in some states, including California, New York, Colorado, North Dakota, that have protections for firing by political affiliation or activities, but that's the exception to the rule. Another exception applies to any public employee, since the first amendment applies to their employer.
The default employment rule is at-will employment, meaning someone can be fired for any reason not explicitly prohibited. Political affiliation is not a federally protected category.
"Free speech for me and not for thee..."
"Freedom of speech not freedom from consequences"
I saw that a lot online from lefties in previous years. The thing the left doesn't seem to understand is that every new weapon you create will eventually be used against you.
This is a strange take. A right wing firebrand just got shot. How is this an example of an action having consequences against the left?
Relating to the topic of the article, lefties rejoicing in Kirk getting shot are getting doxed and losing their jobs. That was a tactic pioneered by the left over the past decade. Now the same tactic is being used against them.
I suspect the consequences they're referring to are the consequences the right is currently trying to manufacture consent for. Stochastic violence against the transgender community, the government proscribing leftist political orgs as terrorist groups, Trump sending the national guard into blue states to "crack skulls," that sort of thing.
Trump orders all flags in the nation at half mast and Kirk is being treated like a fallen statesman and hero, the State Department claiming it will revoke the visas of any immigrant who speaks negatively of Kirk, the breathless media coverage, Trump ranting about "leftist violence", the right wing's endless calls for violence and war on social media (going entirely unclamped-down upon,) and the narrative being created that Charlie Kirk was a peaceful intellectual scholar and activist of the likes of MLK Jr and Jesus Christ.
It's obvious a stage is being set here. And of course when whatever happens happens, it will be blamed on the left.
A. I'm actually fine with people getting fired for openly celebrating or claiming murder is a good thing.
2. People getting fired for simply pointing out that Kirk is a victim of a system he helped build are getting fired, which is a completely different situation.
3. The Trump admiration openly going after people is infringing on freedom of speech.
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It's been amazing to watch the chair occupants change on this subject (free speech) in the last few years. I still remember "freeze peach" and https://xkcd.com/1357/
Unlimited free speech for everyone, but consequences for saying things that harm or offend.
If you say "Democrats suck", don't expect them to buy your product. If you say "God doesn't exist," don't expect Christians to come to your business. If you say "I hate gays", expect to get fired from your medical clinic job.
Have free speech, but use it wisely.
Having free speech serves to diffuse social tension. It ensures we don't wind up as cattle, like in 1984. Just don't expect that you can praise the death of certain people and expect everyone to love you for it.
Maybe above all you should be kind. Regardless of your politics. Articulate what you don't like with your free speech, but don't be an asshole.
Unfortunately social media encourages fast engagement with little nuance, so we see a sewer instead of a noble land of open thought and debate.
But we shouldn't throw free speech out with the bath water.
Harm in the physical sense, agreed. But "harm" newly defined 2013-2025 mutated into "speech I don't like" by the government.
"Offend" is subjective, and US Citizens should not have punitive governmental consequences as a result.
But private organizations, should be able to make their own decisions on all the above.
> Harm in the physical sense, agreed. But "harm" newly defined 2013-2025 mutated into "speech I don't like" by the government.
By the government? I doubt that “speech is violence” comes from the government.
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That was mostly the case pre 2025.
We all have to fight to undo the Obama Smith-Mundt Modernization Act that allowed the executive branch to create domestic propaganda.
Fascinating how the guardian can spin people celebrating one of the most destabilising acts of evil committed this year into a free speech issue. There's something very wrong with people when they celebrate cold blooded murderers like luigi miagione. Reddit is full of people almost openly gleeful about this and the Guardian chooses to take their side.
What of the violence advocated by Kirk himself?
So what do you do? Ban that sort of talk and speech?
“facts don’t care about your feelings”
Putting aside that this kind of pithy quotation isn't contributing to productive discourse, it comes from Shapiro, not Kirk.
I think it's easy for people to forget sometimes because the interface doesn't make it particularly obvious that much of social media is screaming from a soapbox in some of the world's largest agoras.
The interface makes it feel like you're having a polite conversation among like-minded folk. In reality, you're like one of those folks on a street corner with a megaphone and most of the time the rest of the world isn't listening to you. But they can tune you in anytime they want, and there can be consequences for holding a strong opinion incompatible with the strong opinion of other people you will be wanting to do business with.
... That of course includes this medium. Watch what you say today everyone, your future and current employers are reading Hacker News.
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Please don't post flamebait or inflammatory rhetoric on HN. The guidelines are clear about this:
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45234112 and marked it off topic.
> I would argue that the only people we do not owe empathy to are those who oppose empathy, as Kirk did.
The full quote said that instead of empathy one should think about sympathy. However, with the full quote the argument looks weak.
Edit: here is a link https://m.youtube.com/shorts/vojXvj2B6RI
This is a talking point I have seen repeated constantly throughout the discussion. It does not accurately represent the point being made, as explained in the sibling comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45234349 .
I actually have witnessed the concept of empathy used on many occasions for a sort of rhetorical abuse, by alternately demanding it of people and then denying that they are fundamentally capable of it in a given situation due to identity differences. In the literal sense, empathy requires (https://www.simplypsychology.org/sympathy-empathy-compassion...) a deeper understanding of negative emotions based in "putting oneself in another's shoes"; but many will argue that this simply can't be properly done.
A simple example is that men are accused of lacking "empathy" for women who feel endangered in social/dating circumstances where the man might feel empowered. But we simply cannot spontaneously change our perspective on a given circumstance. (And, of course, it is treated as offensive to turn the example around; but that's another discussion.)
Indeed, your empathy is not being expected here by anyone. But your sympathy is. You are being expected to treat murder as a crime and the loss of a healthy adult life as a tragedy. Kirk had many ideas about how people should go about their lives that you might strongly disagree with, or even consider unconscionable. He also had many ideas about the reality of how businesses and other institutions operate, or about what is fair in that context, similarly.
But from what I can tell, nothing he ever said rose to the level of supposing that ending someone's life is an appropriate response to that person having the wrong ideas. (And the bit you're quoting is so incredibly far from that, that it's hard to assume good faith when people make this argument.)
His killer apparently disagreed. And many people on social media also seem to disagree, although they haven't taken action on it.
Does that, in your mind, apply to everyone? For example, would it be okay to execute a few of the people people who protested in support of Oct 8 just when it happened, long before there was any reaction?
I would also like to point out there is a very large difference between firing and killing. So no, people getting fired is not somehow equivalent to a killing.
There are incredible numbers of people who support, even celebrate deaths. And we're not even talking about the other difficulties, like perspective (e.g. the death of a Russian father fighting in Ukraine, do you celebrate or mourn?)
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I understand your distress, but this is not an appropriate way to point out the issue with the argument.
I'm just sick of lies and propaganda like this leading to the brutal murder of people. Actual brutal murder, not imagined.
Sure, but the HN guidelines apply to us all, not matter who or what you're commenting about. If someone else posts a comment that's against the guidelines, flag it and/or email us (hn@ycombinator.com ). If you disagree with it, respond in a way that is within the guidelines, or don't respond at all, please.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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I mean, TikTok was made illegal by congress many, many months ago. Charlie supported this.
He also somehow supported the president "saving" TikTok, and was one of the most prominent influencers on the platform.
Seems really easy to solve this problem. Follow the law. The president must love the CCP or something.
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"I think it's worth to have a cost of unfortunately some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the 2nd Amendment."
Charlie Kirk was callus about gun deaths in the United States, and was praised for it. Not sure why those same people are surprised people might be callus about his death.
The 4th Amendment prevents police from conducting searches without a warrant. There are criminals who are going to escape detection because of that, and there are known criminals who go free because of that, and every year some of those criminals are going to commit murder and other crimes that they would not have been able to commit if it weren't for the 4th Amendment. And the 4th Amendment is not the only other amendment in the Bill of Rights that makes it harder to catch and prosecute criminals.
Is it worth it to have a cost of some deaths every year so that we can have the Bill of Rights? Yes, it is. If you think that makes me callus, you need to develop a thicker skin.
> If you think that makes me callus, you need to develop a thicker skin.
Since GP also made the typo, I don't know if/to what extent a joke was intended here.
(The adjective, here intended to mean "emotionally hardened", is "callous". A callus (noun) is a region of literal thickened skin. Although "callous" can also literally refer to skin which has calluses.)
Then perhaps people who share that point of view need to develop a thicker skin now that Kirk is part of the cost.
I didn't like or respect the guy but really that is probably the most reasonable thing he ever said (other than release the Epstein Files), if you believed the 2nd Amendment is important to have then you are essentially arguing for some gun deaths every year.
Note: I believe the 2nd Amendment is really the proof that the founding fathers weren't the super geniuses the mythology has them as, but hey, too late now.
Pretty much everything out of the guys mouth was either stupid or horrible. This just happens to be one of the most relevant to the current conversation
The only reason we look at the 2nd Amendment as we do today is because of the NRA.
The founding fathers had vastly different ideas for drafting the 2nd.
Do you think the same thing about "give me liberty or give me death?"
"...cost of unfortunately..." Is that not clear? The context was he was responding about a question about the 2nd amendment. clearly the first order thinking would make it clear it's not the rule, it's the purpose of the rule that's important.
The purpose is so you don't get arrested for some social media comment or other rights, like what is happening in the UK right now.
Well now he's one of those unfortunate sacrifices. I guess it had to happen, nothing we could do about it besides send hopes and prayers I guess.
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Do you have any detailed thoughts on what these people should have done or said, and what they actually did or said?
This seems like you are feeling quite offended -- to judge (now ex?) friends as "inhuman", and to further alienate them by labeling them as "liberals".
That's certainly over-stating the situation, no?
This is the same train of thought as the murderer, and all the right-wing examples of praising murder/violence.
Can we flag this post? It doesn't add value to the platform.
PS: Take a deep breath before you reply. Don't let me ruin your day.
This is much more reasonable than getting fired over questioning mass experimental gene therapy or smiling in a photo with a Native American, or making the "ok' hand sign. Or ...
"or making the "ok' hand sign."
You just discovered why dog whistles exist.
"The entire scuba diving community is fascist!"
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