We knew that the left’s response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination would be ugly, but it was uglier than anyone could have predicted and infinitely more stupid, too. It was uglier because hordes of people celebrated the death of a young father because they disagreed with his ideas, and it was stupid because of how they approached the gun control arguments that always arise when someone, anyone, gets shot.
First, the ugliness: A leftist acquaintance who was horrified by Charlie’s death nevertheless objected to the essay I wrote immediately after Charlie’s death. He believed I too laboriously cherry-picked social media posts about ugly Democrat responses to make a point. He contended that, if someone were to assassinate a popular leftist speaker, nasty conservatives would also appear on social media.
I explained that you’d always find a fringe in any group that would have vile responses when someone political is murdered. However, I said, the sheer volume of vile responses is a purely leftist phenomenon.
What we witnessed in real time was Orwell’s famed two minutes of hate, voluntarily exercised against a murder victim and lasting a lot longer than two minutes.
At the top, there was the group response from elected Democrats:
Ilhan Omar was her usual vile self:JUST IN: During a moment of silence in the U.S. House for Charlie Kirk's passing, Democrats erupt in outrage.
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) September 10, 2025
There are no words for this kind of despicable behavior.pic.twitter.com/gqyHa18TMQ
And there was the media:Rep. Ilhan Omar is happy Charlie Kirk was kiIIed: "He downplayed George Floyd. He opposed Juneteenth."
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) September 11, 2025
Look at their grins pic.twitter.com/Ra5Eg4MZ3k
TMZ staff cheers that Charlie Kirk had his life taken.
— Paul A. Szypula ???????? (@Bubblebathgirl) September 11, 2025
You can hear them in the background at around 30 seconds into this clip.
If they’re not fired already then Harvey Levin is a disgrace.pic.twitter.com/QD4RQfK43a
Matthew Dowd has been fired from MSNBC after his reprehensible comments about Charlie Kirk. pic.twitter.com/ZR8WuMUSsJ
— Paul A. Szypula ???????? (@Bubblebathgirl) September 11, 2025
Regarding Dowd’s comments, that so-called “hate speech” was normal American thinking not long ago: America is worthy of patriotism; the Constitution is good; a baby in utero is a human life; judging people based on their race not their character is bad; borders are important, so illegal aliens should be repatriated; and men and women are biologically distinct, and nothing will change that.
However, the real bile spewed from the base, which responded with celebratory fury and endless threats:
It got so bad that Bluesky had to act:URGENT. FYI.
— Jennifer ????????????♀️????????⬛ ???? (@babybeginner) September 11, 2025
After Charlie Kirk, on the sky app there are people asking for the next person to be targeted. These include JK Rowling, Matt Walsh, Trump, Ben Shapiro, Libs of TikTok, Elon Musk, and Andy Ngo.
I took as many screenshots as I could. pic.twitter.com/CnZmmJAjvh
Yes, it’s literally that bad, that demonic on BlueSky right now. pic.twitter.com/dJ4U56gI2Q
— Election Wizard (@ElectionWiz) September 11, 2025
Across social media, countless numbers of people, especially those in positions of trust (educators, government employees, etc.), celebrated Charlie’s death in terms ranging from self-righteous to insane, along with threatening other conservatives. There are so many it bogs down loading this essay to embed them. Instead, check out Libs of TikTok and Scott Pressler, both of whom have been collecting examples—and both of whom have been put on the left’s “you’re next” list.
The attacks from the military were especially disturbing, but the new Pentagon (not Mark Milley’s Pentagon) is responding:
One of the consistent themes the Democrats raised in their two minutes of hate is that Charlie had it coming because he supported the Second Amendment, with Elizabeth Warren illustrating the top-down nature of these attacks:
This was the most common argument, saying that Charlie had it coming:
Charlie Kirk on April 5, 2023, after the Nashville school shooting: "I think it's worth it. 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." https://t.co/5LAS4bhFEv pic.twitter.com/MSvddezPak
— M. ???????????????????????? (@mdotgru) September 11, 2025
In other words, according to the left, because Charlie acknowledged that criminals would take advantage of our Second Amendment rights, he was begging to die and, indeed, deserved to do so.
However, that’s not what Charlie was saying. Instead, he was acknowledging that there’s a hierarchy of risks in the world. The reason we have a Second Amendment is because we know that, in any society, disarmed people are at the greatest risk, whether from external enemy attacks (i.e., war); civil society breaking down entirely, leaving armed mobs in control (e.g., Haiti); and, most of all, a government turning on its own people.
Regarding that last point, Mao killed 50-100 million Chinese people, the Soviets killed an estimated 7-9 million people before WWII, and Pol Pot killed up to one-third of Cambodians. Those numbers do not include the 6 million Jews and roughly 11 million other civilians (homosexuals, communists, Roma, Poles, Russians, etc.) whom the Nazis deliberately killed. In all instances, the first thing the killers did, if the people were not already disarmed, was disarm them.
Our most precious civil right is the right to life, and people die en masse when they lose the ability to defend that right. Charlie understood, as do all intelligent, rational people, that the Second Amendment is the bulwark against mass slaughter, even though it leaves the door open for evil individuals to act. But that’s not the same as condoning crime.
If you hate murder, as Charlie did, you don’t disarm good people; instead, you punish bad ones and institutionalize crazy ones. What you don’t do is what leftists have done in America for decades: Abandon the rule of law and encourage the evil and the crazy to think they’ve got the right to kill.
The problem isn’t the guns; it’s the people, both the ones who kill and, even worse, the ones who make the killing possible.