Several months prior to Wednesday's tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University, the slain 31-year-old conservative activist warned his followers on social media that "assassination culture is spreading on the left."
Kirk shared a post April 7 on X.com that cited a Fox News Digital article about a nationally representative study from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), which found 38% of respondents said it would be at least "somewhat justified" to murder President Donald Trump, and 31% said the same about Elon Musk. But the numbers jump even higher, to 55% for Trump and 48% for Musk, when counting just the left-leaning survey respondents.
"Assassination culture is spreading on the left. Forty-eight percent of liberals say it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk. Fifty-five percent said the same about Donald Trump," Kirk wrote in his post on X, citing the NCRI report. "The left is being whipped into a violent frenzy. Any setback, whether losing an election or losing a court case, justifies a maximally violent response."
This split image shows Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk speaking moments before his assassination and a still from cellphone video showing a dark-clad figure on a rooftop nearby. (@Doug_Zimmer1/X, Tess Crowley/The Deseret News via AP)
Kirk called the violent momentum a "natural outgrowth of left-wing protest culture." He accused the culture of tolerating "violence and mayhem," while also slamming "the cowardice" of local prosecutors and school officials for their complicity in promoting the trend of violent attitudes.
"The cowardice of local prosecutors and school officials have turned the left into a ticking time bomb," Kirk wrote in his post.
In Kirk's post, he also pointed to the fact that voters in California were effectively eulogizing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson's murderer Luigi Mangione by naming a state ballot measure after him. It was called the Luigi Mangione Access to Health Care Act, which sought to make it harder for medical insurance companies to deny claims for treatments or medications.
Wednesday's horrific assassination of Kirk, who founded the grassroots conservative advocacy group Turning Point USA in 2012, is just the latest incident of conservative figures and institutions being targeted with violence. The fatal shooting comes amid a record over the past four years of conservatives and Republicans encountering violence, a Fox News Digital review found, including two assassination attempts on Trump within about a two-month period in 2024.
CHARLIE KIRK PAINTED AS 'CONTROVERSIAL,' 'PROVOCATIVE' IN MEDIA’S ASSASSINATION COVERAGE
A person of interest that the FBI is pursuing following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, shown at right. (FBI Salt Lake City; Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images)
Earlier this year, the New Mexico Republican Party's headquarters faced an arson attack that destroyed the entrance to its Albuquerque headquarters, while graffiti reading "ICE=KKK" was scrawled on the building. The suspect in that case also allegedly attacked a Tesla Albuquerque Showroom and was hit with federal charges.
The spate of violent incidents at the beginning of this year targeting Tesla car owners, dealerships, charging stations and Republicans in general, compelled some GOP lawmakers to cancel public events. GOP Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman was one of those lawmakers. Her decision came after an incident in which an attendee of one of her town halls followed Hageman as she left and initiated a physical confrontation with her staff, eventually requiring police to intervene.
A handful of pro-life activists were also physically attacked this year, including a pro-life journalist who was punched by an interviewee mid-discussion.
TPUSA chapters around the nation have faced other incidents of violence this year as well, including when a group of students with Turning Point USA were attacked by masked individuals at University of California, Davis in April, Fox News previously reported. The conservative group was hosting one of its frequently held "Prove Me Wrong" events on the campus, when protesters destroyed camera gear, a tent, and signs at the event. They also flipped tables and assaulted TPUSA staff, the group said after the incident happened.
A photo shows the arson attack that took place at the New Mexico GOP Party headquarters in Albuquerque earlier this year. (New Mexico Republican Party)
Going back to 2023, former NCAA swimmer and conservative political activist Riley Gaines was attacked and barricaded by protesters in a room at San Francisco State University after she went to campus to speak to students about banning biological males who identify as transgender from competing in women's sports. The event was part of a Turning Point USA and Leadership Institute forum that was taking place on the university's campus.
Meanwhile, Churches and pro-life groups have faced dozens upon dozens of attacks dating back to 2022 following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, which effectively ended the recognition of abortion as a constitutional right.
The attacks included a "firebombed" pro-life center in Buffalo, New York, in 2022, vandalized Catholic churches that were targets of arson attacks, and pro-choice protesters interrupting faith services. The attacks came after a far-left pro-choice group declared in a public letter that it was "open season" on pro-lifers.
Notably, in 2017, then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., was shot along with three others when James Hodgkinson, a deranged Bernie Sanders supporter, fired upon an Alexandria, Virginia, baseball field as Republican lawmakers practiced for the annual Congressional Baseball Game. Scalise, who nearly died but ultimately recovered, remains in office and is currently the House Majority Leader for the Republicans.
Fox News Digital's Jasmine Baehr and Emma Colton contributed to this report.