Video: Assassination of Charlie Kirk Sends Shock Waves Through Washington
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace (R) said she would begin carrying a gun when permitted after the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“I’ll start carrying again when I’m back home, and when I’m allowed to carry where it’s reciprocal. In other states, I will have a firearm on my person all the time, and I will have security,” Mace told reporters Thursday outside the Capitol.
The GOP representative said Capitol Police’s allocation of $15 million to protect lawmakers at home amounts to $5,000 a month per lawmaker.
“For those here in Congress who are very vocal and are more well known than others, $5,000 is not much. I’m not personally rich, so we are taking different safety precautions,” Mace said.
She noted that for now she’d forgo outdoor events and asked for local police to remain stationed outside her offices in the Palmetto State.
She decried Kirk’s death in a series of social media posts on Wednesday, blaming the left for an increase in political violence, despite statements from Democrats condemning the fatal shooting.
“If you have a different opinion from the left, they want to kill you. That is a fact, and that’s the way you all should report it,” the South Carolina lawmaker said.
Mace said Kirk spurred national conversations about politics and engaged the younger generation in important discussions.
“Charlie Kirk was assassinated. He was murdered for his beliefs. …You guys in the Democratic Party want a national conversation. Charlie Kirk literally had a peaceful national conversation. That is the movement that he created,” Mace stated.
“He was good with facts. He was educating people from all walks of life. And he was murdered for doing the very thing you Democrats want us on the Republican Party side to do, and I’m done with it. I’m done. It cannot go on anymore, and we’ve got to be more vigilant than ever.”
President Trump, Vice President Vance and other GOP leaders are mourning the loss of Kirk, who traveled the country lobbying on behalf of Trump.
The president said Thursday he plans to posthumously honor the Turning Point USA co-founder with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, while Vance has arranged for Kirk’s casket to be flown to Arizona on Air Force Two.
“Like me, he was skeptical of Donald Trump in 2016. Like me, he came to see President Trump as the only figure capable of moving American politics away from the globalism that had dominated for our entire lives,” Vance wrote in a post on the social platform X.
Kirk reportedly helped the Trump administration vet appointees and temporarily relocated to Palm Beach, Fla., to help with staffing measures.
“So much of the success we’ve had in this administration traces directly to Charlie’s ability to organize and convene,” Vance said. “He didn’t just help us win in 2024, he helped us staff the entire government.”