After prominent conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed during a university event in Utah, the political sphere erupted in concerns over growing political violence in the United States.
“We shouldn’t regard one another as enemies. We’re fellow Americans, and we should have vigorous debate, but it cannot lead to political violence. It’s just too much,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday.
Recommended Stories
- Fox News host Will Cain stops show for prayer and moment of silence after Charlie Kirk shot
- Charlie Kirk assassination: New person of interest sought after another was released
- Leading DC Democrats blast markup of proposed legislation as crime emergency nears expiration
Former President Joe Biden echoed the sentiments, saying, “There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones.”
Kirk’s death came after other instances of political violence this summer, namely the shootings of two Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses in June. The Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot and killed, and state Sen. John Huffman and his wife were left wounded.
At least 300 incidents of political violence have taken place since the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, according to Reuters.
Assassination of Minnesota Democrat leaves congressional members worried over safety
Here’s a timeline of notable acts of political violence in the U.S. involving politicians and political figures in recent years, dating back to 2011:
Charlie Kirk shot dead
While speaking to college students at Utah Valley University Sept. 10 in a “Prove Me Wrong” event, Kirk was shot in the neck. The shooter used a long range rifle from about 100 yards away, according to law enforcement officials. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Kirk, who co-founded Turning Point USA, was known for engaging in enthusiastic debate with people from across the political spectrum. He was responsible for activating thousands of young voters, and has been credited as having a hand in shaping the modern Republican party.
The shooter is still at large and his motives are unclear, but Gov. Spencer Cox (R-UT) has called the shooting a political assassination.
“Our nation is broken. We’ve had political assassinations recently in Minnesota. We had an attempted assassination on the governor of Pennsylvania, and we had an attempted assassination on a presidential candidate and former President of the United States and now current President of the United States,” Cox said.
President Donald Trump called the shooting a “dark day,” saying the attack was on on”our whole country.”
The shootings of Minnesota state lawmakers
State Rep. Melissa Hortman and State Sen. John Hoffman, along with their spouses, were gunned down at their respective homes on June 14. The suspect, Vance Luther Boelter, was impersonating a police officer.
Police found five more firearms, ammunition, and a list of more than 45 other people, including Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), in Boelter’s abandoned vehicle. Officials believe they were also targets, acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson said in a Monday press conference.
Boelter’s vehicle also contained “No Kings” flyers, prompting the cancellation of the anti-Trump events throughout the state scheduled for that day. Boelter was captured Sunday and now faces six federal charges and four state charges in the shooting.
While Boelter’s motives are not yet known, Walz said the shooting “appears to be a politically motivated assassination.”
Josh Shapiro arson attack
Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) and his family were forced to evacuate the governor’s mansion after an arsonist set fire to it on April 13. The attack took place during Passover, a major Jewish holiday.
While Shapiro and his family weren’t injured, the suspected arsonist, 38-year-old Cody Balmer, claimed he would have beaten the governor with a sledgehammer if he had found him. An affidavit from the Pennsylvania State Police detailed that Balmer allegedly committed the arson against Shapiro “based upon perceived injustices to the people of Palestine.”
Balmer has since been charged with attempted homicide, terrorism, and aggravated arson.
“This is not how we resolve our differences,” Shapiro wrote in a post on X after the incident. “This kind of violence has no place in our society — and it must be condemned by everyone, from both political parties.”
Violence toward Elon Musk’s Tesla
Elon Musk’s Tesla was the target of a number of violent incidents and demonstrations on vehicles and showrooms from critics who opposed his work with the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, which spent the initial months of Trump’s presidency slashing federal spending.
Seven Tesla charging stations were “intentionally” set on fire in Massachusetts in March, according to the Littleton Police Department. A week before, a Colorado woman was arrested after allegedly setting devices at a Tesla showroom on fire and using an explosive device at the dealership.
Another March incident involved a Tesla center in Nevada, where a suspect hauled Molotov cocktails into the building and used a firearm to shoot into vehicles, damaging five and causing two of them to burst into flames.
“Let me be extremely clear to anyone who still wants to firebomb a Tesla property: you will not evade us,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in an April 16 Justice Department press release following the arrest of a suspect in connection with a Tesla arson incident in Kansas City, Missouri. “You will be arrested. You will be prosecuted. You will spend decades behind bars. It is not worth it.”
DC police to investigate Tesla attacks as hate crimes with heftier penalties
The FBI, Department of Justice, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives have said they are investigating the incidents.
First Trump assassination attempt
Trump survived an assassination attempt after he was shot in the ear during a July 13 campaign stop in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Twenty-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who the FBI later named as the shooter, fired multiple shots into the rally crowd. As Trump was speaking onstage, a bullet came within inches of killing him and grazed the side of his head. He sustained a minor injury to his ear.
A spectator was killed in the shooting, and two others were critically injured.
The Secret Service later said Crooks, who was killed by agents, fired on Trump from “an elevated position” outside the security perimeter of the rally. A motive for the shooting remains unknown.
The incident marked the most serious attempt to kill a president or presidential candidate since an assassination attempt on then-President Ronald Reagan in 1981. It prompted multiple inquiries into the Secret Service and Trump’s security.
Then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned from her position less than two weeks after the assassination attempt. She faced mounting calls from bipartisan lawmakers and officials to step down in the wake of her agency’s security failures.
Second Trump assassination attempt
Just two months after he was shot, Trump was the subject of a second assassination attempt when a suspect, later identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, targeted the then-presidential candidate while he was golfing at one of his clubs in Florida.
The Secret Service spotted the suspected gunman, armed with a semiautomatic rifle, hiding in the bushes near the course and taking aim at Trump. He was arrested, and Trump was unharmed.
Routh was charged by a grand jury with the “attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate” — a charge that, if convicted, could come with a sentence of life in prison, according to a September press release from the Department of Justice. Routh also faces several gun charges.
Routh was openly critical of Trump, suggesting in a June 2020 post on X that he voted for Trump in 2016 but said he would be “glad when you gone,” CBS News reported. He also seemingly self-published a book in 2023, Ukraine’s Unwinnable War, in which he urged Iran to assassinate Trump, according to the Associated Press.
Jan. 6 riots at the US Capitol
Following a speech from then-President Trump at the Ellipse in downtown Washington, D.C., hundreds of angry protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol on the day Congress was set to certify the 2020 election results and declare Joe Biden the president-elect.
Protests grew violent, with rioters attacking law enforcement officers at the scene and vandalizing congressional offices as elected officials were forced to flee for their safety.
A June 2021 bipartisan Senate report on the riot said seven people, including three police officers, died as a result of the events of Jan. 6. Among them are Ashli Babbitt, who was killed by Capitol Police on Jan. 6, and Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died of a stroke a day after a protester attacked him with bear spray.
The House impeached Trump a week after the riots, accusing the outgoing president of inciting an insurrection. A month later, he was acquitted in the Senate of the charge that he incited the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
In October 2020, FBI agents foiled what they called a militia plot to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and overthrow the state’s government, charging six men in connection with the incident.
“Several members talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or ‘taking’ a sitting governor,” the FBI wrote in a federal affidavit. “The group decided they needed to increase their numbers and encouraged each other to talk to their neighbors and spread their message.”
The discovery of the plot came as Whitmer faced sharp criticism for her strict COVID-19 measures.
“I knew this job would be hard,” Whitmer told the New York Times in an April 2021 interview. “But I’ll be honest, I never could have imagined anything like this.”
Shooting of Steve Scalise at congressional baseball practice
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) was shot in June 2017 after 66-year-old James Hodgkinson of Belleville, Illinois, opened fire as Republican members of a congressional baseball team held practice in Alexandria, Virginia. Scalise and four other people were shot, Politico reported. Hodgkinson was shot and killed by police.
Scalise talks congressional baseball shooting six years later: ‘God was on the field’
Scalise, who was then the majority whip of the House of Representatives, almost didn’t make it through the day, he shared in an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner. After undergoing nine surgeries, he spent more than three months in the hospital and had to relearn to walk.
Hodgkinson reportedly hated Republicans and targeted the practice over his severe dislike for Republicans and his anger after Trump’s election in 2016. In online posts, he “referred to President Trump as a traitor, stating ‘It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co,'” according to the Secret Service.
Assassination attempt of Gabby Giffords
Former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) was shot in the head as part of an assassination attempt in Arizona in January 2011. The third-term congresswoman was making a public appearance outside a grocery store in a Tucson suburb when a gunman opened fire, killing six people and injuring 13 others.
Jared Lee Loughner, who officials later identified as the shooter, was arrested at the scene. He later pleaded guilty to 19 federal charges to avoid facing the death penalty.
Giffords survived in what doctors called a “miraculous” recovery, followed by several months at a rehabilitation center in Texas to treat a severe brain injury sustained from the shooting, according to The Arizona Republic. Her injuries led to her resignation from Congress the following year.
TRUMP SAYS HE WON’T ’WASTE TIME’ CALLING WALZ OVER MINNESOTA LAWMAKERS SHOOTING
Giffords’s husband, Mark Kelly, was elected to Arizona’s open Senate seat in the 2020 special election and was reelected in 2022 to serve a full term.