On Wednesday, Sept. 10, thousands gathered at Utah Valley University to watch conservative activist Charlie Kirk debate students as part of his American Comeback Tour — only for the event to be cut short by a gunshot.

A fatal bullet tore through Kirk’s neck, unleashing panic and prompting the university to close the campus and cancel classes, advising students to “secure in place until safely escorted out by police.”  

Politically motivated violence in the United States had been escalating, even before Kirk’s death. The deadly shootings over the past 12 months of Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare; Wesley LePatner, the CEO of Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust; and Melissa Hortman, a former Minnesota state representative, still linger in the national consciousness.

Now, some fear Kirk’s assassination may be the start of a new era of political violence. The killing has sparked nationwide conversations about gun control, the impact of Kirk’s activism, and more. 

“After Luigi Mangione, I think now it’s becoming clear that this is the path that people are going to take when they hate somebody,” said a student at Diablo Valley College, who preferred to remain anonymous. 

“People get so angry about these things. I don’t want people finding me,” explained the student, a STEM major. “It’s really sad to know that this is kind of where the country is turning. It’s just escalation, escalation, escalation.”

The killing in Utah traumatized those who witnessed it, and also traumatized the nation. 

“We don’t agree with some of his opinions, a lot of his opinions, but watching him bleed out like that, no one deserves that. It was really graphic,” said Tulan White, a 20-year-old emergency management major at Utah Valley University who was present at the shooting, and spoke to The Inquirer just days after.

“He just talked. He didn’t make any laws. He didn’t kill anyone. He just had different opinions, and he was bold about it.” 

Kirk, a 31-year-old father of two, was a political activist best known for co-founding the influential nonprofit Turning Point USA, which advocates for conservative politics in education, with nearly 800 college chapters. Kirk debated college students at events with his signature “Prove Me Wrong” booth, where he defended his conservative views on gun rights, abortion, immigration, women’s rights and other hot-button issues. 

Kirk gained a large online following and was credited with being “instrumental in driving youth support for Trump in the November 2024 election,” according to Reuters. 

In the days following Kirk’s death, many of his supporters argued that his assassination was an attack on free speech. But others feel that Kirk’s own activism attacked free speech — just left-wing political speech, rather than the right-wing rhetoric Kirk supported. 

“They doxxed me,” said Albert Ponce, a DVC political science professor and co-director of the school’s social justice program, referring to his experience with Turning Point USA. 

Ponce said he was placed on the organization’s Professor Watchlist — a website with a list of college professors whom the group alleges “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom” — in late 2017, after a doctored video of one of his lectures went viral for comments he had made about abolishing white supremacy. 

Once the speech was reported by conservative media outlets like Fox News, Ponce saw his inbox flooded with hundreds of hate mails, including some threatening his life. And Ponce was not the only professor targeted.

“They attacked hundreds of my colleagues,” said Ponce, who “lost jobs, they lost the ability to feed their kids.”

Professor Watchlist often listed professors’ personal information next to misrepresented statements. Tommy J. Curry, a philosophy professor formerly at Texas A&M, was singled out by conservative activists for allegedly discussing “situations where it is acceptable to kill white people,” according to Professor Watchlist.

Snopes, a fact-checking website, said Curry’s statements were taken out of context. But Curry was still sent death threats and racial slurs, and ultimately left the university to teach at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland out of fear for his own safety, according to Ponce. 

Curry remains on Professor Watchlist to this day. 

Another controversial part of Kirk’s legacy has also entered the national conversation: gun control. The fact that Kirk was shot on a college campus has sparked renewed alarm about the frequency of school shootings in the United States.

School shootings have been steadily rising since the 2000s, and peaked in the past five years with an average number of about 80 annual school shootings. There have already been 53 mass shootings so far in 2025.

“The school I work at is Catholic, and the school is gated, but unfortunately the church is not, so we’re trying to find a way to make the church accessible to all, while also protecting the kids,” said a DVC student who preferred to remain anonymous. 

“The more recent discussion has been about creating an active shooter drill at church, which is really hard on the kids,” the student said.

The state of Utah, where Kirk was gunned down, allows concealed carry of a weapon even within college campuses. Kirk himself was a vehement supporter of the Second Amendment, and several of his statements about gun violence have gained renewed attention since his death.

“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. That is a prudent deal. That is rational,” said Kirk on April 5, 2023, at a TPUSA Faith event. 

For the STEM major at DVC, “it’s ironic” that Kirk died by gun violence given his history of advocating for no restraints on the right to bear arms.

“He fought for gun rights and even said that a few gun deaths were necessary for gun rights, or the right to own weapons, so it’s ironic that he went out that way,” said the student. 

The DVC student who teaches at a Catholic school said that preventing killings like Kirk’s hinges on a basic solution.  

“Sorry, it’s gun control,” they said.