He May Have Pulled The Trigger, But Charlie Kirk’s Suspected Killer Didn’t ‘Act Alone’
The alleged 'radicalized' assassin did not get to this moment on his own. Investigation details show a young man steeped in leftist dogma.The alleged 'radicalized' assassin did not get to this moment on his own. Investigation details show a young man steeped in leftist dogma.Not an assassin, not a sniper — just a loser with a rifle
Charlie Kirk’s assassination was an atrocity — for his family, his friends, his supporters, and America. I haven’t been this shaken by the death of someone I didn’t personally know in a long time.
As an ex-U.S. Army Special Operations sniper, I’ve seen a lot of speculation online, and I want to cut through some of the noise. Even following the arrest Friday morning of 22-year-old Tyler Robinson for the crime, people are throwing around claims that this was “state-sponsored” or a “hired hit man paid by a political group.” We don’t know that, nor do we have any evidence pointing to that. In fact, we had ample evidence pointing to somebody just like Robinson: a leftist college dropout.
Charlie Kirk wasn’t taken down by a sniper, or a covert team, or a shadowy state actor. He was killed by a bitter amateur with a rifle and a desperate need to matter.
I won’t call this shooter an “assassin.” That word carries a mystique. It gives a pathetic loser like this validation. He doesn’t deserve the title. He wasn’t an assassin. He wasn’t a sniper. He wasn’t a pro. He was simply an amateur shooter who decided to take a life better than his own and become a killer.
The shot
The facts are simple. The distance was under 200 yards. He used a bolt-action .30-06 Mauser with a scope of at least 8x power. That’s a very easy shot — so easy that I could teach a child to make it in under an hour, and I am not exaggerating at all.
You don’t need military training, hunting experience, or any special skill. The .30-06 is a powerful round, and if you watched the sad, horrific video of Charlie being hit, you saw how devastating it is.
The round appeared to strike Charlie in the neck. Maybe it hit his chest and exited near the neck, but what it didn’t do was hit his head. A professional would have gone for the head. If this killer wanted maximum shock value — which he clearly did — a head shot would have given him that. Either he missed low or he aimed for the chest because he didn’t have the skill level for a headshot.
Either way: amateur hour.
The gun and the tactics
The rifle says it all. A Mauser .30-06 bolt-action is the tool of a casual hunter, not a professional killer. Even on a budget, a serious shooter would have picked better gear. To call that weapon “professional” is laughable. It’s like rolling up to an F1 race in a Honda Accord.
Even more ridiculous than his gear choice were his tactics or lack thereof. He positioned himself on a rooftop in black, wearing a tactical vest. That’s straight from the “Call of Duty in Mom’s basement” playbook. A professional wouldn’t be spotted on camera by kids on the ground asking, “Should someone be up there?”
A pro would have been invisible. Or, if seen, instantly forgettable. He would have used proper urban hiding techniques (I won’t detail them here). He wouldn’t have stood out in black tactical gear. He would have looked like a student or like someone with a legitimate reason to be where he was.
And then there’s the footage — clear, high-quality video of him at the school and hopping fences in a neighborhood. The FBI and local police had his face, which meant, in due course, they had him. This wasn’t a state-sponsored operator or “hit man.” It was an angry lone amateur.
Who he is
When I wrote this column Thursday night, I speculated that the shooter would turn out to be a lonely, angry kid desperate to be somebody. A nobody who wanted attention, validation, fame. He thought killing someone hated by one side of the political spectrum would make him loved by the other. This was about belonging. About being noticed.
And that’s where the media and social media come in. They amplify these monsters. They hand them the spotlight. And for a young man like this, that’s gasoline on the fire.
Sound familiar? Donald Trump barely survived an attempt when another college kid fired at him. Add Luigi Mangione, and that makes three young men in recent memory trying to kill or successfully killing public figures. We’re watching a disturbing trend.
Political assassination — or something new?
Yes, Kirk was killed for his political beliefs. But he wasn’t a politician. He held no office. That’s why this atrocity might mark something new: the first assassination of an influencer.
Think about that. Kirk wasn’t targeted for power, or for policy, but for his ability to influence. If that’s where we are now — where speech alone makes you a target — we’ve stepped into very dangerous territory.
The slippery slope of ‘hateful rhetoric’
Almost immediately, politicians and pundits said, “This is what happens when you use rhetoric like his.” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) went as far as accusing Kirk of posting “hateful rhetoric,” as if that justifies what happened. That logic is as dangerous as the act itself.
If hateful rhetoric makes someone fair game, then by her own standard, someone could make the same judgment about Omar’s words. Would she see her own assassination as justified? Of course not. And that’s the slippery slope: When violence is framed as acceptable because someone decides speech is hateful.
That’s exactly why the First Amendment exists — to protect all speech, even the speech you hate. Because once a group can ban “hateful” speech, they can ban anything they dislike. That’s how dictatorships start. And it’s not a coincidence that the loudest calls to ban “hateful speech” come from people who want more control.
RELATED: Antifa, gay furries, and bomb codes? What the engravings on the Kirk assassination bullets may mean
Bottom line: Charlie Kirk wasn’t assassinated by a professional. He wasn’t taken down by a sniper, or a covert team, or a shadowy state actor. He was killed by a bitter amateur with a rifle and a desperate need to matter.
That makes his death no less horrifying — but it should change the way we understand it. Because this wasn’t just about politics. This was about influence, attention, and validation. And it signals a very dark turn in where we are headed.Suspect In Custody Repeated Leftist Talking Points Calling Charlie Kirk ‘Fascist’
Authorities announced Friday they apprehended a suspect in the Charlie Kirk assassination. Authorities say 22-year-old Tyler Robinson was taken into custody by authorities after, according to Gov. Spencer Cox, “Robinson had confessed or implied he committed the incident.” The information was then relayed to various law enforcement departments. Cox said that “Family members stated Robinson […]After Charlie Kirk’s Murder, There Can Be No More Both-Sides-ism
We have met the enemy, and they are nothing like us.CNN Describes Trans, Antifa Phrases On Charlie Kirk Assassin’s Weapons As ‘Related To Cultural Issues’
In an apparent attempt to hide inscriptions expressing leftist extremism, CNN ran a headline describing the bullets as having been 'scrawled with cultural phrases.'Tulsi Gabbard's blunt message to far-left rioters and lib media liars
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is putting radical left protesters and rioters on notice after the Biden administration spent four years turning a blind eye to their rampant politically driven violence.
Instead of going after those who were actually violent, the Biden administration had its sights set on a different kind of protester.
“I released several documents back in May that really laid out the foundational documents and strategy that the Biden administration used in labeling groups and individuals as domestic violent extremists,” Gabbard explains.
“It was like, ‘Hey, if parents are angry or worried that their kids may get the COVID vaccine at school without their approval, they may be a potential domestic violent extremist,’” she continues.
“What was also interesting was how they diminished Antifa under the Biden administration, downplaying the threat that they posed, again, to the safety and security of our communities,” she adds.
“I mean, they don’t seem to be afraid of anything. They’ve never really paid a price,” Glenn says.
And rather than pay the price, some of them are even celebrated.
“I see people — you know, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was shot. Everybody — you know, 40% of youth think that that was great,” he says, noting that as the left grows angrier at Trump, the higher the chances are that people pull stunts like the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting or stage more violent protests.
“How concerned are we about the reaction of the left on the streets with every move that Donald Trump makes? Every move like this — does that play a role? Should it play a role in how we proceed?” Glenn asks.
“We have to stand strong for the truth. We have to stand strong for justice, and the Constitution, and for freedom. These are things that many of these bad actors here frankly don’t believe in,” Gabbard responds.
However, there have been good signs recently.
“The mainstream media will do what they do,” she says, adding, “I think there is a positive here and that fewer and fewer people actually read the mainstream media. Fewer people actually believe in them. I just saw CNN and MSNBC’s viewership numbers from the last week. Absolutely abysmal.”
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Leftist violence surges — and media still blames the right
For decades, the media and federal agencies have warned Americans that the greatest threat to our homeland is the political right — gun-owning veterans, conservative Christians, anyone who ever voted for President Donald Trump. President Joe Biden once declared that white supremacy is “the single most dangerous terrorist threat” in the nation.
Since Trump’s re-election, the rhetoric has only escalated. Outlets like the Washington Post and the Guardian warned that his second term would trigger a wave of far-right violence.
As Democrats bleed working-class voters and lose control of their base, they’re not moderating. They’re radicalizing.
They were wrong.
The real domestic threat isn’t coming from MAGA grandmas or rifle-toting red-staters. It’s coming from the radical left — the anarchists, the Marxists, the pro-Palestinian militants, and the anti-American agitators who have declared war on law enforcement, elected officials, and civil society.
Willful blindness
On July 4, a group of black-clad terrorists ambushed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Alvarado, Texas. They hurled fireworks at the building, spray-painted graffiti, and then opened fire on responding law enforcement, shooting a local officer in the neck. Journalist Andy Ngo has linked the attackers to an Antifa cell in the Dallas area.
Authorities have so far charged 14 people in the plot and recovered AR-style rifles, body armor, Kevlar vests, helmets, tactical gloves, and radios. According to the Department of Justice, this was a “planned ambush with intent to kill.”
And it wasn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of a growing pattern of continuous violent left-wing incidents since December last year.
Monthly attacks
Most notably, in December 2024, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione allegedly gunned down UnitedHealth Group CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan. Mangione reportedly left a manifesto raging against the American health care system and was glorified by some on social media as a kind of modern Robin Hood.
One Emerson College poll found that 41% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 said the murder was “acceptable” or “somewhat acceptable.”
The next month, a man carrying Molotov cocktails was arrested near the U.S. Capitol. He allegedly planned to assassinate Trump-appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and House Speaker Mike Johnson.
In February, the “Tesla Takedown” attacks on Tesla vehicles and dealerships started picking up traction.
In March, a self-described “queer scientist” was arrested after allegedly firebombing the Republican Party headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Graffiti on the burned building read “ICE = KKK.”
In April, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s (D-Pa.) official residence was firebombed on Passover night. The suspect allegedly set the governor’s mansion on fire because of what Shapiro, who is Jewish, “wants to do to the Palestinian people.”
In May, two young Israeli embassy staffers were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. Witnesses said the shooter shouted “Free Palestine” as he was being arrested. The suspect told police he acted “for Gaza” and was reportedly linked to the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
In June, an Egyptian national who had entered the U.S. illegally allegedly threw a firebomb at a peaceful pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado. Eight people were hospitalized, and an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor later died from her injuries.
That same month, a pro-Palestinian rioter in New York was arrested for allegedly setting fire to 11 police vehicles. In Los Angeles, anti-ICE rioters smashed cars, set fires, and hurled rocks at law enforcement. House Democrats refused to condemn the violence.
RELATED: Democrats unanimously vote against condemning ‘mostly peaceful’ anti-ICE riots
In Portland, Oregon, rioters tried to burn down another ICE facility and assaulted police officers before being dispersed with tear gas. Graffiti left behind read: “Kill your masters.”
On July 7, a Michigan man opened fire on a Customs and Border Protection facility in McAllen, Texas, wounding two police officers and an agent. Border agents returned fire, killing the suspect.
Days later in California, ICE officers conducting a raid on an illegal cannabis farm in Ventura County were attacked by left-wing activists. One protester appeared to fire at federal agents.
This is not a series of isolated incidents. It’s a timeline of escalation. Political assassinations, firebombings, arson, ambushes — all carried out in the name of radical leftist ideology.
Democrats are radicalizing
This isn’t just the work of fringe agitators. It’s being enabled — and in many cases encouraged — by elected Democrats.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz routinely calls ICE “Trump’s modern-day Gestapo.” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass attempted to block an ICE operation in her city. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu compared ICE agents to a neo-Nazi group. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson referred to them as “secret police terrorizing our communities.”
Apparently, other Democratic lawmakers, according to Axios, are privately troubled by their own base. One unnamed House Democrat admitted that supporters were urging members to escalate further: “Some of them have suggested what we really need to do is be willing to get shot.” Others were demanding blood in the streets to get the media’s attention.
A study from Rutgers University and the National Contagion Research Institute found that 55% of Americans who identify as “left of center” believe that murdering Donald Trump would be at least “somewhat justified.”
As Democrats bleed working-class voters and lose control of their base, they’re not moderating. They’re radicalizing. They don’t want the chaos to stop. They want to harness it, normalize it, and weaponize it.
The truth is, this isn’t just about ICE. It’s not even about Trump. It’s about whether a republic can survive when one major party decides that our institutions no longer apply.
Truth still matters. Law and order still matter. And if the left refuses to defend them, then we must be the ones who do.
Leftists' favorite F-word — and why they'll never drop it
I notice to my profound disappointment that two of my major scholarly projects landed with a thud. Despite years of research and two books on fascism and antifascism, my findings have been ignored by both the left and the right — including the so-called conservative media establishment.
That’s a pity, especially with so much loose talk about “fascists” running around Washington these days.
Fascism, as it existed in the 20th century, is dead. Antifascism, as it is wielded today, is a political weapon that thrives by manufacturing enemies.
My argument is straightforward: Fascism was a popular European movement in the interwar period, shaped by several conditions unique to that era — returning soldiers who saw themselves as a “front generation” after World War I, economic turmoil in countries like Italy, France, Romania, and Spain, disillusionment with corrupt parliamentary systems, and a “cult of the leader.”
Fascist movements also fed on fears of the Soviet takeover of Russia. Unlike the communists, who worked to spark revolutions across Europe, fascist groups pushed a revolutionary nationalist ideology.
The most representative example was Benito Mussolini’s Italian movement, which came to power after his March on Rome in October 1922. Italy was the only country to establish a full-fledged fascist government, although fascist or fascist-like parties held influence in coalitions elsewhere. The Italian regime blended a cult of the leader with corporatist economics and nostalgia for imperial glory.
Contrary to the later alliance with Hitler, Mussolini’s government initially drew support from patriotic Italian Jews and between 1934 and 1936 led European opposition to Nazi Germany, denouncing its anti-Semitism as barbaric. The 1938 anti-Jewish laws came only under heavy German influence.
Nazism was not “generic” fascism. Hannah Arendt was right to classify it as totalitarian and genocidal. While Hitler borrowed certain trappings from Latin fascists, Nazi Germany drew far more from Stalin’s Soviet model — particularly in its use of terror, secret police, and propaganda to remake reality.
Equating Mussolini’s authoritarian nationalism with Hitler’s genocidal regime is intellectually lazy, even if Mussolini’s disastrous decision to ally with Nazi Germany at the 11th hour paved the way for the comparison.
My critic Jacob Siegel accuses me of drawing this distinction to “sanitize” fascism. Not so. I do not treat it as an archaic movement out of nostalgia but because it is irrelevant to the contemporary West, which is dominated instead by a woke, bureaucratic left.
Antifascism, however, is another matter. It began with Marxists — and later communist regimes — branding capitalist nations that resisted revolution as “fascist.” The Frankfurt School and its American heirs expanded the label to cover ideas and movements far removed from Mussolini or Hitler. By the 1950s, an “F-scale” was used to screen government employees and teachers for supposed fascist sympathies.
RELATED: The cold civil war is real — and only one side is fighting to win
Today, “antifascists” slap the term on anything that conflicts with their politics or lifestyle. Esteemed Yale professors Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley insist our current president is not only a fascist but possibly a Nazi. In their view, opposing any part of the feminist or LGBTQ agenda puts one on the road to Hitlerian tyranny.
This rhetorical game serves a purpose: It shields the accusers from the obvious countercharge that they are the true totalitarians. In my book on antifascism, written as Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots engulfed American cities in 2020, I documented how the American left and its European counterparts mobilize with the same discipline and ruthlessness as the Nazis before they took power.
The difference is that today’s left faces no organized counterforce comparable to the German communists — and enjoys the support of a compliant media. That media not only excuses leftist violence but portrays it as justified. This mirrors the Nazi and communist tactic of claiming to be under siege even while holding power, using the manufactured threat as a pretext to crush dissent.
Fascism, as it existed in the 20th century, is dead. Antifascism, as it is wielded today, is a political weapon that thrives by manufacturing enemies. And the left is using it with remarkable success.
Historic Mary Washington Monument Vandalized With Apparent Antifa Graffiti
A historical monument in Fredericksburg, Virginia, commemorating George Washington’s mother was vandalized this past weekend with what appear to be Antifa writings. The revelation came to light on Monday, when the Washington Heritage Museum disclosed in a Facebook post that the Mary Washington Monument was graffitied on two sides. Pictures released by the organization show […]Today's top stories
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