I must say that I have been surprised by the reactions to the killing of Charlie Kirk. I had of course heard of him but he had been on the periphery of my political consciousness. I viewed him as a young right-wing provocateur among many other such people, spewing racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic rhetoric aimed at gaining a following among the population that shares such views, and currying favor with Trump and the right wing political classes. But he is now being portrayed by the right as some kind of messianic figure and his killing, rather than being just another episode in the political violence that is endemic to the US, is being viewed as some kind of major martyrdom for the Trump cause, akin to Jesus’s martyrdom for our sins.
I have also been surprised at what has been revealed about his alleged assailant. The initial information about the shooting made me think that the perpetrator was some kind of trained professional. To kill someone from a roof top with a single shot at a range of about 200 yards, even with a telescopic sight, and then jump down to the ground and escape pursuers made me think that it must be someone with some kind of military or paramilitary training.
It turns out that he seems to be just an ordinary college student from a Mormon family in rural Utah.
Authorities revealed Kirk’s suspected killer to be Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old man who grew up in Washington, Utah, along the state’s south-western border.
In absence of a clear motive for the slaying, reports have tried to piece together information about Robinson and his background. He is a third-year student in an electrical apprenticeship program at Dixie Technical College in the state. Both of his parents are registered Republicans, though his personal political beliefs remain unclear. Now-deleted pictures on social media show Robinson and his family posing with guns.
If he is the killer, and we have to remember that we should never take at face value early reports of events such as these, what this shows is that ordinary people in the US are able to learn how to be expert snipers who can pick off people at long range, not the most comforting of thoughts in this gun-drenched violent society.
There are some reports that Robinson had been at odds with his family over politics but as of now we have no reports of him leaving any kind of manifesto outlining his motives. We do not even know if he has admitted to the killing. All we have are reports that he had said so to members of his family who then reported him to the authorities. Why Robinson would have so carefully planned everything and then told people about it whom he would have known would be unsympathetic is also puzzling.
The right wing media chamber initially tried to make out that he was either transgender or a transgender activist because members of the much-beleaguered community have now become arch-villains, the cause of all our society’s ills. But that fizzled out and they will now try to find some connection to a left-wing group so as to demonize them.
Conservatives had latched onto reports – that have since been retracted – that the casings for bullets found with the gun that police suspect was used to kill Kirk were engraved with markings indicating “trans ideology”.
“To the surprise of literally no one,” Megyn Kelly said on her show earlier in the aftermath of Kirk’s killing. “There’s one particular group that’s been running around killing Americans in the name of ideology, and it’s transgender activists or individuals, or those who proclaim that they are.”
Once Robinson’s identity was revealed, Kelly speculated that Robinson must have been radicalized after going to college.
“There’s one particular group that’s been running around killing Americans in the name of ideology, and it’s transgender activists or individuals, or those who proclaim that they are.”? What delusional world is Kelly living in?
I suspect that actual information will come out later that will clarify the situation. But until then, we will be awash in such deranged speculations.
The thing that I’m sort of surprised by is the folks comparing Kirk’s offing to the Reichstag fire, when Horst Wessel is right there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst-Wessel-Lied
I don’t know why these assassins and wannabes keep getting labeled as snipers and sharpshooters. Most of these shots are completely within the ability of someone with a rifle and a bare minimum of training.
I don’t know if it’s changed since, but a couple decades ago, USMC training was a single week on the range, and the closest target was a ~12″ circle at 200 yds, and if I remember correctly, was from the standing and kneeling positions (not very stable/accurate). Also had ~12″ circle at 300 yds, and a human torso silhouette at 500yds, but that at least involved shooting from the prone position (most stable/accurate). If the USMC can take pretty much most any rando, and train them to hit a (approximately) head sized target from 200 yds, without even using the most accurate position, than it’s hardly an achievement that is notable. I think it’s somewhat telling that a lot of these pro-firearm folks seem to think these shots are difficult (orange asshole, Charlie Kirk, JFK, etc.), and it shows that they are just hoarding guns, and rarely training with them.
I’ve no interest in watching the videos, I don’t care for gore, but from what I’ve heard, it sounds like Kirk was hit in the neck, with the round opening the carotid.
Generally, military and self-defense marksmanship training is to shoot for the center-mass of the torso. I believe deer hunters are generally trained to target the lungs/heart, which is mostly the forward portion of the deer torso. Not much familiarity with sniper training, but I’m under the impression, that if they are making a headshot, they would try to hit the brainstem.
That’s a really long-winded way of saying I think this guy took a relatively easy shot, missed what they were aiming for (head or thoracic cavity), but got lucky to nick a major artery with their miss.
As to jumping off roofs, I guess it depends on how high it is, but if it’s single story, I don’t think that’s much of an accomplishment for a reasonably active 20something year old, but maybe I just had youthtime of slightly more questionable judgement than most people…
A 200 yd shot with a rifle and scope is basic competent marksmanship in western style big game hunting. Utah issued over 80,000 deer hunting permits this year, so bloodsport seems a fairly popular activity.
Young green bones and adrenaline made it possible for him to drop about 15 feet to the ground and take off.
It is disgusting how the various radicalized conservatives are desperate to blame this political violence on transgender people, as if they aren’t the ones who stormed Congress and were just screaming for wars of retribution against leftists.
Megyn Kelly can eat crow.
.1. All the evidence says the shooter was a Groyper.
A far right follower of Fuentes who started a war against Kirk in 2019 for being too moderate.
Kirk was a far right Nazi extremist so you can imagine what Groypers are like.
(Well, probably not, but you wouldn’t want to anyway.)
.2. Southern Utah, where Tyler grew up, is 70-90% far right Mormons with a long history of hatred towards the US government. This is near where the Bundy standoff was a few years ago.
His father was a cop for 27 years and there are photographs of him in 3% gear, a far right militia organization.
There are many photos on Facebook of Tyler growing up with rifles. Guns and hunting are a way of life in that area and he grew up learning to shoot and hunt. His weapon was a very common hunting rifle, .30 06 bolt action rifle.
That he could make that long shot is remarkable but not all that hard to understand.
.3. The Media is already forgetting all about this killing. Since it was one of their own, it is like a school shooting, soon forgotten.
The same day there was a school shooting in Colorado and the 16 year old shooter was… a right wing white supremacist. They radicalize them young these days. Already forgotten.
.4 The MAGA cult is in trouble here.
They have recently invented a Trans boy friend for Kirk, based on a real name and not based on the slightest bit of evidence.
They are liars living in a fantasy world.
Much like Tyler Robinson who apparently was radicalized by spending a lot of time on far right dark web social media sites.
A lot of this disinformation might be Russian troll farms, AI troll farms, or…Russian AI troll farms. They exist and post a lot on US social media.
You’ve obviously never done any military training. For starters, “from a rooftop” HELPS -- it’s not a disadvantage.
In the mid 90s I was handed an L85A1 and given some detailed instruction on how to dismantle, clean, reassemble and fit a sling to it. I was given some pretty basic instruction in how to actually make holes in things with it. Since I was training in an infantry regiment, the rifle was fitted with a SUSAT optical sight that gave 4x magnification, rather than an iron sight such as would fitted to the weapon issued to, for instance, someone in the Pay Corps. This was NOT a “sniper rifle” (I never even got to hold one of those) -- it was the standard assault rifle issued to basically every member of the army, regular or reserve. A “sniper rifle” is typically bolt-action, longer, and considerably more accurate. The assault rifle is the everyday weapon for the everyday squaddie.
I was expected to (and could) hit a man size target somewhere round the centre of mass with a grouping of less than 100mm. Put another way, if you held up your hand in a “stop” gesture, I could put a bullet through it, reliably. And not just one -- I’d be expected to put all 30 rounds in a magazine in that area. And that’s not to qualify as a sniper -- that’s the BASIC level of marksmanship expected. Oh, and I almost forgot -- that’s a range of THREE HUNDRED METRES.
At a “short” range -- 100 metres -- we were expected to be able to hit MOVING targets reliably. And we could. On one day I still remember clearly, we were at the seaside, and the weather was… challenging. Torrential rain, a 30mph sidewind, and we were shooting from a standing position at targets moving laterally at walking or running speed. We were issued two magazines of 20 rounds each and had to put all of them downrange in a couple of minutes. I scored 38 hits.
Now: I am NOT good at shooting. By the standards of those around me, I was bang average. I give ALL the credit to the rifle, and in particular, the sight. And that’s with a rifle and sight from THIRTY YEARS ago. I assume sights and rifles have got better since then.
All of this is a long-winded way around saying two things:
(1) the kill shot on Kirk was not impressive or difficult. He was sitting down, not moving, dressed in white, on a sunny day with (it looked like) no wind to speak of. The average person off the street would be easily capable of making that shot with that rifle, sight and sightline. Whether they could do it under the pressure of the moment is another queston, but taken purely as a shot absent context, it’s well below even average difficulty level. An analogy: it’s not a chip in from a bunker -- it’s a three foot putt.
(2) given all the above (and I said this at the time) it should make people seriously question the narrative around Trump’s “assassination attempt” from last year. I was then and is now baffling to me that that guy managed to NOT kill Trump. He had the sightline, he had the weapon, he had the sight. He was under some pressure, sure -- but he also had multiple shots, and failed. Anyone who’s had any training with that sort of weapon should be questioning how he missed.
Raven, I noticed that last night--there seemed to be a carefully-orchestrated attempt to turn the narrative to an imaginary Trans boyfriend.
BTW there us an ammo manufacturer with the initials T and R (or maybe T and N) on the cartridge cases. The idiot who claimed it was a message about ‘trans’ something saw the leftover shell casing briefly and got it wrong. And then the goddamn president of the goddamn most powerful country in the world (but not for long, now) claimed the murderer was trans and trans people should no be allowed to have guns.
This is how decisions are made in USA.
It’s not a delusion, it’s deliberate propaganda. She doesn’t actually believe transgender people are extremist terrorists. They will take any opportunity to revile and dehumanize the targeted group and stir up hatred toward them. It doesn’t matter that it turns out the shooter wasn’t transgender after all. All that matters is increasing the hate among the people. They will do the same thing next time some American Nazi is killed, and again and again.