Too much of the media coverage and reaction I am seeing to the shooting of right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk is completely absurd and very, very dangerous.
At a time when truth and context are absolutely vital, I am seeing too damn little of both.
There would be less angst and our country would be far safer if only we accepted people for who they want to be instead of who the judgmental right and people like Kirk think they should be.
Kirk’s death might have been preventable if only he had advocated against putting more weaponry in the hands of civilians, instead of fighting for it.
The right wing’s intentional bastardization of our 2nd Amendment has been perhaps this country’s greatest tragedy, and has led to countless, senseless deaths.
Thousands of people — many of them children — would have been saved if only America got out of its own way, and got a damn grip on a gun problem that has spun way out of control.
There are more than 400 million guns in America. If that doesn’t chill you to the bone, congratulations, you are part of the problem.
For too long we have been gaslit by the gun lobby and the Republican Party into believing that more guns mean less violence. This is absolutely preposterous, and it would be my fervent hope that Kirk’s death would lead to the necessary dialogue and changes we need to end this grotesque, wrong-headed thinking.
I will not hold my breath.
Instead, the fire-breathers on the right led by the odious Donald Trump are using this killing to pour gasoline on a fire that warms their cold hearts.
They aren’t calling for calm, they are calling for more revolution.
The people who say and do nothing after our children are slaughtered in our schools, except ask for thoughts and prayers, are everywhere right now fanning the flames of hate.
The same so-called president who just three months ago said he wouldn’t “waste time” calling the governor of Minnesota after the political assassination of Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Horton, and wounding of state Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvonne Hoffman, had plenty to say after Kirk was killed.
Including this:
"For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now."
This is the convicted felon who told the violent people who tried to overthrow our government and stomped law enforcement officers into the pavement on January 6, 2021 that he loved them, before going on to pardon them for their terrible crimes.
The numbers of times Trump has used hate speech to rally his base could fill several books. He is not a man to listen to. Nor can he be ignored ...
By whitewashing who Kirk really was, too many in our our media, too many of these damn “influencers,” and too many politicians on both sides of the aisle are insulting the sensibilities and fears of tens of millions Americans, who have been warning about gun violence for decades, as well as the dangers of the overt racism and hate that poured from the mouths of people like Trump and Kirk.
DO NOT LET THEM FRAME THIS MOMENT.
Until Republicans and our media start treating the countless deaths of our children with the same regard they are showing Charlie Kirk, I encourage you to remain peaceful and ever vigilant.
As a veteran, peacenik, anti-gun nut, and proud liberal, I do not advocate violence of any kind.
Kirk used his politics as a weapon, and aimed to hurt innocent people. My God, his final words were cloaked in the hate he spent his life peddling.
I am not celebrating his death, but I am lamenting the demise of truth in this country.
- (D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.)
