There were two major shootings today. This one you most likely saw on the news (via Juliana Kim at NPR):
Charlie Kirk, a right-wing activist and an ally of President Trump, died after a shooting at an outdoor speaking event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, according to Kirk's organization Turning Point USA and Trump.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox called Kirk's death a "political assassination."
"This is a dark day for our state. It's a tragic day for our nation," he said.
He added that a "person of interest" was being interviewed and it was not the same person who had been detained, then released earlier in the day. Law enforcement do not believe a second person was involved in the shooting, according to Cox.
Beau Mason, commissioner of the Utah Department of Public Safety, said a single shot was fired around 12:20 p.m. local time at the campus event featuring Kirk. Mason added that Kirk was quickly taken to a hospital, where he later died.
The suspected shooter was dressed in "all dark clothing" and fired from a long distance, potentially on a roof, according to Mason. He added that investigators are reviewing closed circuit TV footage.
I may have mentioned Kirk at this blog once or twice, noting primarily how he was an agitator calling for violence towards other Americans who leaned Left-Liberal on the political spectrum. Kirk was often defending the spread - like a plague - of guns across America as "our" price "we" have to pay for the Far Right's power to shoot anybody they want uphold a twisted understanding of the Second Amendment.
Speaking of the Far Right, they're using Kirk's assassination to paint the entire Democratic party as "the party of murder" even though far too many Republican wingnuts are killing Democrats and threatening more violence towards their objects of fear/hate on a near-daily basis.
In the meantime, here's the other major shooting you're likely not seeing on the major networks (via Yesenia Robles and Alejandro A. Alonso Galva with Colorado Public Radio):
A shooting at Evergreen High School this afternoon hospitalized four students — three with gunshot wounds, including the suspected shooter.
The students with gunshot wounds were treated at CommonSpirit St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood. After treatment, two of the three — one being the suspect — are still in critical condition.
The third victim has non-life-threatening injuries.
The sheriff's office confirmed in an evening update that the suspected shooter sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
We as a nation are now numb to the near-constant gun violence happening at our schools, in our public places, across our communities. In any other sane nation, we'd have done something to stop the easy access of firearms, to reduce the daily count of the dying and wounded. But we're not sane, are we?
We're held hostage by an extremist ideology of the Far Right obsessing over their right - no one else's - to own enough firepower to overthrow any agency, execute any political opponent, to doom an entire nation to suffer to their hates and fears. And with this gun violence now claiming one of their own, they're bound to get worse.
The cycle of violence and stochastic terrorism being inflicted on America - and this isn't new, we've been drowning in this bloodshed since the 1850s - will spiral deeper into the pit until we are in open warfare against each other.
Gods help us. Seriously.
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