When I heard the news that Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk had been shot, it brought me back to a troubling day in 1981 when I first heard that the newly elected Ronald Reagan had been shot, which then morphed into the day I heard that President John F. Kennedy had been shot.
President Reagan survived the attempt on his life, but we’ve lost a lot of good men over the years under similar circumstances: Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, John F., and his brother Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Emmett Till, Jimmie Lee Jackson, and so many, many, other souls.
That list now includes Charlie Kirk, dead at the age of 31, shot by an assassin from the top of a roof at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, on September 10th, 2025.
That assassin is now in custody.
The late Rush Limbaugh marveled on his radio show that Kirk (then in his early twenties) was “doing for campuses what I did for the airwaves—waking people up to the truth with humor and facts.” Limbaugh also speculated out loud that Charlie Kirk could one day find himself running for President of the United States.
Unfortunately, influencing so many college-age supporters so effectively and convincingly put a target on him and cut short his mission. Donald Trump – a Republican! – won the 18-to-24 youth vote in 2024, and President Trump gives Kirk a lot of credit for that turn of events.
What was remarkable about Charlie Kirk’s ascendance was that though his audience often consisted of university students and his talks took place on campuses, he hadn’t pursued a college degree, opting instead – at the age of 19 – to skip further schooling and embark on a career path of conservative activism.
Which makes me think of our country’s group of young revolutionary heroes who, “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence,” mutually pledged to each other – in writing and at the risk of a public hanging by British authority – “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
Nathan Hale, a captain in the Continental Army who posed as a schoolteacher to spy for George Washington’s troops, is famous for using his last words as he was led to his hanging by the British, to say, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” He was 21 years old.
Much has been made of Charlie Kirk’s “youth,” but we need to be reminded that at least two other men had an impact on humanity at around the same age, and whose words continue to impact life on Earth: 33-year-old Jesus Christ, who met his death as a result of one of the earliest historical records of collusion between the federal government (Rome) and a locked-in local establishment whose authority he had threatened, and Thomas Jefferson, responsible for drafting the Declaration of Independence, which he signed (along with a group of mostly young men, some even younger than he) in early July of 1776 at the age of 33.
I had more to say about the men who created what has become the United States of America, and how young they were, but can’t let this column end without including the thoughts on the murder of Charlie Kirk from two more of SBCurrent’s supporters.
We’ll save the history lesson for another day.
The Left Can’t Defeat Us
By Christine Frisina
So, they seek to kill us, stab us in the heart, shoot us in the neck.
This is the brutal fact, the truth of the matter, the truth of where we are in this country.
We will now find out who, but already know why.
We have not been violent, but they will try to turn this hate filled act on us, on Charlie.
As Charlie Kirk spoke God’s truths, they could not let him continue, for he planned to spread those truths about life and liberty all across this country.
But in death Charlie Kirk’s words will grow large and we will speak of him and of God’s truths as we have never spoken before.
For I Tell You That God Is Able Of These Stones To Raise Up Children To Abraham (Matthew 3:9)
God bless us and God bless Charlie Kirk.
(Christine Frisina is author of two books: “Lost in Silicon Valley,” released July 2025, and “Lost in Japan,” released 2023.)
The Life and Legacy of Charlie Kirk
By David Samuel McCalmont
No two lives are exact parallels but in pondering the legacy of Charlie Kirk, I can't help but think of the magnificent spiritual journey laid out autobiographically in The Seven Storey Mountain in 1948 by Thomas Merton (1915-1968).
Their upbringings were different but by their mid-teens, Merton was infatuated with utopian left-wing ideologies and Kirk was weighed down with a political burden to single-handedly save this beloved nation from the 21st century scourge of the same putrid nostrums that Merton had cast asunder in the 1930s.
Charlie Kirk's life came to an end at about the same age that Thomas Merton purchased the four walls of his new freedom upon entering a Trappist monastery in Kentucky, where through his words he became one of Catholicism’s greatest voices.
I could sense the mantle of God pressing down on Kirk's ministry, pushing it inexorably in the direction of faith and spirituality. A campaign that began 13 years ago talking about the Lockean premises of freedom and limited government was now a mission to bring young people to a Godly life as much to the ballot box on election day.
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When people talk about how good it is that Charlie Kirk was assassinated, they're saying that he posed a threat to their feelings of safety in their authoritarian political party. Actually, why they really are glad Kirk was assassinated is because he offered a cure for their brainwashed imprisonment in Leftist tyranny. For all Leftists' fears about being put in concentration camps by Trump, what really terrified them about Kirk was he just talked to them. And he let them talk back. Freedom of speech and actual connection to other people makes Leftists reach for their masks and long for another lockdown. These people truly do live in prisons of their own making, and they'll kill anyone who tries to help them escape.
My left wing neighbor and retired physician will not engage in discussion of the covid scandal. My first cousin will not return my calls because I voted for Trump. The left is not interested in dialogue that challenges their ideology. You will be ignored, cancelled, fired, ridiculed, defamed or even murdered for the offense of challenging the left's ideology. The same party that chants conservatives are a threat to democracy violate a cornerstone of democracy each time they seek to silence the opposition. It is ironic that the Democrat party likes to call themselves the Democratic party while their actions are antithetical to democracy. I see no sign that the left will turn down the rhetoric in the aftermath of the murder of Kirk. Perhaps the Rubicon was crossed long ago but now there should be little doubt. It is not possible to reach common ground with the left, to reach across the isle or in any way achieve any good by bipartisan efforts with pure evil. The Democrat party must be defeated into oblivion.