Charlie Kirk, 31, founder of the Turning Point USA conservative organization, one of the young faces of the Make America Great Again (Maga) movement and supporter of the right to carry weapons, died today after being reached by a shot in the neck, a murder that fears for the increase in political violence in the US.
The University Auditorium of the University of Utah Valley exploded in shouts and confusion when a shot reached Kirk in the neck, forcing him to take his hand to the wound while the attendees ran in panic, as observed in a video that went viral in X.
Two hours after the attack, the US president, Donald Trump, confirmed Kirk’s death and said that “he was loved and admired by all, especially for me.”
Kirk became known, with just 18 years, in 2012, after founding Turning Point and organizing university tours where he debated with liberal students, which catapulted him as a conservative youth reference.
His popular series of events called ‘shows that I am wrong’ became very popular and this September 10 attracted opponents and supporters to the university campus in Utah.
A decade later Kirk, married and with two young children, became a direct Trump ally, with whom he appeared publicly in the White House in 2019 during visits of conservative young people and later with an active role in campaign mysings in 2024.
Kirk had opined in April 2023 that the deaths of a firearm were “unfortunately” a price that was worth paying to preserve the second amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to carry weapons, a comment that he issued after a shooting at a Nashville school, Tennessee, in which three adults and three children died.
A seedbed of conservatives
Turning Point USA was born with the aim of spreading conservative and free market values in the United States University Campus and has grown up to a key forum in the Maga Movement (Make America Great Again).
Based in Arizona, the entity has grown rapidly and today maintains a presence in hundreds of universities and secondary schools. Their annual conferences gather thousands of young people and outstanding figures of the Republican Party.
In addition to its youth activism, Turning Point has become a space for support to former president Trump. The organization mobilizes volunteers, organizes political training and has established itself as a visible arm of the Maga Movement in the student field.
Kirk was born in Arlington Heights, north of Chicago, in 1993, and grew up in a middle class family with Christian roots, his father worked in the real estate sector, while his mother took care of the home, according to media reports as a politician.
During his passage through the Wheeling High School, he got involved in student debates and began to be interested in republican ideas, as he said in interviews and add that he was not a great student so he did not study at the university but approached politics at an early age.
Soser context: Commentator Charlie Kirk, Trump’s ally, was killed
Controversial opinions
Charlie Kirk generated controversy for her positions against migration, feminism and diversity on campus, which has won criticism and confrontation with Democratic leaders.
During the Covid-19 crisis, the activist minimized the seriousness of the situation by comparing it with historical catastrophes, affirming in X: “We have a pandemic, but, by historical standards, this is not really a pandemic (…) by historical standards, in fact we are living a very, very good life.”
In 2020 he was parodied in South Park, where a character imitated his cause of provocative debate that has become his stamp and Kirk responded in social networks that saw him as a “a medal of honor”, although he accused the program of ridiculing conservatives.
With EFE information.
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