Gen Z reacted swiftly on social media to the death of Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative activist, with some calling him a martyr — as was a theme at his highly visible memorial service yesterday — and others expressing everything from horror, to pity, to apathy or even a sick kind of satisfaction. Those with the latter reactions saw cosmic-level karma in Kirk’s death because of something Kirk said in 2023: “It’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment.”
A narrative that has coalesced among many Gen Zers and in certain corners of the media is that Charlie Kirk’s death is primarily explained by the ease of access to guns in the U.S., and that anti-gun legislation is the appropriate and sufficient response. That narrative is clear in the combined 780k+ reposts of March for Our Lives’ and Students Demand Action’s Instagram posts following the killing.
As a high school senior and gun violence prevention activist, I understand the anger at Kirk’s ringing support for gun rights in a nation with higher mortality from firearms than most other countries across the world. I feel it every day: In my high school, the price of protection from the second amendment looks like walking through metal detectors daily and having “safe corners” in every classroom. I live in a city that’s experienced two separate school shootings in two years. I understand the anger.
But Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
Yes, Charlie Kirk was a victim of gun violence, just as two students were shot that same day at a mass shooting at Evergreen High School in Colorado. But the circumstances of Kirk’s death were meaningfully different. His assassination is part of a swelling tide of political violence in America that must be named and condemned. A widespread American refusal to do so could cost us the health of our democracy.
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Americans are no strangers to political violence. For instance, in the 20th century alone, there were at least 14 attempted (and two successful) presidential assassinations, according to a non-exhaustive list compiled by Politico. In recent years, though, there’s been an alarmingly sharp uptick in political violence.
This rise in political violence can be at least partly explained by the rise in political polarization. Today’s political landscape is highly polarized, according to a Gallup poll which found that Republicans’ and Democrats’ ideology are the most extreme that they have been in 30 years. Polarization is also clear in Americans’ perceptions of the media, with two-thirds of Americans saying that “they’ve seen their own news sources report facts meant to favor one side,” according to the Pew Research Center, and over three-quarters of American adults believing that the media is biased.
The line that can be drawn from political polarization to violence is clear. Two political journalists at the Greater Good Science Center at University of California Berkeley identified what they called “partisan identity strength” as “the most important factor” in whether Americans endorse political violence. Many other political scientists have come to the same conclusion, from UCLA to Johns Hopkins.
There have also been historical examples of times when sharply diverging political and social views have grown in parallel with political violence. During the Civil Rights Movement, when activists fought for equal rights across race, protests, counter-protests, changes in American political parties (when the Southern Democrats joined the modern Republican party), and the implementation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, co-occurred with political violence. While the content of modern protests and political movements is different, their volume and heatedness is similar. As in that era, the last few years have been marked by consistent, nationwide protests such as the Black Lives Matter movement, dissent following the Dobbs decision, and the more recent No Kings Day protests in 2025, which garnered between 4-6 million participants. Similar to the exodus of the Southern Democrats, our modern parties are also in flux: a majority of Republicans identified as MAGA for the first time as of February 2025, while Democrats are also trending more liberal. And just as an assassin killed then-President Kennedy in 1964, two would-be assassins nearly killed then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2024.
The attacks against Trump are two among many perpetrated against politicians and other figures who are seen to represent political issues: Democratic legislators in Minnesota were shot to death in their homes, a health insurance executive was gunned down in New York City, the Pennsylvanian governor’s house was set on fire, and so many more. In the days since Kirk’s shooting, it’s become increasingly clear that this is yet another shameful addition to a growing list of recent political attacks.
This country is suffering from the blight of political violence borne, at least in part, of polarization — that is what killed Charlie Kirk. I’m not sure that we, as a society, have yet done a good enough job at establishing that fact.
I don’t know how to fix the factors contributing to political violence, but I know we — as a culture — must start by naming and condemning it. We must make it socially unacceptable to not condemn it — or to let instances of political violence fall under the over-generalized label of America’s gun proliferation problem. If we fail to call Kirk’s death what it was, the consequences will be huge: up to and including the erosion of our democracy.
Just as I don’t want to walk through the metal detectors every morning, I don’t want to have to buy bullet-proof vests for the speakers at my next rally or find fire exits at every political event I attend in fear of arson. I don’t want to have to fear voting, or expressing my opinion online, because of possible reprisal or censorship. We certainly deserve to live in a world free from gun violence, but we also need to create a world free from political violence treated as justice. Our democracy — and our lives — depend on it.