Political violence hasn’t let up in the United States. On Sept. 10, just one day before 9/11, a historical time of national mourning in the nation, conservative debater and public speaker Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at his own event in Utah. This shooting gives the U.S. one more death to add on to the immense toll it has racked up in recent years, bringing more attention to the heated conversation of gun control.
Although history teacher Kendra Caralis hopes that the Kirk shooting will raise more awareness to the abundance of armed violence within the country, she views it as a massive setback overall rather than just a call to action.
“[The Kirk shooting] has just ramped up the political divide that’s going on in our country,” Caralis said. “If anything, it gives another reason [for gun control] than school shootings.”
61 percent of Americans view that it is too easy to legally obtain a gun in the U.S., while 15 percent of Americans think gun laws are too restricting, according to a survey conducted by Pew Research Center in 2023.
This being said, some people who fall into the 24 percent in the middle, such as Oliver Johnson ’27, have had their minds changed on the extent of the right to bear arms since Sept. 10.
“You should be able to have your own weapons, but having rifles is a little excessive,” Johnson said. “After stuff like this happens, it’s not easy to say that rifles shouldn’t be monitored more.”
With the Kirk shooting having the power to shift the ideals of mass groups, radicals on both sides are pushing for centrists to lean with them. Charleigh Miller ’27 is heavily in favor of restricting gun laws to an extent in the U.S. and wishes that recent gun violence will lead to more Americans agreeing with her stance, regardless of other partisan views.
“It’s disappointing to see how many people care about gun safety only when it benefits their party,” Miller said. “Hopefully this will be a wakeup call for the people who previously didn’t believe in gun control. That’s not to say ‘take guns away,’ but there should be some regulations.”
Liberal or conservative, many people living in the U.S. are in agreement that violence cannot be brought into politics or the practice of free speech. Caralis believes that the root of said violence lies within the structure and makeup of America’s government as well as its society. Whether Kirk’s death sways the public to one side or the other, or even if it doesn’t sway them at all, according to Caralis, America still needs a solution for both gun violence and unity as a whole.
“We need to find some way to come together,” Caralis said. “We need a leader that fosters the type of environment where people can express their opinions and find similarities without seeing the differences and bringing hatred. I hope that happens soon.”
