Welcome to the USA

When I saw the news headline on September 10 that Charlie Kirk was "shot dead," my reaction was "Who is Charlie Kirk?" I thought I was pretty aware of the various celebrities, political actors, pop stars, artists and other famous people on the planet, but the name Charlie Kirk didn't ring a bell. I don't subscribe to cable, dish, streaming or podcasts, so I am not familiar with every Tom, Dick and Harry who shouts from the proverbial rooftops of cyberspace. Because I didn't know who he was, my curiosity went to the where, how, why and when of the shooting. 

When I heard it happened in Utah, I thought "Hmm. Utah. A Mormon state. How unlikely. I wonder if he was shot by a Mormon." It turns out that the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, was "raised" Mormon. When the weapon used in the shooting was found, and it was a bolt-action .30-06 Mauser 98 rifle, I wondered again if the shooter was a hunter, experienced in shooting big game at a distance. He only took one shot. According to an official at Utah Valley University, the position of the shooter was 200 yards from Kirk, a distance of two football fields. According to an all-knowing Navy "seal," it is an "average" shot. I don't know, but I have some experience shooting a rifle - Army basic training, growing up with hunting, boy scouts - and hitting someone from 200 yards away seems like pretty accurate shooting to me. Far more accurate than I ever was.

It has become de rigueur among commenters of all political and other stripes to say the shooting was "horrendous" as a prelude to a litany of pronouncements one way or another about the life and worth of Charlie Kirk. Few talk about the daily massive death count in Gaza as horrendous, or in Ukraine, or in Sudan, or the onslaught of shootings in the U.S. as uniquely horrendous, but somehow the shooting of Charlie Kirk is special. I suppose it is because he was famous. The lives of famous people, no matter the  reason for their fame, are more valuable in our fame-obsessed, vapid culture.

So supposedly Charlie Kirk was assassinated for his beliefs, which are described variously as bigoted, racist, homophobic and dangerous. I would add stupid. If "Conservatism" is all about othering and disenfranchising people, then it is undemocratic and paranoid, a scourge upon the land. Charlie Kirk should have known better than to go around in public parading his crackpot beliefs. This is the USA., the land of guns. People will shoot you for any reason here or for no reason at all. They shoot themselves at record rates. Now Utah with all its Mormons has full membership in what we call the greatest country in the history of the human race. Welcome.

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Here's a song. Here's another. Johnny Cash. Cat Stevens. Talking Heads. Bob Marley and the Wailers. The Grateful Dead. Marty Robbins. Another from Marty Robbins. Warren Zevon. The Fugs. Los Lobos. Iris Dement.