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Is it Lunacy or Intentionality? [1]

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Date: 2025-09-12

After every shooting, including Wednesday’s murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, Democrats and Republicans go to their corners. Liberals point to the glut of guns, and Conservatives claim that America is the most mentally disturbed country in the world. Maybe there is a third alternative…INTENTIONALITY. The excuse that all murders of children, political figures, and others are solely due to the existence of guns or mental instability takes away from the reality that violence has become an accepted excuse for entertainment or righting a perceived wrong. I am a huge boxing fan, although I realize the object of the combat sport is to render one’s opponent either unable to defend themselves, knock them unconscious, or worse. When I confront my own morality, I make the excuse that at least I am not a cage-fighting fan, where the intent is the same but the tactics are more barbaric. Kicking a man in the head and punching a man in the head are somehow different in my mind.

I am a loud and intense anti-gun advocate. For me, that is all the more reason for not equipping what the right wing describes as an explosion of mental health issues, the tools to carry out their rage. What it seems is that more and more Americans are afraid to confront is that we are condoning violence as a means of settling grievances. Study after study shows that people are increasingly convinced that violence is now an acceptable means of redress. Take, for example, the assassination of the CEO of United Healthcare. A man in the dark recesses of cowardice lay in wait and shot him in the back, and far too many called him a hero. Is there villainy in how our healthcare system works? Yes. But when we condone shooting our financial or political opponents, that demonstrates intentionality.

The right-wing social media hemisphere exploded with finger-pointing accusations after Mr. Kirk's assassination Wednesday, aimed at liberals. Vows of retribution from Fox News talking head Jesse Watters, among them, “Everybody’s accountable and we’re watching what they’re saying on television and who’s saying what,” Watters said, naming “the politicians, the media, and all these rats out there.” Watters' words were not delivered with the intention of loading his AR-15 after his broadcast, or because he is mentally unstable; they were delivered with the venomous intention to spur on others. Ironically, Kirk himself said that deaths from gun violence are an acceptable price: “You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won't have a single gun death,” Kirk said. “But I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

Much like my cage fighting and boxing analogy to justify my condoning of horrific violence on each opponent, conservatives often call gun ownership a God given right. Admittedly, I am not a proficient reader of the Bible, so I must have missed the Book of Smith & Wesson. I need to find those chapters. When a hammer-wielding assailant attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, the current President of the United States joined in with the right-wing jokes, including Kirk, who said, “And by the way, if some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out … Bail him out, and then go ask him some questions.” Again, his remarks were not made to draw a parallel between violence with a gun or another weapon or even to point out the mental health of the attacker, but with the intention to mitigate violence and make it acceptable.

When a right-wing gunman walked up to the home of Conservatives perceived enemies, namely Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, and killed them, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, intentionally took the opportunity to ridicule and demean the Minnesota Democratic governor, Tim Walz, while ignoring the deaths of the Hortman(s). In this moment of grief for the Kirk family, I wish them peace, but I would be a hypocrite if I did not say that Charlie Kirk was an open racist, anti-Semite, and bigot. His deification on the right and touting on the left as a defender of free speech is a disturbing look into how even the media's intentionality has moved from truth and decency to ratings chasing, by defending the indefensible.

Your Vote is Still Your Voice

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