CREATORS: This Is a Time To Be Gracious and Acknowledge Grief

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
September 16, 2025

Violence is never the answer. Charlie Kirk's death is tragic, but unfortunately not unprecedented in this country. During the final decades of the nineteenth century and the infancy of the twentieth, three American presidents were murdered.

From 1963 to 1968, a president, a candidate for president and two civil rights leaders were slain. Not unlike those prior assassinations, the reaction to Kirk's death is both sympathetic and callous.

In the wake of Kirk's death, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., called for the immediate firing of multiple people in her state. "This person should be ashamed of her post. She should be removed from her position," Blackburn wrote on X about an assistant dean at Middle Tennessee State University, reported NPR.

Screenshots shared by Blackburn from the assistant dean's Facebook posts included: "Looks like ol' Charlie spoke his fate into existence. Hate begets hate. ZERO sympathy." The assistant dean was fired, according to USA Today.

Fifty-seven years ago, in the state Blackburn represents, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

Elizabeth Bumiller wrote in The New York Times about Kirk and King. She suggested "Beyond an ability to inspire passion in others, Dr. King and Mr. Kirk had almost nothing in common," with the exception that they were both influential political leaders never elected to office.

U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., posted on X that he planned to "use Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled (Kirk's) assassination."

"I'm also going after their business licenses and permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be kicked from every school, and their driver's licenses should be revoked," he wrote.

Imagine if Congress had censored comments after King's death or threatened the careers of people exercising their First Amendment rights, a right that Kirk celebrated on college campuses across the country. After all, Kirk was free to say that King was "awful" and "not a good person" and to describe the Civil Rights Act as a "huge mistake."

The rhetoric after King's death was caustic. U.S Senator Strom Thurmond from South Carolina blamed King for his own violent death. He dismissed King as an "outside agitator" who was "bent on stirring people up, making everyone dissatisfied."

Thurmond attributed the assassination to the very movement King led, writing to his constituents, "We are now witnessing the whirlwind sowed years ago when some preachers and teachers began telling people that each man could be his own judge in his own case."

Former President Ronald Reagan, who was governor of California at the time of King's death, said it was "a great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order and people started choosing which laws they'd break". This view suggested that the civil disobedience central to King's activism created a general disrespect for law that eventually led to violence and King's death.

Georgia's Governor Lester Maddox called King an "enemy of our country". He refused to attend King's funeral ceremony or close state government offices for the day. He even considered personally raising the flags outside the Capitol that were at half-staff.

On the evening of King's assassination, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, then a candidate for president — two months later himself a victim of assassination — told a crowd in Indianapolis that "it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in."

Elizabeth Bumiller interviewed Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington for her Times article. "Public grief is necessary and this is a time for those who loved and admired Charlie Kirk to grieve and to grieve publicly." She continued, "For those who were hurt or aggrieved by his positions, I think this is a time for us to be gracious, and allow grief to be expressed."

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner's Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino

To visit Creators CLICK HERE

Mangino discusses the arrest of Tyler Robinson on Court TV

Watch my interview with Kelly Krapf on Court TV about the arrest of Tyler Robinson for the murder of Charlie Kirk.

To watch the interview CLICK HERE

Kirk was a fierce defender of the First Amendment, his admirers are crushing it

In the days since the assassination of conservative figure Charlie Kirk, institutions from airlines to schools have moved quickly to discipline employees accused of celebrating or mocking his death, a reflection of the charged atmosphere surrounding the killing, reported NBC News.

On the right, some have called for the aggressive punishment of anyone seen condoning his assassination. Former adviser to President Donald Trump and right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon called for mass arrests and a crackdown on universities, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed staff to identify and discipline service members who mocked or condoned Kirk’s killing, two defense officials told NBC News.

Kirk was one of the right’s most prominent and polarizing voices. He built his following by amplifying the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen and by railing against what he called “woke” culture. His comments on race, feminism, LGBTQ rights and immigration often drew sharp criticism, sparking campus protests when he visited and making him a lighting rod for mockery and inspiration.

Kirk was the 31-year-old co-founder of conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, a nonprofit that promotes conservative politics on high school and college campuses nationwide. He was fatally shot Wednesday during an event at Utah Valley University.

Officials on Friday identified 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, now in custody, as a suspect in his murder.

Since Kirk’s assassination, terminations and disciplinary actions against employees have mounted across industries.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called for the firing of American Airlines pilots accused of celebrating Kirk’s death. The pilots were “immediately grounded and removed from service,” according to Duffy.

“We heal as a country when we send the message that glorifying political violence is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE!” he wrote on X.

American Airlines confirmed it had “initiated action to address this,” emphasizing that “hate-related or hostile behavior runs contrary to our purpose, which is to care for people on life’s journey.”

Delta Air Lines also announced it had suspended employees pending an investigation after they shared social media posts that “went well beyond healthy, respectful debate.” The airline did not disclose details about the posts, but said that violations of the company’s social media policy can lead to termination.

Schools and universities

Idaho’s West Ada School District said it fired an employee who allegedly posted a video online. The school district did not elaborate on the contents of the video but said in a statement that it was “shocked and saddened” by it.

“West Ada remains committed to nurturing and supporting our students and families, and to addressing harmful actions thoughtfully, with care, and with a focus on doing what is right,” the school district said in a statement.

In Oregon, a middle school science teacher was placed on administrative leave for posting on Facebook that Kirk’s death “brightened up” his day, NBC affiliate KGW reported. The teacher ultimately resigned.

South Carolina’s Clemson University announced Saturday that an employee was suspended pending further investigation after they made social media posts about Kirk’s death. The university did not share the contents of the posts and said it was also thoroughly reviewing posts made by other employees in response to Kirk’s death.

“Clemson University remains committed to upholding the principles of the U.S. Constitution and the employment laws of the State of South Carolina,” the university said in a statement.

The actions at Clemson prompted Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to post, “Free speech doesn’t prevent you from being fired if you’re stupid and have poor judgement.”

Health care sector

The University of Miami’s health system announced that it fired an employee after “unacceptable public commentary,” but did not elaborate on what the individual said.

“Freedom of speech is a fundamental right,” the statement read. “At the same time, expressions that condone or endorse violence or are incompatible with our policies or values are not acceptable.”

A Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta employee was fired after making “inappropriate comments” about Kirk’s killing Friday.

“This type of rhetoric is not acceptable for Children’s employees and violates our social media policy,” a spokesperson for the health care center said in a statement.

In Portage, Michigan, an Office Depot employee was fired after allegedly refusing to print flyers about Charlie Kirk at a customer’s request. The specific contents of the flyer are not clear at this time.

Office Depot called the incident deeply concerning, adding that the employee’s behavior “is completely unacceptable and insensitive, violates our company policies, and does not reflect the values” of the company.

“We are committed to reinforcing training with all team members to ensure our standards of respect, integrity, and customer service are upheld at every location,” the company said in a statement.

The investigation into Kirk’s death is ongoing.

To read more CLICK HERE

Mangino featured on Court TV's Vinnie Politan Investigates

Watch my interview on Vinnie Politan Investigates with guests anchor Ted Rowland on Court TV.

To watch the interview CLICK HERE

Utah's law allowing some to open carry on college campuses is under scrutiny

In the aftermath of the tragic shooting of far-right activist, and ardent Second Amendment supporter, Charlie Kirk -- recently passed Utah legislation allowing people with concealed-carry permits to carry firearms openly on college campuses has drawn fresh scrutiny, according to The Guardian.

Utah has allowed for permitless open and concealed carry of weapons since 2021. But before the passage of HB 128, firearms had to be concealed when carried on college campuses. The law allowed people with the proper permit to carry them openly.

When the law passed in August, university staff voiced concerns about what carrying could mean for classroom emergencies that might require students to act as armed responders and their presence in laboratories where harmful and potent chemicals were stored.

While it’s unclear whether the suspected shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was legally allowed to own the hunting rifle used in the shooting, or have one on a university campus, the proximity between the bill’s passing and the shooting has pushed the law into headlines across the US.

The bill did not come in a vacuum, but added to Utah’s already second amendment-friendly legislative landscape. The state doesn’t have extreme risk protection orders (Erpo), known as red-flag laws, which allow people such as police officers and family members to petition a judge to have someone’s firearms temporarily taken away. It is one of 29 states that allows people to carry concealed firearms without a permit. It has a law aiming to get guns out of the hands of people in crisis, but requires people to flag themselves in the federal background check system.

When Utah lawmakers have addressed campus safety, their efforts have typically centered on K-12 schools, where there is a greater expectation and need for campuses to be largely closed to the public.

There, in lieu of policies restricting gun access and training requirements for prospective concealed-carry permit applicants, the state has leaned into legislation meant to make it harder for shooters to enter and move freely around schools – for example, by adding doors with automatic locks, surveillance cameras and fencing. This approach, known as school hardening, is to deter shooters from entering schools and responding quickly to stop them and secure students.

For example, HB 119, which passed last year, incentivizes K-12 teachers to get training so they can keep a firearm in their classroom. HB 84, a sweeping piece of legislation passed in 2024, requires classrooms to have panic devices and schools to have at least one armed person – be it a school resource officer or security guard – on campus daily.

Advocates of Utah’s gun laws have argued that making sure guns are easily accessible can serve as a deterrent, whether to would-be home invaders, carjackers or shooters hoping to take advantage of “soft targets” like malls, campuses and grocery stores, and allow for armed responses if some start shooting.

“We sort of take the view here that the second amendment is very broad and a permit to carry a concealed weapon is just one obstacle in being able to exercise that right. There’s a mentality that there should be as few obstacles as possible,” said Johnny Richardson, a Utah-based attorney and former editor at the Utah Law Review.

“In effect, there’s a belief that gun control laws will impede access to those who are already law-abiding and put them at an unfair disadvantage to those who aren’t,” he continued.

While permitless carrying may have some effect on deterring offences such as robberies, it is inadequate in the face of grievance and politically driven violence, said Brandon del Pozo, an assistant professor of medicine and health policy at Brown University.

“The deterrence effect of concealed carry only applies to rational actors. And you get to a point in political extremism where you’re not dealing with rational people,” he said.

Before he went to Brown, del Pozo spent 19 years in the New York police department, and four years as the chief of police for Burlington, Vermont, where, like in Utah, permits to carry and licenses to sell firearms are not required. Del Pozo says that the circulation of guns was on his mind while planning safety for rallies and the annual city marathon, which attracts thousands of people. Through these experiences, he’s found that cities and states where many residents are armed in public can fail to account for the large presence of concealed guns and to plan to provide an accompanying level of screening.

“In places like Utah where there’s going to be a lot of guns in circulation, you have to decide when you’re going to carve out spaces where people are screened for guns,” he added.

“And if you’re a small police department, it’s hard to secure something outdoors. But if you’re coming to a provocative political rally, you need to be screened.”

In a press conference following the shooting, Utah Valley’s campus police chief, Jeff Long, told reporters that there had been six officers assigned to the Charlie Kirk event, which drew a crowd of about 3,000 people. His department coordinated with Kirk’s personal security detail, he said.

Students who attended the event noted that there were no metal detectors or staff members checking attendees’ bags, according to the Associated Press.

To read more CLICK HERE

 

Replace violence 'with an effort to understand'

 Elizabeth Bumiller writing for The New York Times:

On the night in April 1968 that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, then a candidate for president, told a shocked and largely Black crowd in Indianapolis that “it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.”

“Those of you who are Black,” he said, could be filled with “a desire for revenge.” Or, he said, the nation could try to replace violence “with an effort to understand.” It was considered one of the finest speeches of his life. But in the wake of Dr. King’s death, riots, looting and arson erupted in more than 100 American cities, and Kennedy himself was assassinated that June in California.

Fifty-seven years later, the nation is at another polarized moment after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative activist gunned down on a college campus in Utah. Beyond an ability to inspire passion in others, Dr. King and Mr. Kirk had almost nothing in common. But their murders both occurred in a country already awash in violent political rhetoric and partisan anger.

Americans are now grappling with the brutal killing of a young leader who is viewed through radically different lenses. On the right, Mr. Kirk has been lionized as an inspiration to a new generation of Republicans. On the left, he has been pilloried as a divider who attacked civil rights, transgender rights, feminism and Islam.

As people wrestle over Mr. Kirk’s legacy, historians and scholars say the lessons of this particular time will depend on Americans themselves. It is another test, they say, of the American experiment.

“Does a reprehensible crime against a political figure lead to more reprehensible acts, or does it remind us that we have to be able to live with people whose opinions we despise without resorting to violence?” asked the presidential biographer Jon Meacham. “If this is open season on everybody who expresses an opinion, then the American covenant is broken.”

In the immediate aftermath of Mr. Kirk’s murder, anger has pulsed loudly. President Trump blamed the left for what he said was savage rhetoric that had led to Mr. Kirk’s death and vowed to go after “those who contributed to this atrocity.” Democrats and Republicans in Congress lashed out at each other and are ever more fearful for their own safety. People who castigated Mr. Kirk and his views have been targeted and exposed by right-wing influencers. Mentions of the term “civil war” skyrocketed on social media platforms.

Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah, a Republican, has stood out for trying to turn down the heat. “This is certainly about the tragic death, assassination, political assassination, of Charlie Kirk,” he said at a news conference on Friday. “But it is also much bigger than an attack on an individual. It is an attack on all of us.” Mr. Kirk, he said, championed free speech, and “in having his life taken in that very act makes it more difficult for people to feel like they can share their ideas, that they can speak freely.”

Mr. Kirk did speak freely. He called Dr. King “awful” and “not a good person.” He described the Civil Rights Act as a “huge mistake” and George Floyd as a “scumbag.” He said that Islam “is not compatible with Western civilization,” and accused “Jewish donors” of fueling radicalism by financing “not just colleges — it’s the nonprofits, it’s the movies, it’s Hollywood, it’s all of it.” Democratic women, he said, “want to die alone without children.”

But among thousands of young conservatives on American college campuses he was a rock star, a gifted speaker who relished debating with more liberal students. At the 2024 Republican convention, he reached out directly to his generation. “Democrats have given hundreds of billions of dollars to illegals and foreign nations, while Gen Z has to pinch pennies just so that they can never own a home, never marry, and work until they die, childless,” he said.

To Brad Parscale, Mr. Trump’s first campaign manager in 2020, Mr. Kirk “loved America and was truly remarkable.” Mr. Parscale recalled that Mr. Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, the nation’s pre-eminent right-wing youth activist group, had come to him in 2018 to offer his help for the campaign. “But I told him, ‘Go do your own thing and you’ll help the president 100 times more. The campaign will hold you back. You’re bigger than this.’ And he was,” Mr. Parscale said.

To Dan T. Carter, the author of “The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism and the Transformation of American Politics,” Mr. Kirk was a dark force. His assassination, he said, “is a terrible thing for America, but I don’t think we gain anything by embracing him as some kind of open-minded individual who strengthened democracy.”

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, who angered Mr. Trump when she asked him the day after his second inauguration to “have mercy” on immigrants and L.G.B.T.Q. people, said rage from those anguished over Mr. Kirk’s death was to be expected.

“Public grief is necessary and this is a time for those who loved and admired Charlie Kirk to grieve and to grieve publicly,” she said. “For those who were hurt or aggrieved by his positions, I think this is a time for us to be gracious, and allow grief to be expressed. And at the same time, not to be surprised that other emotions are also communicated.”

When someone dies, she said, “we try to focus on the good, to the point that some people say, ‘I don’t recognize the man who is being eulogized.’ But I hear that from a son speaking about his father. I’ve been in those rooms. If that happens in family life, why would we be surprised if it happens in our national life with a public figure? Can’t we be gracious about that too?”

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young, a professor of communications at the University of Delaware who researches media psychology and public opinion, said she had noticed a restraint in mainstream media reporting about Mr. Kirk’s death.

“I think there is a recognition that this moment is so important, and this country is such a tinderbox, that people who are in media and journalism, especially those on the left, are aware that they have a responsibility to take the temperature down. And I think that’s a very good thing in terms of democratic health.”

But she said she thought some things had gotten lost, notably that people who praised Mr. Kirk for civility were confusing the term with politeness. “Charlie Kirk was polite, which is about your mode of discourse,” she said. In her opinion, he was not civil because, she said, he excluded certain groups from the public sphere.

Despite the vitriol of the moment, Professor Young said she was an optimist, thanks in part to what she has learned from public opinion research. “I know what people really want. Americans are sickened by these moments. By and large, Americans reject political violence.”

On Friday, after announcing the arrest of the man suspected of killing Mr. Kirk, Mr. Cox made an appeal to young people. Some of them loved the young activist, he said, and some of them hated him.

For his part, Mr. Kirk would say, “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much,” the governor recalled.

“To my young friends out there, you are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage,” Mr. Cox said. “It feels like rage is the only option, but, through those words, we have a reminder that we can choose a different path.”

“Your generation,” he added, “has an opportunity to build a culture that is very different than what we are suffering through right now.”

To read more CLICK HERE

Sending the Texas National Guard to Chicago is unconstitutional

 Why sending the Texas National Guard to Chicago is unconstitutional, from Richard Primus on Politico.

The Supreme Court’s recognition of that principle is at least as old as its 1819 decision in the landmark case of McCulloch v. Maryland. The question in McCulloch was whether Maryland could tax a branch of the Bank of the United States, located within Maryland. The Bank was a controversial institution — opponents like Thomas Jefferson argued it gave the federal government too much power — and Maryland didn’t like it much. So the Maryland legislature cleverly wrote a statute imposing a prohibitively high tax on all banks doing business in the state without charters of incorporation granted by Maryland’s own legislature. At the time, there was precisely one such bank: the Bank of the United States, which was chartered not by Maryland but by Congress. And in one of the most influential judicial opinions in American history, Chief Justice John Marshall held the tax unconstitutional.

As Marshall explained, a fundamental problem with Maryland’s tax was the misalignment between the people who imposed it and the people who had to pay it. When the Maryland legislature taxes Marylanders, it will keep the tax burden reasonable, because Maryland taxpayers can vote their legislators out otherwise. That’s why states can be trusted with the power to tax their own. But the people of State A would never authorize the legislature of State B to tax them, because they’d have no mechanism for holding State B’s lawmakers accountable for abuses of the power. (Taxation without representation, as someone once said, is tyranny.) And for a single state to tax the Bank of the United States would, in effect, be for that state to tax the people of all the other states, because the costs incurred by the Bank of the United States would be borne by the entire American public. By the same token, Marshall noted that Maryland could collect a tax from the Bank of the United States if it were a tax imposed uniformly on all banks, or all businesses, in the state of Maryland: The votes of other taxpayers, exercised to protect themselves from excessive taxation, would have the effect of protecting the Bank of the United States, too. What Maryland couldn’t do was impose a cost specially or disproportionately on people who could not hold Maryland’s lawmakers to account.

Using military personnel for domestic law enforcement is dangerous and fraught, and any political leader who does it should be held strictly accountable for the consequences. Given the absence of any real need for militarized law enforcement in Chicago, it would be a grave abuse of power for the president to send any troops there on a law-enforcement pretext — as it was when he mobilized the National Guard for law enforcement in Washington, D.C. But for more than one reason, that mobilization in D.C. is easier to defend constitutionally than sending the Texas National Guard to Chicago would be. Justifiably or not, constitutional law treats all of D.C. as an exception to the McCulloch principle: The people of D.C. are, as a general matter, subject to a lawmaking authority — Congress — that they play no part in electing. (That’s why some D.C. license plates bear the protest slogan, “Taxation Without Representation.”) But regardless of whether that exception is justified in D.C., it has absolutely no application in Illinois. Like Nebraskans and Pennsylvanians and Kansans, Illinoisians are constitutionally entitled to be constituents of whatever body governs them.

Any military force is likely to behave with less restraint toward a population to which its leaders are not responsible than toward a population to which its leaders must answer democratically. If the Texas National Guard behaves poorly in Chicago, the locals have no electoral mechanism for holding Texas authorities to account. The governor of Texas never appears on any ballot in Illinois. He has nothing to fear, politically, from the people his National Guard will police. Surely a militarization at the hands of a non-responsible power is no less tyrannical, and no more constitutional, than a tax imposed by one.

To read more CLICK HERE