A loyal supporter of President Donald Trump, Charlie Kirk was one of the most well-known Conservative activists and media figures in the United States.
In what police are describing as a targeted shooting, Kirk was shot dead on September 10 at the age of 31 while presiding over a university event for Turning Point USA, the group he co-founded.
President Donald Trump paid tribute on Truth Social after announcing Kirk's shocking news: “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie.”
He founded Turning Point at the age of eighteen with the goal of promoting conservative ideas at liberal US universities. He was shot at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, the first stop on a multi-campus Turning Point tour that invited participants to debate Kirk on related topics.
He often made headlines debating issues like gun control, climate change, faith, family values and transgender identity. Here are a few of his biggest controversies.
Gun deaths were “worth it”
Gun control was among the highly controversial political and social issues he discussed at events and on podcasts.
Kirk shifted the discussion of mass shootings to “mental health” or greater cultural deterioration and frequently dismissed calls for gun regulation.
He claimed in 2023 that it was “worth it” to have gun deaths in order to protect the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms in the United States.
During an appearance at the Salt Lake City campus of Awaken Church in April 2023, he said: “It's worth it 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...That is a prudent deal.”
The Conservative activist added: “You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won't have a single gun death. That is nonsense. It's drivel. But I am—I think it's worth it.”
Strong views on women
Kirk has made a number of claims that women should put motherhood before their jobs.
A few days prior to his death, he talked about faith, family, and the decisions made by young American women. In an interview with host Laura Ingraham that aired on FOX News on September 8, Kirk stated that “having children is more important than having a good career.”
He continued: “And I would also tell young ladies, you can always go back to your career later, that there is a window where you primarily should pursue marriage and having children, and that is a beautiful thing.”
In other interviews, he has also attacked birth control, claiming that it makes women “angry and bitter” and that women over thirty “aren't attractive in the dating pool.”
The MAGA supporter likened abortion to the Holocaust, saying, “We allow the massacre of a million and a half babies a year under the guise of women's reproductive health. We are allowing babies to be taken away and discarded every single year, just saying they are not humans.”
He went on to denounce abortion, adding, “It is never right to justify the mass termination of people under the guise of saying that they are unwanted. That's how we get Auschwitz, that's how we got the greatest horror of the 20th century,” in an old video that surfaced recently.
“China virus”
The right-wing activist made a post in March 2020, during the peak of the Covid-19 outbreak, referring to Covid as the “China virus”—a nickname that President Trump later used during his first term.
Kirk also allegedly compared the need for pandemic vaccines to apartheid in a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson.
He also discussed the “great replacement”—a widely disproved conspiracy theory—in an Instagram post from February 2024, which said that undocumented immigrants would replace white Americans in the US.
Provocative statements on race
Kirk was also well-known for using controversial racial remarks.
He said during a 2024 podcast episode with fellow right wing activist Jack Posobeic: “I'm sorry. If I see a Black pilot, I'm going to be like, 'Boy, I hope he's qualified,”
Kirk was adamantly against Juneteenth being declared a federal holiday. He stated that “anti-American” sentiment that supported “a neo-segregationist view” that aspired to replace Independence Day was the driving force behind the decision to move the date ahead.
Anti-LGBTQ activist
Kirk was a well-known anti-LGBTQ activist who opposed LGBTQ rights and policies, as evidenced by his remarks directed at transgender Americans.
In 2021, he denounced LGBTQ-inclusive schooling on his podcast, claiming that Democrats desire a world “where there is no cultural identity”.
“Sexual anarchy” is how he characterised progressive gender and sexuality policies.
