MAGA activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot dead while speaking at a university campus in Utah on Wednesday, was well known for his outspoken opinions on a number of hot-button political issues.
The 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, a key ally of President Donald Trump, was shot in the neck by a sniper’s bullet at an event at Utah Valley University in Orem on Wednesday and was rushed to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A police manhunt for the gunman is ongoing.
A Chicago-born son of an architect, Kirk founded Turning Point when he was just 18 years old with the aim of promoting conservative values in America’s universities and colleges.
He rose to prominence during the first Trump administration through his podcast, cable news appearances and campus speaking tours.
His views were often viewed as controversial. As a pro-life Christian, he routinely debated progressive liberals, Muslims, and the LGBT+ community, resulting in allegations of misogyny, Islamophobia, and homophobia.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he denounced mask mandates. He referred to vaccine requirements as “medical apartheid” and also promoted Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” against him by a vast Democratic conspiracy.
Kirk frequently adopted Trumpian talking points, blaming DEI hiring practices for flooding in Texas earlier this year, calling New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani “a parasite” and attempting to steer the national conversation away from Jeffrey Epstein by announcing he was “done” with the subject.
Here is a closer look at where he stood on some of the most pivotal issues of the day.
The Turning Point founder was addressing the subject of gun violence when he was fatally shot in Utah.
Kirk was known to be a gun owner himself and regularly spoke out on the issue, including on behalf of the National Rifle Association in the aftermath of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018.
At a Turning Point event in Salt Lake City 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.”
Kirk adopted a traditional Christian conservative stance in his approach to many contemporary issues, telling an audience at a Trump election rally in Georgia last fall that Democrats “stand for everything God hates” and adding: “This is a Christian state. I’d like to see it stay that way.”
He also lashed out at the gay community, denouncing what he called the “LGBTQ agenda,” expressing opposition to same-sex marriage and suggesting that the Bible verse Leviticus 20:13, which endorses the execution of homosexuals, serves as “God’s perfect law when it comes to sexual matters.”
“I don’t agree with your lifestyle,” Kirk told a gay Wisconsin college student last September. “I don’t think you should introduce yourself just based on your sexuality because that’s not who you are.”
