{"id":2725,"date":"2025-09-15T11:49:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T11:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/09\/15\/umich-community-reacts-to-death-of-charlie-kirk-and-talks-next-steps-in-addressing-gun-violence\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T11:49:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T11:49:09","slug":"umich-community-reacts-to-death-of-charlie-kirk-and-talks-next-steps-in-addressing-gun-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/09\/15\/umich-community-reacts-to-death-of-charlie-kirk-and-talks-next-steps-in-addressing-gun-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"UMich community reacts to death of Charlie Kirk and talks next steps in addressing gun violence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>On Wednesday, Charlie Kirk, political activist and<a href=\"https:\/\/tpusa.com\/\"> Turning Point USA<\/a> founder, was<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2025\/09\/12\/us\/charlie-kirk-news-suspect\"> shot and killed<\/a> at<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uvu.edu\/\"> Utah Valley University<\/a> while on his<a href=\"https:\/\/www.americancomebacktour.com\/\"> American Comeback Tour<\/a>.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/tpusa_umich\/\"> Turning Point USA at the University of Michigan<\/a> held a vigil at the Diag flagpole to honor Kirk\u2019s memory that evening. That same day, there was a shooting at<a href=\"https:\/\/evergreen.jeffcopublicschools.org\/\"> Evergreen High School<\/a> in Colorado. Both events have sparked conversation among the University and national community surrounding gun safety measures and political polarization in the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with The Michigan Daily at the vigil, LSA senior Sarah Baldwin, vice president of the U-M Turning Point USA chapter, said Kirk\u2019s death was a shocking tragedy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think all the chapters are a little bit in shock because we know there\u2019s so much political polarization in the country and that it\u2019s been so tense in the last decade or so, but it\u2019s just still shocking when things like this happen,\u201d Baldwin said. \u201cYou never want to believe it can go that far \u2014 that we can be that angry with each other, that we can dehumanize each other so much. I think everybody hopes that, at the very least, this can maybe provide some kind of point of human empathy and community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>LSA junior Aubrey Greenfield,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/mfol_umich\/\"> March for Our Lives at UMich<\/a> board member, said in an interview with The Daily that while Kirk\u2019s death was highly publicized, she felt other victims of gun violence did not receive the same public sympathy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cI think it just shows how politically polarized our environment is right now,\u201d Greenfield said. \u201cIt really shows how Kirk is a very big name in political media and because of that, everyone knows (him), but they don\u2019t know that 4-year-old who got shot, or they don\u2019t know that brother or that sister who got killed in a small community in California.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Greenfield was also critical of President Donald Trump\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2025\/09\/honoring-the-memory-of-charlie-kirk\/\"> \u201cHonoring the Memory of Charlie Kirk\u201d<\/a> proclamation, specifically his call to lower all flags to half-mast until Sept. 14, contrasted with<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-walz-minnesota-lawmakers-shot-call-064092d14bea4c3141da31b7a5e5c9b3\"> his reaction<\/a> to former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/06\/14\/us\/melissa-hortman-minnesota-assassination\"> death on June 14<\/a> and other gun violence victims.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat about the families who lose kids or uncles or parents to gun violence every year?\u201d Greenfield said. \u201cThe flags aren\u2019t lowered for them; people badmouth them. People have conspiracy theories that certain shootings didn\u2019t happen \u2014 where\u2019s the respect for all of these kids and the outrage for all of these children to the same degree that there was for Charlie Kirk?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Greenfield also noted that the Evergreen High School shooting was the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/us\/school-shootings-fast-facts-dg\"> 47th school shooting<\/a> of 2025.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn Sept. 10, when Charlie Kirk was shot and killed, on that same day, Evergreen High School in Colorado also had a shooting that wounded two students,\u201d Greenfield said. \u201cIt just shows you that gun violence does not care about your political affiliation, it doesn\u2019t care about your age, it doesn\u2019t care about where you live. It comes for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>At the vigil, Baldwin said not all students in the University\u2019s Turning Point USA chapter agreed with Kirk on all topics, but admired his commitment to public debate and dialogue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDebate\u2019s important \u2014 he really tried to help foster that,\u201d Baldwin said. \u201cWhether you agreed or not, he wanted to have the dialogue to make sure we saw each other as people and had those different viewpoints and different feelings and things. People are people \u2014 they are not walking political party platforms \u2014 so we\u2019re going to try to carry on that legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In discussing next steps, Greenfield said cooperation across the aisle is key, commenting on the United States\u2019 large gun culture and arguing that solutions must establish a <a href=\"https:\/\/hsph.harvard.edu\/research\/means-matter\/gun-owners\/gun-shop-project\/#:~:text=Means%20Matter%20began%20working%20in,and%20tip%20sheet%2C%20below.)\">culture of gun safety<\/a> while still protecting the<a href=\"https:\/\/constitution.congress.gov\/constitution\/amendment-2\/\"> Second Amendment<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt also involves collaboration, and not just from both sides of the political aisle, but also with responsible gun dealers and owners to find solutions,\u201d Greenfield said. \u201cFor example, one that has been proposed is having some of these gun dealers go through suicide prevention training to be able to recognize signs, so that if somebody comes in to purchase a gun they can go, \u2018wait, we want to make sure you\u2019re purchasing it for the right reason, and not because you want to harm yourself or others.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Justin Heinze, faculty lead for<a href=\"https:\/\/sph.umich.edu\/ideas\/preventing-firearm-injuries.html\"> Public Health IDEAS for Preventing Firearm Injury<\/a> and associate professor of health behavior and health equity, said in an interview with The Daily the topic of guns has become an increasingly polarizing issue for people to talk about.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cMy colleague \u2014 Allison Miller, in the School of Public Health \u2014 has found that framing the conversation in a safety context, rather than harm, is really important to parents, and when we think about creating safer spaces, they\u2019re more willing to talk about their firearms,\u201d Heinze said. \u201cAt a policy level, you\u2019re trying to reach across both aisles to make sure that policies are recognizing the rights of gun owners as well as those of citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Greenfield said there also needs to be an emphasis on gun violence research in the United States, citing the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/legal\/government\/trump-administration-slashed-federal-funding-gun-violence-prevention-2025-07-29\/\"> $158 million<\/a> in grants for gun violence prevention cut by the Trump administration, which subsequently closed the<a href=\"https:\/\/bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov\/ogvp\/\"> White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention<\/a>. Heinze said these previous investments were hopeful for gun violence prevention initiatives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think people increasingly recognize that this is a national issue,\u201d Heinze said. \u201cWe were very encouraged over the last seven years or so to see the federal government investing in firearm injury prevention. We hope that will continue because, again, our role can be to try and bring data to these conversations when we think about what are the most effective ways to design and develop interventions to keep these multiple forms of violence from happening again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Public Policy junior Aidan Rozema, co-chair of<a href=\"https:\/\/www.collegedemsatum.com\/\"> College Democrats at the University of Michigan<\/a>, said Kirk\u2019s assassination sends a dangerous message to the nation and that he worries for the future of American democracy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think if we continue down this road, at some point in the future, we are going to have to take a hard look at our system and ask ourselves whether or not it is still a democracy,\u201d Rozema said. \u201cIf we continue down this path of calling for retribution, vengeance, of superseding legal authority, of ignoring the norms that have governed our republic for the past 250 years, that is where we\u2019re going to end up \u2014 where we look at America and cannot confidently call it a democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-4    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><em>Daily Staff Reporters Aanya Panyadahundi and Dominic Apap can be reached at aanyatp@umich.edu and dapap@umich.edu.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Wednesday, Charlie Kirk, political activist and Turning Point USA founder, was shot and killed at Utah Valley University while on his American Comeback Tour. Turning Point USA at the University of Michigan held a vigil at the Diag flagpole to honor Kirk\u2019s memory that evening. That same day, there was a shooting at Evergreen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[2895,667,441,2893,2896,2894,1355,187,49,341,2897],"class_list":{"0":"post-2725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-addressing","9":"tag-charlie","10":"tag-community","11":"tag-death","12":"tag-gun","13":"tag-kirk","14":"tag-reacts","15":"tag-steps","16":"tag-talks","17":"tag-umich","18":"tag-violence"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2725"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2727,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725\/revisions\/2727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}