God and guns: The real forces behind Charlie Kirk’s killer

While conservative media rushes to blame the Left, the truth behind Charlie Kirk’s assassination lies in a deadly fusion of religiosity, gun culture and right-wing ideology, writes Leigh Simmonds-Healy.

CONSERVATIVE AND RIGHT-WING Christian media organisations and commentators, both here in Australia and in the U.S., just did “it” again.

They ignored the vast body of empirical evidence exposing U.S. political and gun violence offender profile statistics and immediately ran their default agenda — to point blame at and demonise the so-called “radical Left” in response to right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

All we know now, in reality, with any certainty, is that Charlie Kirk’s assassin was, like the vast majority of shooters in the U.S., a young homegrown White male from a conservative, pro-gun, deeply religious background. Raised from birth being gifted guns and semi-automatic assault weapons on birthdays and special occasions within a staunchly conservative, deeply religious Mormon family whose parents were both Republicans and MAGA Trump voters.

Empirical evidence demonstrates that those beliefs and values are likely what created this offender, just as they have almost every other U.S. political violence offender and heartbreakingly, particularly the offenders of U.S. school shootings.

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Whatever that system of dual beliefs in compulsory deep religious faith and gun ownership instils, and so strongly opposes any deviation from, within young minds like Robinson’s for 22 years – and so many other young minds – ultimately results in a disconnect with their own humanity and the humanity of others in the world around them. Then an implosion, and both the capacity and willingness to commit acts of violence, is the cause and should be the focus, rather than blame-shifting onto Left-leaning politics or ideas.

Evidence tells us that when young minds are indoctrinated within family into religious belief systems, they are permitted no free will, without exclusion or emancipation from family and community, to challenge or move away from those beliefs as they become young adults and begin to interpret the world through their own eyes. This so often causes them to lose their sense of identity and belonging, experience significantly high levels of psychological distress and implode.

And that is the point at which their confusion, grief, anger, marginalisation and dangerously adverse mental health connect with the gun culture and weapons access they were also raised within, which then arms and propels them to commit these heinous acts.

When will these media organisations and commentators realise and accept that their targeted divisive rhetoric is patently false, provokes and divides us all, and face the truth of the abundant statistical evidence on the ideological backgrounds and profiles of these offenders? When will they start to actually question the role religiosity and gun culture play in unison in the context of this nature of violent offending?

Because a mountain of research has examined that dual role and the empirically evidenced answer has been “in” for decades. Religiosity and guns – which are by far most present and prevalent together in unison statistically in the lives of U.S. citizens who subscribe to right-wing conservative political beliefs – are diabolical and directly linked to offending, almost without exception.

Right-wing conservative media orgs and political commentators seem incapable of allowing statistics, evidence or reality to get in the way of their agenda to demonise the Left (because the Left challenges many of the beliefs they subscribe to, which permit their intolerance and handicap their non-secular agenda) or consider the impact of pro-gun and religious belief systems.

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And their agenda in the aftermath of incidents like Charlie Kirk’s assassination is always one of intolerance and division that seeks to shift blame onto the Left. Evidence demonstrates that Leftist beliefs don’t create these offenders — the religious belief systems and gun cultures they are indoctrinated into from birth and raised within do.

There are extremists on both sides of the political divide due to a multitude of global reasons founded in economics and challenges to social cohesion but that divide grows dangerously wider by the day due to the provocative and divisive style of politics favoured by leaders such as Donald Trump and our own (now banished from the Australian political landscape) Peter Dutton, particularly in the aftermath of incidents such as Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

But the evidence undeniably demonstrates that political violence and gun violence is far more prevalent on the Right, where guns are worshipped, intolerance is normative, the Bible is misrepresented and weaponised to support that intolerance, and where high levels of psychological distress and vengeful anger most often reside within the minds of young adults.

As an individual who believes in the sanctity of human life, freedom of speech and the debate of ideas, I unequivocally condemn the murder of Charlie Kirk and feel both sadness and empathy for his family and friends despite my personal opposition to many of his public statements and polarising beliefs.

But I condemn equally, the rigid system of religious indoctrination and gun ownership culture that Tyler Robinson was raised within and all who seek to deny its causative impact upon his life and offending, and to promote a false narrative of blame-shifting upon Left leaning politics and ideas.

The Left didn’t kill Charlie Kirk. Conservative right-wing ideology founded upon religious zealotry and gun ownership did.

Leigh Simmonds-Healy is a provisional psychologist working within the not-for-profit Community Services sector with a particular interest in youth mental health.