Analysis: A Potential Thread Between Columbine, the United Healthcare Murder, and the Charlie Kirk Assassination

Particulars in regards to the suspect within the homicide of commentator Charlie Kirk are nonetheless scarce, however a few of what we all know factors to disturbing similarities between their actions and former killers.

On Wednesday, a person used a bolt-action rifle to take a single, deadly shot on the outstanding MAGA activist from the roof of a campus constructing at Utah Valley College. The shooter stays on the run as of Thursday evening.

The assault is the most recent in a string of political violence over the previous yr, from the tried assassination of President Donald Trump to the killing of Minnesota Speaker of the Home Melissa Hortman. Nevertheless it additionally shares a possible resemblance with the assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on the finish of final yr, which itself mirrored elements of the Columbine capturing.

After that homicide, I fearful it will encourage different assaults like Columbine continues to do. There have been good causes to view the United killing as creating a brand new playbook for related assaults. Now, we could also be seeing it play out.

After all, as I famous above, there are numerous issues we don’t know for certain. Early reporting is usually unreliable in these conditions, and we’ve already obtained numerous conflicting stories. Nonetheless, there’s sufficient to attract some connections.

For one, quite a few retailers have reported that the shooter left some kind of messages on the ammunition that was discovered within the gun recovered by regulation enforcement. Early stories claimed the markings have been “expressing transgender and anti-fascist ideology,” however the New York Instances, Wall Road Journal, and CNN have since up to date their tales with claims from regulation enforcement that isn’t essentially the case. CNN has reported the markings could embody a sequence of arrows of yet-to-be-determined that means.

If the killer meant the markings to ship a message, no matter what precisely that message could also be, the act shall be similar to what the CEO killer did together with his ammunition.

Second, and maybe extra importantly, Charlie Kirk’s killer dedicated his atrocity in an especially public method–identical to the United killer. He attacked Kirk at a crowded occasion that was certain to be livestreamed and recorded 100 occasions over. It was a really public act of violence in opposition to a high-profile political determine.

Hopefully, regulation enforcement will deliver the shooter to justice quickly, and we’ll get extra confirmed info on how every part unfolded. There isn’t sufficient stable info to attract concrete conclusions.

Clearly, political violence isn’t new. Public assassinations aren’t new. Leaving messages on ammunition or weapons isn’t new both– many mass shooters, together with the current Annunciation killer, have adopted the tactic.

However these two elements are shared with the United killing, and so they present some motive to fret that this killing was impressed by that one. In that case, it might be the beginning of a brand new Columbine-like menace descending over our society.

As I defined again in December, the Considerable Life Christian Faculty capturing that occurred proper after the United CEO homicide was instructive on how unhealthy that actually is. 25 years after the Columbine capturing, a teen who mimicked the killers’ clothes additionally mimicked their assault. The attacker wasn’t born till a decade after the Columbine capturing occurred, and nonetheless actively imitated it.

Professors James Densley and Jillian Peterson, who’ve studied many years of mass shootings as a part of The Violence Venture, supply the perfect rationalization I’ve seen for why Columbine’s affect persists. They consider the capturing was a key occasion within the rise of contemporary mass shootings, although it was removed from the primary. Nor was it the primary main college capturing, or the primary one carried out that yr.

However the attackers wished to be imitated.

“[T]he primary motive for Columbine’s longevity was that its perpetrators created manifestos and dwelling films of their preparations in hopes that their story would outlive them,” Densley and Peterson wrote all the best way again in 2019. “Sadly, it has.”

Their actions served as a template for different shooters to emulate.

“Earlier than Columbine, there was no script for a way college shooters ought to behave, gown and communicate,” the professors wrote. “Columbine created ‘widespread information,’ the inspiration of coordination within the absence of a standardized playbook.”

Moreover, the assault occurred at a brand new media second that it proved to be effectively tailored to.

“Timing was every part,” they stated. “The bloodbath was one of many first to happen after the appearance of 24-hour cable information and throughout the ‘the yr of the online.’ This was the daybreak of the digital age of good remembering, the place phrases and deeds reside on-line endlessly. Columbine turned the pilot for future episodes of fame-seeking violence.”

The assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson had most of the similar hallmarks.

The shooter was extremely performative in his strategies. He not solely carried out a focused killing, however he additionally leaned into the stereotypical aesthetic of an murderer–ambushing his sufferer with a gun that had a tactically-useless silencer. He left a manifesto, scrawled messages on his ammunition, and dropped a backpack filled with monopoly cash in Central Park as he fled.

His killing additionally got here at a brand new media second, and his horrific act of violence was caught on video and went instantly viral internationally. The TikTokification of an assassination.

The violent act was broadly condemned, however not universally. Whereas the Columbine killers discovered a twisted following on-line, the United killer seems to be much more fashionable–particularly on the far left, the place his politics resonate. The identical dynamic seems to be enjoying out with Kirk’s killer as effectively.

It’s too early to say whether or not Kirk’s assassin was impressed by the United killer both straight or not directly. We must always get extra particulars within the coming days and weeks. Nonetheless, there’s already motive to be involved that’s a part of what occurred right here, and this can be just the start of a long-lasting legacy of violence.