As excited Cubs explored the Activities Fair in the second week of September, students in another part of the country feared for their lives. The news that political activist Charlie Kirk had been shot at Utah Valley University spread to hundreds of Cubs before lunch was over, and when they returned to class, many followed the news closely. For many, the day suddenly shifted from one of excitement to one of unease, as Cubs realized how quickly joy on campus could be pierced by fear beyond it.
“I found out that Charlie had been shot relatively quickly after it happened. My club officers and I were recruiting new members for TPUSA at Loyola (now Club America at Loyola) at Wednesday’s activities fair when the two TPUSA field representatives (employees of TPUSA) who were with us informed me that Charlie had been shot and they had to leave. I did not fully process the possibility that he could be dead at that moment; however, I was worried and immediately searched up live updates while praying for him,” recalled Jason Gabriel ‘28, President of Loyola’s Club America (formerly Turning Point USA Club).
His experience reflected a larger tension at Loyola, where students with differing political views were suddenly forced to grapple with the human cost of the very issues they often debate.
Less than an hour later, when an uncensored close-up video of Charlie Kirk’s death surfaced on social media, many Loyola students and Americans were exposed to the immense and shocking suffering caused by political violence.
Kirk, the founder and president of Turning Point USA, was in the middle of answering a question about mass shootings linked to transgender Americans when a single shot rang through the crowd. Two hundred feet away, on the rooftop of a nearby building, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson had allegedly pulled the trigger. In less than a second, a wife lost her husband, two daughters lost their father, and hundreds of students ran for their lives.
Kirk’s killing underscores a brutal truth: political figures are not the only ones in danger. He is one person—one of more than forty-five thousand Americans who lose their lives to gun violence each year. Kirk’s story has made headlines and gained national recognition because of his prominence in politics and active social media presence. What, however, happens to the other 44,999 Americans whose names become headlines that we scroll past, whose family trauma gains no recognition, whose preventable death is written off as a consequence of the 2nd Amendment?
These deaths are not accidents of fate. They are the predictable result of political inaction. Despite the overwhelming human cost, our leaders have failed to act. Poll after poll, including surveys conducted by the APM Research Lab and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, shows that Americans across party lines support universal background checks, red flag laws and limits on military-style weapons. Yet, these reforms are stalled year after year. Republican leaders, tied by their unwavering loyalty to the National Rifle Association (NRA), have chosen power and profit over lives.
Therefore, it is the opinion of the Loyalist executive staff that political violence must be denounced in all its forms and that our nation can no longer delay common-sense gun reform. To do anything less is a betrayal of our Jesuit mission and our moral responsibility as Americans.
As a Jesuit community, we cannot accept this paralysis. Cura personalis, care for the whole person, demands that we defend not just our own classmates, but every person endangered by a culture of guns. Men and women for and with others cannot remain silent while violence tears apart families across the country. Gun reform is not only a political issue; it is a moral one.
Yet to understand the urgency of this stance, we must also recognize the dangerous logic that tempts some citizens to see violence as a tool. In an environment where many across the political spectrum feel their voices aren’t being heard, taking a gun to a rally may seem like the easiest way to make an impact.
At the same time, there is a growing perception that even legitimate critiques are being punished. Many citizens fear that speaking out against a polarizing figure will be branded as celebrating violence, effectively criminalizing dissent.
“Unfortunately, that kind of discussion has been labelled as ‘celebrating his death.’ What the leadership of this country has done is criminalize legitimate dissent against a figure who consistently demeaned marginalized groups. Condemning violence should not mean silencing critique; in fact, the ability to question and challenge those in power is what keeps our democracy alive,” warns Ethan Dumper ‘27, co-president of the Loyola chapter of High School Democrats of America.
Tit-for-tat escalation may become more likely. Given that conservative media downplayed the Minnesota State Senate shootings and emphasized the Kirk shooting, and liberal media did the opposite, extremist citizens may feel that the other side is “winning” the war based on inaccurate perceptions of reality.
“We, as a nation, need to realize that there are going to be people with vastly different opinions than our own, but that does not mean the opposition necessarily holds any hatred towards you or your opinion,” continues Gabriel.
Dumper echoes that rejection of violence while also pointing to Kirk’s long history of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric: “Political violence has no place in our country, but neither does discrimination and hate speech. If we only mourn the man without acknowledging the harm his words caused, then we allow bigotry to go unchallenged. True healing means rejecting both the bullet and the cruelty that divides us.”
Like Dumper, many Americans have been grappling with Kirk’s history of comments during debates and rallies. Gabriel offers the following advice to those in that situation: “To address the issues that have come from this murder, people spreading untruths about what Charlie stood for should be encouraged to watch actual videos of Charlie’s speeches and debates, in context and in their entirety. I have viewed countless recordings of people accusing Charlie of being a ‘racist,’ a ‘white supremacist,’ and a ‘sower of hate,’ among other negative things. Based on all I have heard and observed of Charlie Kirk, I do not believe those accusations to be true, nor do I believe that he was a bigoted man. This is precisely why I encourage people to take the time to look at Charlie’s works, in full, to see what his message really was.”
Anything other than a complete rejection of political violence could prove fatal. In a country where guns are so accessible, our values and our republic teeter over a very slippery slope. If we fail to preserve this, the last best hope of man on earth, we will condemn our children and our nation to take the “last step into a thousand years of darkness” as foretold by President Reagan.
It’s time to heal as a school community. It’s time to heal as a country. It’s time to choose conversation over confrontation and rebuild institutions where every voice is heard and no one feels that violence is an answer.