Should Charlie Kirk's Shooter Get the Death Penalty?
By Mike Bibb
"They can kill the messenger, but they can't kill the message." — William Shakespeare, "Henry IV, Part II," 1598.
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Seems obvious to me — from available information — that the young shooter who shot and killed college conservative commentator, Charlie Kirk, 31, did so with malice and intent to stalk, get into position, shoot, flee the area and travel several hundred miles to avoid apprehension.
He didn't count on photo identification or his own family turning him in.
As a result, it's more than possible he will be indicted, tried and convicted of the crime.
It's also a distinct possibility Utah prosecutors will seek the death penalty. Utah has both lethal injection and firing squad to finalize the sentence.
Both do the job, only one is less unpleasant than the other.
We've recently experienced several horrendous murders, and attempted murders in this country, from knifings to shootings, and each one seems to have been committed by deranged people who have been politically motivated or mentally unhinged.
Within the past year or so, our current President has been wounded and tracked by another would-be assassin; a 23-year-old woman riding a light-rail commuter train was brutally murdered when she was stabbed in the neck by a crazed man sitting behind her; four Idaho students were killed by another stalker and now a visiting speaker at a college in Utah was shot dead during his presentation by a college aged assailant.
Every one of these cases involved capital murder or attempted capital murder, and many states use lethal injection as its primary form of execution.
As I commented in a previous column, the very heinous nature of these crimes has rekindled discussions of reintroducing more severe forms of prisoner execution. Principally, hanging.
The psychological reasoning of an individual committing a crime he/she knows would qualify as a hanging offense, might impact their thought processes sufficiently enough to rethink their intended crime before they actually commit it.
I'm certainly cognizant most criminals do not spend a lot of time pondering the consequences of what happens after they've been caught. In today's liberal catch-and-release legal environment, a culprit is often set free before the paper work has been filed.
Particularly, in communities whose police departments have been adversely impacted by the "Defund the police" mania currently in vogue.
Yet, crimes of major significance, especially murder, are very prominent in larger cities. It isn't uncommon for Chicago, Baltimore, Memphis, New Orleans and others to record a couple of dozen shootings and killings in a single weekend.
According to Wikipedia, as of Aug. 1, 2025, there have been 309 mass shootings — involving four or more people — in which 1,354 were wounded and 302 died.
I don't know how many thousands were wounded and killed involving three or less participants.
The situation has become so bad that President Trump has ordered the National Guard to help police regain control in some of these cities.
Unfortunately, an individual speaking at an outdoor public forum presents its own set of security difficulties. Open areas, different building sizes and heights, trees and other vegetation obscuring inspection, transiting vehicles, large crowds of spectators and constant movement of people are issues police personnel must deal with — practically on a second-by-second time frame.
There is no margin for error, although that is nearly impossible. A shooter knows what he wants to do and how he's going to do it, while police can only surmise and react.
However, in the cases of the President in Butler, Pennsylvania, and Charlie Kirk's assassination in Orem, Utah, both shooters shot from rooftops, and both were seen on video.
Which means both shooters probably reconnaissanced the area before the actual assassination took place. It's highly unlikely they merely showed up a few minutes before, rifle in hand, climbed up on a roof, took aim, and shot the victims.
In President Trump's situation, the shooter fired multiple rounds, hitting Trump in the ear and killing and wounding a few rally attendees before he was neutralized by security.
The shooter in the Charlie Kirk killing fired a single shot from a couple of hundred yards; indicating he was an experienced marksman with the rifle he used.
Unfortunately, security reacted too slowly to prevent the President from being wounded and Kirk from being killed.
The President's assassin was killed, but Kirk's murderer escaped. He was apprehended the following day in his hometown where he was recognized.
His father had the disheartening experience of reporting and turning in his own son to the police.
Now, Utah's governor has said the state will prosecute the 22-year-old shooter, and possibly seek the death penalty.
Presumably, that will mean lethal injection if he is found guilty. Utah also uses a firing squad when necessary.
Why not bring back a third alternative — hanging by the neck until dead?
If a state believes it needs an additional death sentence procedure an inmate can contemplate while awaiting execution, then hanging seems appropriate.
Lethal injection takes a few painless moments and firing squads are usually a guaranteed solution, but swinging from the end of a rope is a much more ominous and mentally vivid realization of what a convicted murderer's last few moments on Earth will be like.
A reminder his life's clock will be stopping soon and no one, but himself, will hear his screams and gasps for air as the hangman's rope quickly chokes him into permanent unconsciousness.
It should be kept in mind that every one of these monsters had their free choice to do what they did. They were not forced by anyone to go out and kill. They murdered because they wanted to. It doesn't matter if their brains were broken, or hopped-up on dope or if hatred and convoluted beliefs overrode their good judgement.
Simple fact of the matter is they willfully and maliciously killed someone they probably didn't personally know because they thought that person needed killing.
These are not heroes — merely ignorant heathens — who believed they were on some kind of inspired mission to eradicate those who didn't agree with them or their twisted thinking.
To achieve their ambitions, it's not beyond their capacity to knife or shoot some unsuspecting citizen in cold blood. Or, a private speaker invited to a public college to discuss free speech issues, and then shot dead by a young deranged political assassin who opposed Kirk's views.
All this has done is release a whirlwind of distrust and suspicion of the sadistic antics of the ultra-left. If they can randomly kill someone who doesn't agree with them, then no one's safe.
Consequently, society needs to do what it needs to do to protect itself— put these murderous bastards down and toss them into the ground. Let people forget their names as nature rots their pathetic remains.
But before they go, maybe they can be given the choice of how they'd like to die: Lethal injection, firing squad or hanging?
Which are more options than they gave their victims.
As repeatedly mentioned throughout history, "They can kill the messenger, but they can't kill the message."
Although, the forces of evil continue to try!
