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By Matthew Walther
Mr. Walther is the editor of The Lamp, a Catholic literary journal, and a contributing Opinion writer.
Why was Charlie Kirk killed? According to a charging document filed on Tuesday by prosecutors in Utah, the mother of the man suspected of the shooting said that her son had become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented” over the past year, suddenly moving to the political left. And the shooter reportedly texted an explanation to his romantic partner — a male who identifies as a woman — for why he killed Mr. Kirk: “I had enough of his hatred.”
In the days and weeks to come, we will doubtless learn more about the suspect in Mr. Kirk’s killing. But the charging document suggests a relatively straightforward political profile and motive, especially when compared with the cryptic messages the shooter engraved on his shell casings, which were frantically mined for meaning in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Those inscriptions, the shooter told his lover after the killing, “were mostly a big meme.” He said that if he saw one of his scatological jokes mentioned on Fox News, “I might have a stroke.”
