At the moment Charlie Kirk was shot on the Utah Valley University campus on Wednesday, my 18-year-old son was being interviewed at the event.
He was peacefully protesting, and with his friends was being asked about his views. Among other things, he said that even though he disagrees with Kirk’s stand on most issues, Kirk deserves the right to express his opinion. My son also added: “Love one another isn’t just a Christian concept. It’s a human concept.”
Then a shot rang out.
Some thought it might be firecrackers. But leaning over the balcony, my son saw the blood. Realizing what had happened, students fell to the ground, worried additional shots might be aimed at them. Chaos broke out around campus. My son ran towards my office, halfway across campus.
I wasn’t there. At the moment of the shooting, I was teaching my American National Government class. I was wearing a colonial tricorn hat as we prepared for a simulation of the New York State Ratification Convention, a historic event that saw heated and bitter division during weeks of discussion and debate. Finally, and barely, the delegates ratified the Constitution, 30-27.
When an announcement was made on the loudspeaker, we began to file out of the building. In that process, one of my students with a medical condition had trouble getting down the stairs. A classmate, who serves in the military, helped her down the steps and sat with her through a fainting spell and recovery. He was gentle and watchful, comforting and getting her water to drink until her boyfriend arrived. He was an “angel,” her mother messaged me. Yes, he was an angel.
Other shock and other goodness were apparent. I looked up as another student of mine walked by. She had missed class to attend the rally and was now supporting a sobbing friend.
By that time, I had heard from my son. He had been pulled from the hallway by an administrative assistant, and was sheltering in place a few yards from my office. I joined them but first told him to warn them I would knock. With the shooter at large, they might be nervous about who was on the other side of the door.
When we finally were allowed to leave, my son and I spent an hour in the car, waiting for off-campus traffic to move. I later learned that other colleagues left their cars where they were, being shuttled home by good Samaritans willing to go out of their way.
As we sat waiting, my son was shaking, tears in his eyes.
Why did my gentle son need to witness this? I thought.
A while later as we ate together, the TV announced that Kirk had died.
I grieve that my son had to witness the blood and chaos of a shooting — a murder. I grieve that his peaceful and protected protest was interrupted by brutal and political violence.
I grieve that my students know to fall to the ground, having practiced this in elementary and secondary school. I grieve that they were terrified, fainting and crying.
I grieve that some on both sides are taking shots across the political divide instead of pulling together across partisan lines.
I grieve many of the ideas that Charlie Kirk promoted.
But I grieve even more that he was gunned down while expressing them.
Americans have a First Amendment responsibility to allow free speech. Prohibiting it leaves two victims, as Dr. Lucas Morel taught on campus last week: the one who cannot speak and the one who cannot listen, weigh and consider. And Americans have a civic responsibility to renege on all forms of political violence, which destroys the very foundation of a free, civil and lawful society.
We can begin with these words, regardless of political persuasion: Love one another.