Sep. 10, 2025 will go down in history as a day of many tragedies. Early in the afternoon Charlie Kirk, a conservative far-right influencer and activist, was assassinated in a shooting at Utah Valley University. Hours later, Evergreen High School near Denver, Colo., became the day’s second site of gun violence after a school shooting left at least two students wounded.
Kirk’s views, which he was both intense and vocal about sharing, were certainly controversial. Similarly, the epidemic that is school shootings has been a hot-button topic in the United States for years. These high stakes topics have a way of pushing us apart, when the only way they can be addressed and solved is unification.
In a time of vicious political polarization, the easy choice is to immediately aim across the aisle, stones of blame in hand. It’s much simpler to pin a tragedy like this on “the other,” and say that Kirk would still be alive if it weren’t for the radical leftists, or that the right caused the Evergreen shooting with their overprotection of the Second Amendment. It’s also simpler, and easier on the conscience, to say that events like the ones that took place on the 10th are too complicated to have one clear cause.
While perhaps easier, neither of these strategies are the answer, as they will not lead us towards the progress these events prove we so desperately need. The truth is that there is one common denominator between Kirk’s untimely murder and the horrific shooting in Evergreen, and that is gun violence and, by association, the ludicrously weak gun policies of our country.
In the state of Montana, one can purchase a firearm and ammunition at the age of 18 with no background check or permit required. Many states adhere to this same set of laws, or more accurately the lack thereof. The bottom line is that it is not a difficult thing to acquire a gun in the United States.
One might argue that this is by design. A right to bear arms is engrained into the Constitution. But since 1791, the muskets and pistols of the 18th century have evolved into instruments with more capability for violence and death than the founding fathers ever imagined.
It is not an unbelievable hypothesis that more guns means more shootings. A direct and well-researched correlation can be drawn between higher access to guns and more gun-related deaths. With this in mind, why would we not adopt real, tangible policy change to limit the amount of human lives lost? The solution is sitting there – all we need is bipartisan support.
Gun control should not be a one-side-of-the-aisle issue because everyone, regardless of political orientation, is disadvantaged by its consequences. If politicians remain so childish as to vote along “party” lines on gun control policy, then think of it this way: issues or people of importance on both sides of the political spectrum suffered from the violence of Sep. 10. Kirk, one of the most societally visible conservative voices apart from the president, was murdered, and another school shooting, typically an issue taken on by the left, occurred. This should bring us together, unify us to solve this issue rather than divide us into the well-worn grooves of debate we’ve traversed so many times before.
Policy change is needed. Now. Kirk’s death, and the shooting at Evergreen High School occurring within hours of each other was the universe screaming this in the faces of the country’s lawmakers. Shootings will continue to happen unless politicians realize that this issue is bigger than their made-up party lines and people are dying. It’s easy to give the victims of gun violence your thoughts and prayers; it’s easy to repost sentiments on your Instagram story; but to stop gun violence, the easy choices aren’t enough.
