I'm struck by how much the shooter's mindset appears completely detached from those of his friends and loved ones

[bigtree]

...it appears he had conjured up an image of himself as something of an avenger against Charlie Kirk's offensive rhetoric, yet found nothing but incredulousness when his violent act was revealed to his friends and people he ostensibly loved.

To me, that's more revealing of his relatively conservative upbringing with the guns, republicanism, and the victim-mentality of the modern republican party politics; than with any true 'leftist' impetus or imperative whose core ideology has traditionally eschewed guns, weapons, and violence, often advocating in defense against right wihg extremism that can't seem to live peacefully with Americans as we exist.

To the point, that 22 year-old had a lot more in common with Capitol-rioting republicans in how he looks to have reasoned and rationalized his way through harming another person just because he disagreed with them.

It wasn't exactly politics that he was trying to advantage, either, because it looks like he never voted.* The relatively young shooter was assuaging his OWN anger and hatred toward his victim which resulted in alienating just about everyone he knew and loved from any cause he may have supported.

Lashing out at one side or the other in response to this tragic incident seems as pointless as this young man's mindset when he grabbed his grandfather's gun and made Charlie Kirk the object of his personal ire.

...excerpt from the movie 'His Girl Friday,' when the killer, Earl Williams rationalizes why he shot a man.

Williams: He [the soap-box speaker] said everything should be made use of.
Hildy: It makes quite a bit of sense, doesn't it?...Now look, Earl, when you found yourself with that gun in your hand, and that policeman coming at you, what did you think about?...You must have thought of something...Could it have been, uh, 'production for use'?...What's a gun for Earl?
Williams: A gun?...Why to shoot, of course.
Hildy: Oh. Maybe that's why you used it.
Williams: Maybe.
Hildy: Seems reasonable?
Williams: Yes, yes it is. You see, I've never had a gun in my hand before. That's what a gun's for, isn't it? Maybe that's why.
Hildy: Sure it is.
Williams: Yes, that's what I thought of. Production for use. Why, it's simple isn't it?
Hildy: Very simple.
Williams: There's nothing crazy about that, is there?
Hildy: Nope. Nothing at all.
Williams: You'll write about that in your paper, won't you?
Hildy: You bet I will.

[in her story] And so, into this little tortured mind came the idea that that gun had been produced for use. And use it he did. But the state has a 'production-for-use' plan too. It has a gallows. And at seven a.m. unless a miracle occurs, that gallows will be used to separate the soul of Earl Williams from his body...

[bucolic_frolic]

1. He had boundary issues

He didn't realize his reality wasn't everyone's reality, or at least those around him. Self-righteousness and mental certitude, lack of respect for the rights of others, probably some privilege mixed in. As I often say with criminals, he thought he was doing just fine, thought he had every right to do what he did. The outcome is sad all around.

[SunSeeker]

2. His mindset of resorting to "2nd Amendment Remedies" seems quite in keeping with what his MAGA family taught him. nt

[AZJonnie]

3. Nah, he didn't learn about 2A remedies from his ammosexual parents, couldn't be them!

He must have learned it from the likes RuPaul and Elton John!

[Crunchy Frog]

4. I'm still not convinced that the communication we've been given is authentic.

I'm not saying that it isn't, but I'd like to see some serious forensic analyses from objective investigations or investigative journalists.

To me, it looks too much like a movie script.

[Srkdqltr]

5. How do we know what his mindset is? Its all conjecture, he has not said anything and probably won't.

[bigtree]

6. well, for the sake of discussion

...it's why I said 'appears.'

I'm almost 65 and these issues of violence and retribution aren't new to me. I've made an observation here about something that appears to be universally true in my own estimation.

Others mileage may vary.

[Srkdqltr]

10. The more conjecture out there the more people believe but , as of now, we don't know but we still make up,

Even as knowledgeable as you are , reasons we don't know.
Like I have said before, it's become a really bizarre game of telephone.
This one says......that ones says .... and no one has a clue as of now, maybe never.

[Ms. Toad]

7. Pretty sure he registered to vote.

He just hadn't voted.

[bigtree]

9. top of my head

...which isn't the most reliable thing I refer to these days.

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

8. Trump & the GOP Magats need to realize the hatred they're ginning up can boomerang on their sorry asses.

They want the crazies to be armed. Bullets don't have a left wing or a right wing, because they don't need them. Trump's head came close to being an exploding pumpkin by one of his own flying monkeys. Stupid fucker is playing with fire—gun fire.

[EdmondDantes_]

11. Do you mean in the US after the 1970s?

Because if you mean worldwide, the 20th century is littered with many communist military groups. I'll grant you that in the US after the 1960s and 1970s there's been very little left wing gun violence. Not to dispute that in the US there has been far more right wing gun violence. But I wonder if that's because we "won" the culture war on so many issues at least in the eyes of many on the right on abortion, same sex marriage, whatever they think is going on with schools turning kids trans and providing litter box and whatever nutty theories they have, up until recently affirmative action, the civil rights movement, the women's movement, etc. While obviously we have a long way to go on many issues and there's been backsliding on things, it's a lot harder to point to things to cause us to be violent.

FARC, Castro, Che, any of the Soviet leaders, Mao, offshoots of the IRA, etc.

You can find more specifics at the link for various left wing violent groups.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_terrorism

[bigtree]

13. I posted about that

...Ari Melber was just one of the reporters this week who made the mistake of equating what he called the 'rise in violence in the U.S.' with what all of the people who measure extremist violence in America say, with the exception of apolitical Islamic violence, is coming mainly from 'white nationalists and anti-abortion advocates.'

from Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the CATO institute :

___Terrorists inspired by Islamist ideology are responsible for 87 percent of those murdered in attacks on US soil since 1975

Right-wingers are the second most common motivating ideology, accounting for 391 murders and 11 percent of the total. The definition here of right-wing terrorists includes those motivated by white supremacy, anti-abortion beliefs, involuntary celibacy (incels), and other right-wing ideologies.

Left-wing terrorists murdered 65 people, or about 2 percent of the total. Left-wing terrorists include those motivated by black nationalism, anti-police sentiment, communism, socialism, animal rights, environmentalism, anti-white ideologies, and other left-wing ideologies.

There isn’t an obvious recent spike in politically motivated terrorism when the outlier deadliness of the 9/11 attacks is excluded from the analysis. The spikes in 1995 and 2016 are from the Oklahoma City Bombing and the Pulse Nightclub Shooting, respectively. Twenty-four people have been murdered so far in 2025, including Kirk.

Terrorism since 2020 paints a slightly different picture. Since January 1, 2020, terrorists have murdered 81 people in attacks on US soil that account for about 0.07 percent of all homicides during that time (estimated for 2025 so far). Right-wing terrorists account for over half of those murders, Islamists for 21 percent, left-wingers for 22 percent, and 1 percent had unknown or other motivations. There are not many politically motivated terrorist killings in the United States.

The number of deaths in politically motivated terrorist attacks is so tiny that any statistical analysis is extremely fragile. However, there is one consistent finding from analyses of politically motivated terrorism: there aren’t many deaths. Thus, their small numbers mean it’s important to intensely analyze individual politically motivated terrorist offenses because the inclusion or exclusion of just a few killers or misclassification makes a big difference in the final tally.

read more: https://www.cato.org/blog/politically-motivated-violence-rare-united-states

[still-prayin4rain]

12. Religious abuse and gun culture is the bottom line.

If he had been raised in a center or left household that accepted him and those he loved and didn't raise him with gun culture, this would not have happened. The shame spiral from religious abuse mixed with a culture of guns (right wing ideology) is what made this possible. The evidence is not clear whether the religious abuse and gun culture pushed him alt-right or fringe left from a purely political perspective (taxes, environment, war policy, etc.), but without the gun culture and fancy gift from grandpa, this incident was highly unlikely. If he was able to bring his roommate over for family dinners on the weekend, this incident was highly unlikely. Right wing ideology caused this no matter how you slice it.