Seth Meyers reacts to Charlie Kirk shooting with a 3-minute message about political violence
Seth Meyers began Late Night on Thursday by responding to the killing of Charlie Kirk, a right-wing influencer who was shot during an event at a Utah college campus on Wednesday. With a social media following in the tens of millions, Kirk aimed to spread right-wing ideologies through school campuses via his organisation Turning Point USA. He was a close ally of President Trump.
"As I'm sure you've heard by now, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was murdered yesterday at a college event in Utah," Meyers says in the clip above. "We are horrified by this grotesque tragedy and our condolences go out to his family and loved ones. It should never be a matter of political ideology to mourn, and to extend our fullest and deepest empathy to those who are suffering. Political violence is abhorrent, an anathema to the highest ideals of this country. It corrodes us and threatens the very foundations of our democracy.
"The great promise of our democratic experiment is that we can engage with one another and resolve our differences through dialogue, not violence. We must hold true to that promise and strive towards it with our fullest effort, even when it feels furthest away."
Meyers went on talk about the school shooting that left students injured in Colorado this week, and the school shooting two weeks ago in Minnesota that left two children dead and 21 people injured.
"There have already been over 300 mass shootings and 47 school shootings this year alone," says Meyers. "We've said this many times on this program and will say it again: Gun violence is a plague in this country. We desperately need reasonable gun safety laws to stop this epidemic of tragedy and pain. No matter the identity or ideology of these perpetrators, one thing is always constant: the guns."
