It’s been quite a display of shameless motivated thinking the past two days. Conservatives especially are prone to this. Everyone sees what they want to see. (That’s why they’re so easily fooled by Trump, about everything.) A better set of examples could hardly be found, all in within a couple days.
Items from the aggregate site JMG. (Sorry, the image links no longer work.)
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Netanyahu Blames “Radical Islamists” For Kirk’s Killing
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Junior Claims “Trans Propaganda” Was On Shooter’s Ammo Hours After His Father’s FBI Said It Was Not
(This is the item about the manufacturer’s initials on the bullets)
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Megyn Kelly: Utah College “Radicalized” Kirk’s Shooter
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Those were from yesterday. Let’s pause for Heather Cox Richardson’s crisp summary, from late last night.
Heather Cox Richardson: September 12, 2025
First, the jumping to conclusions.
Since a gunman murdered right-wing activist Charlie Kirk at an outdoor event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, both social media circles and the political sphere have been alight with accusations that “the Left” was responsible for the shooting. Prominent right-wing social media accounts called the Democratic Party “a domestic terror organization” and declared “WAR.” Billionaire Elon Musk posted: “The Left is the party of murder.”
From the Oval Office, President Donald J. Trump blamed the shooting on “the radical left” and vowed to “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity, and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.”
Without any information about the shooter, the media got in on the game, with the Wall Street Journal reporting yesterday that “[a]mmunition engraved with transgender and antifascist ideology was found inside the rifle authorities believe was used in Kirk’s shooting.” Bomb threats targeted Democratic politicians—primarily Black politicians—and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
MAGA seems to think Kirk was some kind of saint, and began threatening anyone who said anything critical about his views.
Condemnation of the shooting was widespread. Perhaps eager to distance themselves from accusations that anyone who does not support MAGA endorses political violence, commenters portrayed Kirk as someone embracing the reasoned debate central to democracy, although he became famous by establishing a database designed to dox professors who expressed opinions he disliked so they would be silenced (I am included on this list).
Then Kash Patel and the confusion yesterday about whether a suspect was in custody or not. When a suspect was, he wasn’t a leftist at all.
That person turned out to be 22-year-old Utah native Tyler Robinson, who turned himself in to authorities after his father urged him to. Robinson’s parents are registered Republicans; he was not affiliated with a political party and was an inactive voter. Over the past years, Robinson’s mother posted a number of pictures of him and his brothers posing with guns.
Robinson had recently had a conversation with a family member about why they didn’t like Kirk’s viewpoints. Robinson appears to have admired the “Groypers,” led by Nick Fuentes, who complain that more mainstream organizations like Kirk’s Turning Point USA are not “pro-white” enough and have publicly harassed Kirk in the past.
In other words, as many on Facebook have noted, Robinson was further to the right than Kirk. How inconvenient for all those MAGA folks who immediately condemned everyone on the left. Also mentioned is the bit about the bullet engravings being taken as some kind of transgender identification.
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Then this morning.
JMG: Fox News: Kirk Shooter Lived With Transgender Partner
The only source for this, all day, was Fox News and the New York Post. As one of the comments to this post said,
New York Post and Fox? I’ll wait to see what real news organizations have to say.
Real news organizations have not said anything about it. Even reading the Post story, it seems the actual connection was speculative at best; that some transgender person lived “at the same address” (which is an apartment building) as Robinson.
As Rob Latham wrote on Facebook today, expressing a common sentiment:
Their “trans bullet” story fell apart. Now they’re on to “the killer had a trans roommate.” Soon we will be told his trans cat hypnotized him to kill. They are so so crazy desperate right now.
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One more:
No, he won’t.
