AP Exploits Kirk Shooting: Bias Masquerading as Journalism

Charlie Kirk was murdered in Utah, and the Associated Press immediately rushed out its hot take: Utah has permissive gun laws. The piece, dutifully carried by the Greeley Tribune, frames the killing as if the state’s culture of open carry is somehow to blame. According to AP logic, if Utah lawmakers had just written more lines in their statute book, Kirk would still be alive. That’s lazy and dishonest journalism, and worse – it’s political opportunism written in real time.

Meanwhile, here in Colorado – where we’re consistently ranked among the states with the toughest gun laws – we were processing the horror of another school shooting at Evergreen High the very same day. AP conveniently skipped that fact. Because it undercuts their narrative. Stronger gun laws didn’t save Columbine. Didn’t save STEM Highlands Ranch. Didn’t save Boulder. Didn’t save Evergreen. The pattern is obvious: laws aren’t exorcists.

The Bullet Point Brief

• AP framed Charlie Kirk’s murder as a gun-law problem, pointing out Utah’s permissive open carry and permit-free concealed carry.
• Experts interviewed in the same article admitted that no Utah law allows bringing a rifle onto a campus roof to assassinate someone, meaning the act was already flatly illegal.
• The weapon used? A high-powered rifle. Not some legally slung Glock on a hip holster, but a deliberate, premeditated tool of assassination.
• Kirk himself was literally answering a question about gun violence when he was shot – a cruel irony the AP exploited by pivoting the story into a policy hit job.
• And while the AP clutched its pearls over Utah’s laws, Colorado proved – on the very same day on the other side of the Rockies – that strict regulations don’t stop evil. Evergreen students still experienced the tragedy.

My Bottom Line

This is the playbook, folks. A conservative leader is assassinated, and before the family can bury their son, the AP is already spinning it into a sermon on Utah’s “permissive” gun laws. That’s not journalism. That’s narrative management.

But here’s what they won’t print: no law would have stopped this assassin. Utah’s code already banned rifles on campus rooftops. Colorado’s statutes – among the harshest in the country – didn’t stop a teenager from opening fire on classmates in Evergreen the very same day. Evil doesn’t check for compliance before it pulls the trigger.

And that’s the part no one in the press wants to face: this isn’t a “gun problem.” It’s a heart problem. A mental health problem. A spiritual problem. No mountain of statutes can erase hatred or heal a broken mind. Only God can erase evil from the human heart. That’s not a policy prescription. That’s reality.

So spare us the lectures, AP. You can write a thousand more words of legal jargon, but it won’t bring Charlie Kirk back. It won’t comfort Evergreen. And it damn sure won’t fix the sickness in our culture. Stop politicizing tragedy and start telling the truth: evil is on the move. And laws alone will never be enough to stop it.