By non-violent I mean not celebrating violence nor excusing it, but also more than that: I mean metabolizing the violence you feel in yourself, until you no longer need to express it aggressively.

The feelings we all have about violence are strong and fully human and I'm not judging them. I believe it's our responsibility to each carry our own share of these feelings, rather than firing them at others, including in the petty forms that aggression takes on an internet forum.

If you don't share that belief, that's fine, but we do need you to follow the site guidelines when commenting here, and they certainly cover the above request. So if you're going to comment, please make sure you're familiar with and following them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

I feel we're riding a knife's edge and there's a hurricane brewing in the gulf of absurdity.

====

Incidentally, I feel like this is why it is so hard to actually learn from history. You can read about the 1918 'Spanish' Flu, but you think "we're smarter now". etc.

My favorite poem, my -- my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:

"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country ...

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past -- and we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of [people] in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

And let's dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.

Bobby Kennedy, 1968

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2kWIa8wSC0

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_of_Lead_(Italy)

According to that study, 23% approved of the statement "I approve hostile activism to drive change by threatening or committing violence". It's even higher if you only focus on 18-34 year olds.

Full report here: https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2025-0...

Increased political violence is bad. The state starts breaking down since the price for everything is death so action stalls.

In particular I'd like to apologize to one individual whom I insinuated was posting rage-bait.

To close, this is a tragic time in America. Each act of violence is one act too many.

That said, I think people need to recognize that in many aspects what's happening is connected to societal issues that gun control and gun regulations will have very little impact on - remember, even in Japan somebody could make some kind of battery ignited home-made shotgun and kill Shinzo Abe.

As RFK said after MLK’s death, we must choose between “violence and non-violence, between lawlessness and love.” His call for unity and rejecting hatred feels as urgent now as it was then.

Violence is never the answer. But understanding these tragic patterns might help us navigate our current moment with hopefully more empathy.

I wish more people on both ends of the political spectrum felt that way. Either committing or supporting violence against those we disagree with, has no place in a civil society.

I know he liked to publicize the exchanges where he got the best of someone, and bury the others, and that he was a far, far cry from a public intellectual. Still, he talked to folks about ideas, and that's something that we should have more of.

That should be something that we strive for, but I fear we'll see it less and less. Who'se going to want to go around and argue with people now?

some of Charlie Kirk's last words:

> ATTENDEE: Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?

> KIRK: Too many. [Applause]

I don't think the shooter was trans. but I'm trans, and I don't see this going well for me, or for my community. the DoJ was already talking about classifying us as "mentally defective" to take our guns. now there's a martyr. the hornet's nest is kicked.

murdering this man was not just wrong, it was stupid.

But now I'm not sure if it's fair to ignore the consequences of building Twitter, or even the internet. Seeing people's behavior during this event has been incredibly disheartening.

The wikivoyage page for the United States explicitly advises that neither politics nor religion should be discussed when meeting people in this country.

How did we get to this point.

How Does the Cycle of Political Violence End? Here's What an Expert Says. (Was: The Kindling Is a Lot Drier Than It Used to Be) https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/06/02/political-...

The author's point is that political violence does occur in cycles, and one thing that makes a cycle run down is when it gets gets so awful that universal revulsion overtakes the political advantages of increasing radicaloric and action.

He gives examples, which may be within the living memory of older HN readers (like me):

"I can remember back in the ’60s, early ’70s, it felt like the political violence was never going to end. I mean, if you were an Italian in the ’60s or the ’70s, major political and judicial figures, including prime ministers, were getting bumped off on a regular basis. And it seemed like it was never going to end, but it did. It seemed like the anarchist violence of the early 20th century — it lasted for a couple of decades, killed the U.S. president — it seemed that was never going to end either, but it does. These things burn themselves out."

and:

"You had the assassination of the U.S. president, of Martin Luther King, of Bobby Kennedy. And then it stopped. People shied away from political violence. Exactly why it stopped, I don’t know, but it did. It wasn’t just assassinations, it was also street violence. And then things calmed down."

This is not particularly optimistic, but it it's an interesting analysis.

If he were still alive, he would be writing and speaking about how such violence is unfortunate but ultimately acceptable— even necessary— to "preserve our freedoms", brushing it aside to be forgotten. He of course did so many times in life, notably in 2023 when he was quoted doing so in the media:

https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-says-gun-deaths-worth-...

Kirk's death has already overshadowed the news of that school shooting, which will indeed be forgotten by most long before we stop talking about him.

One final victory for Charlie Kirk, I guess.

> TPUSA has been described as the fastest growing organization of campus chapters in America, and according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, is the dominant force in campus conservatism.

They've been quite influential, and those campus efforts likely contributed to the Gen Z turnout that helped win in 2024.

Also, if your grandpa likes telling war stories, it's only because he survived.

I imagine that "I support assassination to drive change" would be even less popular.

My understanding of the Italian political climate of the 60s, 70s, and 80s is that there were political groups/cells (on both the far right and far left) that organized around violent acts to further their political goals (which involved the eventual authoritarian takeover of the Italian government by either the far right or far left). For example, you can think of the Red Brigades to be akin to the Black Panthers, but with actual terrorism.

In contrast, most political violence in America has been less organized and more individual-driven (e.g., see the Oklahoma City Bombing). For better or worse, the police state in the US has been quite successful in addressing and dispersing political groups that advocate for violence as a viable means for societal change.

The military took over for security purposes, and asked the leadership of the movement whom they wanted for an interim government. It was not the happy, peaceful democracy we all long for. It was a costly victory. But I feel happy the legitimate grievances the protestors held will lead to change. I hope they can find some candidates who will stand for them and reduce corruption, and do the best they can to help with the economy.

By contrast, acts of bombings and other political violence were both more common and widespread in the 1970's and 1980's than now.[1] In those cases, people took great personal risks.

[Edit: removed Nepal, mentioned in other comments]

[1] https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OPSR_TP...

Nevertheless, I realize that it's usually a zeitgeist more than any particular thing that really flows through history.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_conquer

Countries with strict gun control enjoy far lower rates of firearm accidents, suicides, and murders. IMO it's clearly worth the tradeoff. Very few of us live in a place where only guns can solve our problems.

The fact that occasionally someone goes to great lengths to kill doesn't mean we should make it easier for everyone.

those who make peaceful change impossible make violent revolutions inevitable. pretty sure a us president said something like that.

ok let's try data instead of feels. Per Capita, what is the number of mass shootings per year in the USA, and in Japan. I did't know the answer but asked Gemini.

The most recent year for which there is data, apparently, is 2023, during which there were 604 mass shootings in the USA, and 1 in Japan. Given the respective population counts, the per-capita rate of mass shootings in the United States was about 225 times higher than in Japan.

Given that, are you confident that your observation that "one guy made a gun once in Japan" is a strong refutation of the idea that the US could reduce mass shootings by strengthening regulations?

Political violence, especially deadly violence is not ok. But comparing Charlie Kirk to MLK is also not ok.

So I would say the reaction will be quite different, given that Kirk was a political ally and not a Democrat.

But his children no longer have a dad in their life. That is just heartbreaking to me. It’s hard for me to understand people who are so wrapped up in political rhetoric that they think taking a person’s life is acceptable.

As long as you understand that this opinion is wholeheartedly NOT shared by them at all.