(AFP) – Boeden Seitzinger is reeling from the trauma of witnessing close-up the moment that right-wing activist and Donald Trump ally Charlie Kirk was fatally shot in the neck. “I saw blood just spraying from his carotid artery. It was obvious that he wasn’t making it,” the electrician, wearing a red Trump campaign cap, told AFP. “It was terrifying.” The killing of Kirk Wednesday, while speaking at Utah Valley University, highlighted the extreme levels of gun violence in the United States.
But Seitzinger remains adamantly opposed to imposing stricter gun ownership laws — and says changing the rules would be useless, anyway, given the huge number of firearms already out there. “It wouldn’t have changed anything. When there’s a will, there’s a way. People get guns, no matter what,” Seitzinger said at a vigil Thursday night in memory of Kirk, who was 31 and married with two children. Authorities announced Friday they had the suspected shooter in custody but have not said how he obtained the high-power bolt action rifle used in the killing, then ditched in a wooded area nearby. The conservative state of Utah where Kirk died has some of the loosest gun control laws in the United States. Adults over the age of 20 do not need a permit to carry a firearm. And on college campuses like Utah Valley University, students are allowed weapons if they have a concealed carry permit.
– Second Amendment supporter – Seitzinger, 18, grew up hunting with his family and bought his first gun a few months ago. It took 30 minutes, as the store ran a background check on him. Seitzinger said that he is opposed, as Kirk was, to any law that would make him wait days to purchase a firearm. “That’s not what Charlie would have wanted,” he said. “Charlie used to say that a gun is only as dangerous as the person holding it. You can’t blame the gun. It’s the person holding the gun who’s at fault.” He added: “The fact that he’s dead doesn’t make me afraid of guns. It makes me afraid of people.” Kirk, who died while answering a question about mass shootings in America, was a fervent supporter of the Second Amendment to the constitution, which guarantees the right to bear arms. Kirk once said: “I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.” The United States has the highest gun fatality rate of any developed country. Last year more than 16,000 people died of gun violence, not counting suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an NGO.
– ‘Impossible question’ – Reed Fansworth, a 73-year-old manager of a software company, said he was reassured by the sight of other mourners at the Kirk vigil carrying guns. “Utah is a little bit of the Wild West. When everybody carries a gun, you behave yourself,” he said. “Charlie’s death doesn’t change things that much,” said Fansworth. “We need to take care of the people who are feeling that anger. But we don’t need to take guns away from everybody.”
Leah Marett, a 25-year-old student, noted the irony that a fervent gun rights advocate ended up being shot dead. But she resolving the gun debate remains “impossible.” “There’s so many guns in circulation. Even if we tried to take them away, we wouldn’t be able to take them all,” Marett said. “We would leave a lot of dangerous people still having guns, and then innocent people would be defenseless,” she said. – Romain FONSEGRIVES
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