See update in note at end.
A 22-year-old Utah man named Tyler Robinson has been arrested in connection with the killing of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University. Authorities say Robinson confessed, or at least strongly implied responsibility, to a family member, which led to his surrender. Investigators recovered what they believe is the murder weapon—a high-powered bolt-action rifle—and surveillance footage showed Robinson arriving on campus, changing clothes, climbing onto a nearby roof believed to be the shooting site, and then fleeing. The case is being investigated as a politically motivated assassination.
It does not appear that Robinson was acting alone. His roommate cooperated with authorities, showing them Discord messages where Robinson discussed the rifle and other details. The evidence presented by Utah Governor Spencer Cox indicates communications about the assassination plot with the roommate, including the need to acquire the weapon—a high-powered, bolt-action Mauser .30-06 rifle—and where to leave the weapon. I am waiting for more information to nail down the timeline of events and the larger conspiracy to assassinate a leader of the American conservative youth movement.
My Facebook page, which is shared only with friends and family, often serves as a forward staging area for essays that wind up—elaborated and polished—on Freedom and Reason. Twenty-four hours ago, after learning from The Wall Street Journal reporting that the ammunition used in the Charlie Kirk assassination was engraved with antifascist slogans, I told my friends that the left can no longer feign ignorance about what is unfolding.
I have been warning readers of Freedom and Reason for years that Antifa—drawing Cluster B personality types to its mass like flies to shit and joined at the hip with radical gender ideology—is the street-level assassins and thugs of the reactionary progressive movement.
Trans rage is a major component of this movement. What happened to Charlie Kirk is the same rage that motivated the March 2023 mass shooting at Covenant School, a private Christian elementary school in Nashville, where Audrey Aiden Hale carried out the killing of three children and three adults. It is the same rage that, only a few weeks ago, drove Robert Westman, who also identified as transgender, to open fire during Mass at Annunciation Catholic School and Church in Minneapolis, killing two children and injuring several others.
This is why Democrats and progressives rationalize Antifa. Never forget that during the first 2020 US presidential debate, Joe Biden responded to Donald Trump’s remarks about Antifa by saying: “Antifa is an idea, not an organization” (see Buried Lede: Biden Fails to Condemn Antifa at First Presidential Debate). He was referencing a statement by then-FBI Director Christopher Wray describing Antifa as an ideology, not an organized terrorist threat. Trump warned you about this. Democrats and the corporate media told you not to believe him.
In my Facebook post, I wrote that, at first glance, “antifascism” sounds unobjectionable. Who wouldn’t oppose fascism? I have said the same on this platform. The Freedom and Reason project is, at its core, an antifascist project. Yet, as I’ve endeavored to show, what passes for antifascism on the woke progressive left is not a rejection of fascism but rather appears as a mirror image of it. In truth, it is the thing itself.
Antifa is hostile to the very liberal values that underpin a free society—democratic republicanism, freedom of conscience, speech, press, association, and assembly. Its reality is street violence: militants attacking conservatives for exercising their rights to gather and speak. It is the harassment and intimidation of anyone who affirms the reality of the gender binary in the face of trans ideology. It is the left’s alliance with Islamism—clerical fascism—and the resurgence of antisemitism that energizes the movement. They hate the Enlightened West and everything it stands for. They seek anarchy. All this is promoted because it advances ends sought by transnational corporate power.
Engravings on the bullet casings used by the shooter provide a window into his thinking, but one has to know what these engravings mean. The message on a fired casing read: “Notices. Bulges. OWO. What’s this?” Messages etched on other cases: “Hey fascist, catch!” “O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao.” “If you read this, you’re gay, LMAO.”
The first line, a sexualized meme, is common in furry culture, which is a category of the trans movement, which in turn is an integral part of Antifa. It’s used in the online gaming community. The second line is a common sentiment expressed by Antifa. Fists, rocks, bullets, whatever, that’s what fascists are supposed to catch. The third line is from a folk song adapted by Italian antifascists during the resistance during WWII. The fourth line is rather typical in the trans community, which is hostile to gays. This might strike the reader as odd. Aren’t they in an alliance together? According to corporate marketing, sure. But, actually, trans is antithetical to gay.*
We are living in an era of political violence. The threat is not abstract; it’s concrete. We see it in trans shooters targeting children at schools and churches. We see it in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. We see it in the attempted assassinations of Donald Trump. We see it in the celebration of these acts of violence across social media from progressives. See what you see. Hear what you hear. It’s in your face.
Americans must denounce left-wing violence clearly and without qualification. This responsibility falls especially on Democrats and progressives, whose rhetoric has too often normalized and justified these ideologies. But how could we expect this when they’re the ones who have normalized and justified these ideologies? One could easily compile clips of progressive leaders stoking unrest (I am watching as I write this). I would like to hope that any readers with these sympathies would confront for themselves the intellectual and moral roots of this problem and turn back from the New Fascism. But I am not hopeful.
Law enforcement, from DHS to the FBI, must take seriously the task of aggressively monitoring and disrupting this reactionary movement. Now is not the time to “dial down the temperature.” This is the moment where the Republic must rise up and crush the enemies of liberty. When Democrats tell you that Trump and MAGA are the greatest threat to democracy, what they actually mean is that Trump and MAGA, by endeavoring to restore the American Republic to its greatness, is the greatest threat to the technocratic order progressives built and the globalist project they represent to take the world to a planetary corporate neofeudalism. Antifa exists to advance this project.
* * *
* I want to say more about the gay slur, because this is not obvious to many at first blush. In the trans worldview, a man who likes other men is not a homosexual but a heterosexual woman trapped in a man’s body. You hear this from men who date trans women, which means they are gay, deny they are gay, by saying that trans women are women, which they obviously aren’t and cannot be. Homophobia is deeply embedded in trans ideology.
This bizarre idea goes back to the crackpot sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, who “theorized” that homosexual men are really women trapped in male bodies. Working with Nazi doctor Erwin Gohrbandt, Hirschfeld developed vaginoplasty. Hirschfeld and Gohrbandt’s idea was to liberate men by removing their testicles, slitting their penises, and shoving what remains up into the abdominal cavity, creating a neovagina. Their victims would then pretend to be women and experience “trans joy.” The idea was updated by another crackpot sexologist in the 1960s, Robert Stoller, who promoted the term “gender identity,” which became the central doctrine of radical gender ideology. This ideology is used by the medical industry to justify medical atrocities.
Update: September 13. If confirmed, this would explain a lot. Brooke Singman is a political correspondent and reporter for Fox News Digital, Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network. She has access to high-level sources. She tweeted this today:
freedom and reason 
This article seems to be missing the 4th quote – “If you read this, you’re gay, LMAO” which Robert Malone noted in his substack citing you. So the note at the end is confusing.
I don’t know what happened there. I fixed it. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
he mentioned a ‘gay slur.’ Read it again.
He’s right that, for a brief spell, the gay slur did not appear after I added the note. It’s as if the essay reverted to an earlier draft when I affixed the note. That’s my best guess. But it is now as it was originally posted.
I appreciate the close attention to that detail. Thans for reading the essay!
Here is one interesting thing that so far nobody seems to have noticed .
The weapon he used was a mouser 98 rifle , when they hear mouser 98 most people think about the german military carbine that was introduced in 1898 and then later on in a shortened version the 98K used by the german army in WW2 .
Since there are millions of those in circulation they can be had pretty cheap often for under $500 BUT those rifles were chambered in 8×57 mauser not 30-06 and using a 30-06 in a rifle chambered for 8×57 wont work because the 30-06 is longer by almost 1/4″ in addition the bullet diameter of the 30-06 is smaller.
Mauser however is producing and selling the 98 model with a different stock and they offer it for different rounds including 30-06 but here is the catch : according to the mauser website the current price for a 98 starts at $14000….. so this brings up a few questions :
1.) how could somebody attending trade school and work as a electrician apprentice afford to buy a $14000 rifle ? even a used one clocks in at $8-9K so where did the money come from ?
2.) Why did he pick this particular model ?
there are tons of hunting rifles chambered in 30-06 out there made by Remington , savage and others , a remington 700 long range rifle which is commonly used as a sniper rifle chambered in 30-06 runs new from $1000-2000 and there are plenty used ones in pawn and gun shops
If he had no knowledge about shooting and googled sniper rifle or long range rifle the 700 would have popped up long before any mention of the 98
I understand that it was a gift from his father.
I think he talked to his roommate after he murdered Charlie Kirk, and the roommate is cooperating with the investigation. I think this article makes it seem he discussed his plans with his roommate before. Please make it clear, so an innocent person isn’t caught up with the acts of this monster.
My characterization is accurate. Reports from the press conference and news coverage say exactly that: prosecutors and officials (including Cox) described communications from the suspect to his roommate about obtaining and handling the rifle—and about where the gun would be left/hidden. Those communications, together with physical evidence (the rifle, DNA links, a note and surveillance footage), are being presented as part of the case.