Empathy for All: Modern society is so desensitized to school shootings that it creates more attention when someone with a public presence is the victim

He was killed for his political views. 

No politics, just prayer.

 I don’t support what happened to Charlie, but Charlie supported what happened to Charlie.

Hundreds of students  posted Instagram stories with captions like these on Sept. 10, the date of American political activist Charlie Kirk's assassination. Students were either mourning his death, or criticizing the people mourning his death.

There was so much media being posted, shared and reposted in a matter of minutes, leaving no room to decipher how to feel about the situation.

With many things to be considered, one was, should we really feel bad about someone who said so many controversial things? To think of this question left a guilty feeling due to the grotesque video released of Kirk being shot. However, the things Kirk said were completely immoral and frequently crossed the line of being merely political. 

Kirk said that if his daughter were raped, the she would still have to carry the baby, in a debate video posted by Jubilee. He also said, “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960’s,” according to Wired. And ironically, “I think it’s worth [it] to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other god-given rights,” according to the New York Times.

Kirk was openly racist and misogynistic. And he was proud of it. Does that mean he deserved to die? No. 

American society, specifically today’s high schoolers, is very familiar with the fact that school shootings are a regular occurrence.

Almost too aware. As terrible as it may be, when the word "shooting" appears on the news feed, no one is surprised. Society is desensitized. People will skim through the article and devote five minutes of time to reading about what happened, but at the end of the day, those lost lives become another statistic.

The difference is, Kirk isn’t the typical victim of an average shooting. The victims of shootings are so often that when the victim happens to a well-known activist who travels to colleges and preaches offensive words, people pay attention.

So much so that Oct. 14 was officially named the National Day of Remembrance for Charlie Kirk by the House and the Senate, but there is no current day of remembrance for the thousands of school shooting victims. If there are going to be national holidays for shooting victims, there can’t be selective empathy.

As of Sept. 10, the day that Kirk died, there have been 47 school shootings in 2025 in the U.S., according to CNN. This averages around five per month. This doesn’t even factor in shooting incidents that aren’t on school grounds.

Through the mixed emotions, one question stood out: Why is society just now rallying for change relating to gun violence? It was unheard of for this many people in high school to spam their Instagrams with tributes, so why do it for someone whose goal and messages were inherently filled with hate and judgment?

Kirk’s death was violent, and the immediate posting of the uncensored video of him being shot was absolutely uncalled for. But if it takes a young, white and hateful man’ for certain people to address gun violence in the U.S, then the views and morals of society as a whole are seriously skewed.

Columbine in 1999. The Virginia Tech shooting in 2007. Sandy Hook in 2012. And just a couple of weeks ago, the shooting at the Catholic school in Minnesota. These are just the most well-known. But if every gun-violence incident was listed in this story, it wouldn’t fit on the page.

Gun violence needs to end, and it certainly won’t if it is only recognized when the victim is someone who was widely known on social media. Every kid who is a victim of a school shooting has an identity, and mourning isn't something that can be applied to selected circumstances.