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Now that Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer Tyler Robinson has been captured and some things are known about him, it is becoming clear that he was no “radical leftist”. Robinson turned himself in after urging from family. His family are conservative, gun toting Trump and Charlie Kirk supporters. His friends and family have stated to police that Robinson was turning away from Kirk’s politics. Initially this was assumed by Republicans, salivating at the opportunity to blame the “Radical Left” for the killing, to be proof of a radical left assassination. And Bullets found with the discarded murder weapon had phrases scratched on them which had initially been reported as supporting tans and left wing activism.

However motivations for the killing are becoming clearer. In a not-ironic twist it turns out that the phrases scratched on bullets were misunderstood and are in fact queerphobic and have commonality with “Groyper” sentiments. Groyper is the alt-right (being generous – neo-Nazi also fits) white and Christian nationalist movement headed by Nick Fuentes. Nick Fuentes has for a while been critical of Kirk for not being right wing enough, for being too moderate in his white Christian nationalist views; so it seems Robinson was turning away from Kirk towards the even further right. The statements scratched on to the bullets:

• “notices bulges OWO what’s this?” – [transphobic comment]
• “hey fascist! catch!” with an up arrow symbol, right arrow symbol, and three down arrow symbols. – [to external appearances this might seem a pro-left comment, but to Groypers, Kirkcould be seen as a “fascist” because he was insufficiently radical and called for limitations to Right extremism]
• “oh bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao” – [it’s a song of Italian partisans WWII – typical of alt right to imagine themselves as “revolutionaries”]
• “if you read this you are gay lmao.” – [homophobic slur]

What the Right don’t understand about the Left, is the the Left, even the Radical Left, believes in community justice. It is the alt right, the libertarians and so on, who believe in an individual’s right to dispense justice.

This is why they cling to Second Amendment absolutism (especially in the US of course, but this article references extremist politics where ever it is found around the globe). This is why they cling to ideas of white supremacy and Christian nationalism; because those philosophies argue that the rights of non whites and non Christians should be subordinate to those of White Christians. Because it justifies their vigilantism. The minute a left wing person adopts a position of vigilante, the Right rise up and declare the actions selfish and immoral and anti-social. They want it to only be okay when they do it for the causes they themselves hold dear.

The Left however hold that everyone should be subject to the same standards. The Left clamours for gun control, but in the absence of it they will arm themselves to protect community. The Right clamour for absence of gun control and when they get it they arm themselves to project their ideology on to other communities. Here btw I am talking about extremes; I recognise that there are many on the right who don’t support gun control who also want to protect their communities (though often from imagined threats) and those on the left who support gun control who won’t adopt guns even in the absence of controls. My focus is on the motivations of the extremes of the Left and Right. Examples of the deep right using guns (or violence) to control other communities through vigilantism; George Zimmerman, Kyle Rittenhouse, James Alex Fields Jr. (Charlottesville), Oath Keepers threatening to send armed militia to polling booths outside their own communities (aka to communities likely to vote different to what they want). These are just a smattering of examples to demonstrate a point. But can you find even a few examples of violent left wing vigilantism?

One thing that seems clear is that Tyler Robinson was not in fact a radical left wing vigilante but a right wing radical at war with his own political base.