Approximately 30 students and Meadville residents gathered at the Murray Hall firepit on Monday night to honor Charlie Kirk, the conservative media figure and Turning Point USA founder who was assassinated at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. The vigil, organized by Allegheny College’s Turning Point USA chapter, was the group’s first public event of the school year.

“I feel like, as a consensus, people on this campus have kind of realized this is getting out of hand, that political violence needs to stop, that everybody should kind of come together,” said TPUSA Vice President Robert Chirco, ’27, in an interview with The Campus at the vigil. “No matter who you support, what side of the aisle you’re on, we should condemn some of these things. So I feel like this has been, no pun intended, but a turning point for not just the campus, but as a nation as a whole.”

The vigil began with a 15-minute prayer and discussion led by TPUSA Secretary Keygan Johnson, ’28, and continued with attendees lighting candles, socializing and discussing memories of meeting or seeing Kirk.

“Honestly, it (the turnout) was better than what I was expecting considering all of last year’s events, how we were despised,” Chirco said. “But I’m glad people have kind of warmed up to us now.”

The assassination of Kirk comes after other recent acts of political violence, such as an assassination attempt targeted at President Donald Trump, the assassination of Minnesota state House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and the arson of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s mansion with Shapiro and his family inside. Trump never acknowledged the assassination of the Hortmans, but posted several times last week on Truth Social, his social media platform, about Kirk’s assassination.

Chirco acknowledged the trend of political violence across the political spectrum and condemned it.

“I’m not as well-informed as I should be on that (the Hortmans’ assassination), unfortunately,” Chirco told The Campus. “I do agree he (Trump) should have had all flags lowered to half-mast. I do agree that the same honors that all politicians are granted should have happened. I do understand that he did not grant them the same things. I wish he had done that.”

Opinion among Allegheny’s student population regarding Kirk’s assassination was difficult to gauge. Many students appeared to be cautious about speaking publicly about the assassination. The Campus requested to interview over a dozen students across campus; all of them declined to comment.

Anna Hill, ’27, who did not attend the vigil, said she thinks the general temperature among students is “lukewarm.”

“I have not heard any intense outcries for his death,” Hill said. “Also, I haven’t really heard very many celebrations. I think that there’s a huge minority on both sides of, like, the intense reactions on campus. Majority of the people that I have come in contact with have all just been like, ‘Oh, I can’t believe that happened.’ Or, ‘Oh well, I guess he’s gone now.’ Or, ‘What is this going to do to our government?’ That’s been a huge sentiment. A lot of uncertainty.”

Hill worries about the precedent set by Trump in his response to Kirk’s death.

“I think if you want to mourn him in whatever way you choose, you want to start a fund, to build a memorial to him, something like that, that is your prerogative,” Hill said. “We live in a free speech, free rights society. But when our head of state takes such an interest towards one individual; it does not reflect kindly on the administration. And it does kind of suggest favoritism.”

Turning Point USA tabled in the Henderson Campus Center during the lunch hour on Monday in an attempt to recruit more chapter members.

“Completely disgusting, unnecessary,” said TPUSA President Ian Hutter, ’26, describing Kirk’s assassination while sitting at the TPUSA table. “This is America. Violence should be the last resort in any circumstance, especially when it comes to politics. There shouldn’t be violence in politics. I mean, that’s what Charlie himself stood for.”

Kirk was a conservative activist known for his controversial and self-described “politically incorrect” statements. Kirk was a strong supporter of gun rights and publicly said that “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.” Among his more inflammatory statements that have been widely resurfaced since his death are Kirk’s comments calling the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 a “mistake,” describing Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as an “awful” person and calling George Floyd a “scumbag.” Kirk was a proponent of “replacement theory,” a conspiracy theory purporting that white Americans are being intentionally replaced with nonwhite immigrants; the ideology “motivated the gunman who killed 11 worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018,” according to the New York Times.

Citing these examples, some people in the wake of his assassination claimed Kirk was just a casualty of the violence he helped to incite.

“People interpret things in their own ways all the time,” Hutter said in response. “It’s all up for interpretation. I would disagree with the fact that he incited violence. Clearly, some people disagree with that. But like I said before, even if you disagree with somebody or if you think someone’s inciting violence, actually acting on those thoughts and creating violence is the wrong thing to do in all situations.”

Andrew Germann, ’26, who did not attend the vigil, worries that the recent increase in political violence does not bode well for the future of U.S. politics.

“It does worry me, just that it feels like it’s reaching a point where political violence is the only way for change to happen,” Germann said in an interview with The Campus on Tuesday. “I don’t think that’s the case, but it feels like change has not been occurring until change is brought to the conservative party’s doorstep, forcibly. And that’s something that I’ve seen talked about a lot because it was in Utah. It was (committed) in Utah by a white Mormon Republican.”

Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old Utah man charged with killing Kirk, had no party affiliation, according to widespread news reports. A Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spokesman confirmed Robinson was a church member, according to USA today, but neighbors told the paper that “he rarely attended services in recent years.” As of Wednesday at noon, law enforcement still had not provided clear answers for Robinson’s motivations.

Germann thinks the Allegheny student population is split on the issue of Kirk’s death, given Kirk’s controversial political opinions.

Aiden Watt, ’29, attended the vigil and said Kirk’s assassination should not be a partisan issue.

“Everyone should be able to express their opinion,” Watts said, “no matter what you believe in.”

Several members of the Meadville community attended the vigil, including several members of local law enforcement who declined to provide their names because they did not want to mix their professional and personal capacities.

“I wake up every day thinking that this really didn’t happen and then it’s just — you’re faced with reality every single day,” said one of the women, who was wearing a “Charlie Kirk” shirt and MAGA-inspired red hat. “It’s extremely heartbreaking. A very devoted Christian man, who I think debated correctly. People didn’t like him, but that doesn’t mean that he deserved to die. Literally nobody deserves to die just based on political differences.”

The second woman, who also declined to provide her name, condemned Kirk’s assassination.

“It’s just very sad that the world can dislike somebody so much that they feel the need to take their life,” she said. “It’s not going to solve any problems. He wasn’t that kind of person either. He would never wish that upon anybody, no matter what their views were, and that just goes to show the kind of man that he was and what he stood for. It’s cruel, the way that this all happened.”

The two women agreed that Kirk’s assassination “started a fire,” a phrase Hutter also used in a Sept. 12 Erie Times-News article gauging Allegheny student reaction to Kirk’s killing.

TPUSA plans to maintain an active presence on campus, according to Hutter. The vigil was just the first event of the year.

“I know there will be people who will mock us for doing this, but I don’t care,” Chirco said. “It’s our beliefs and if you don’t respect it, oh well, good luck to you.”