On September 10th, Charlie Kirk was shot. On August 22nd, Iryna Zarutska was stabbed and killed while just going about her day on the train.

When Iryna Zarutska was murdered, the internet became outraged. Comments came out, left and right. Most believed that it was incredibly wrong, and couldn’t believe it happened. After all, she immigrated here in order to be safe from war in Ukraine.

When Charlie Kirk was shot, the uproar began again. TikToks, Instagram Reels, X posts, were all criticizing everything about it. Some people sympathized, extending prayers and money for his wife Erika and daughter. And then there came the hate. People said that Kirk deserved it – that he was so hateful that he deserved to get shot.

What makes the two different? Why does one deserve to die over the other? Both had deaths that were made political anyway.

The state of the United States is deteriorating. Signing up to live – to have beliefs – means you sign your rights to live away. Free speech and personal safety can no longer coexist; if you want to share your beliefs, you no longer have safety from violence and crime.

Free speech previously meant the right to peacefully protest, to assemble, to petition for change. However, violent protests, assassinations, and murders blur the lines between right and wrong. Just because people have the right to petition for change doesn’t mean they have the right to kill someone.

America capitalizes on fear. Why would someone want to be a politician if it meant they could die? Empathy lessens each time something bad happens. Instead of sadness or the extension of kind words, the first reaction people had to both Kirk and Zarutska’s deaths was the videos of it. The videos of people bleeding out, their last words being spoken. And people have the urge to go out of their way to find them, to repost them.

Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was fatally shot while speaking, mid-sentence about gun violence. Zarutski was fatally stabbed after fleeing from war in Ukraine, just to find another danger in the US.

When violence becomes ordinary, freedom turns fragile; It seems America is fighting it’s biggest battle against itself.