Empathy in the wake of violence

I didn't agree with Charlie Kirk, but I respected his First Amendment right to speak, though it's the Second Amendment he often spoke of so keenly. It will be a match race now to see which amendment will be the one most closely tied to his legacy, and that should grieve every American. His assassination was a vile act, an undeserved and unspeakable pain his family will never shed themselves of, a scar that the students on that Utah campus will never again live free from in their minds. In a banner moment for American television, many networks broke away from Kirk's within an hour to announce a shooting at Evergreen High School in Colorado. The shooter in that incident died from a self-inflicted wound, and two students were wounded, one critically. A grandfather of twin boys at Evergreen — who were not injured in the shooting — told CNN his ex-wife was one of the eight people killed in the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings. "We always say not again, but here we are," he said. You'd think that would be unlikely, wouldn't you, but not really. Two-thirds of us have witnessed gun violence. Two weeks ago I wrote that guns are the leading cause of death for our children. In America, 125 people a day are killed by guns. Kirk's death is being treated as a national tragedy. In the wake of his death, Kirk, a major fixture in the MAGA movement, will be awarded the Medal of Freedom, President Donald Trump announced. Trump also ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff in Kirk's honor. Trump did not order flags lowered in June, when Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, was assassinated alongside her husband and their dog, at their home. A state senator and his wife were also shot by the same attacker but survived. Kirk once said gun deaths were worth the right to bear arms. "I think 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. That is a prudent deal. It is rational," Kirk said at an event organized by TPUSA, the religious arm of his conservative group Turning Point USA, in 2023. This is what will stay with me: Would his fierce opinion be different, had he known his fate? Would he have used his access to power to advocate for sensible gun control reforms, if he had the gift of foreknowledge? It is one of the many things on which I did not agree with Kirk. I don't think his life, or anyone's, is worth losing just so I can own a gun. Maybe we should start asking families who've lost loved ones what they think on that one: Do they think their loved one's lives were a fair exchange to bear arms? Was it worth the price of admission? I also did not agree with Kirk that empathy was a "made-up, new age term that does a lot of damage," famously saying he preferred sympathy to empathy, but here's the thing about empathy: It's not transactional. I didn't need to agree with the man one bit to have fierce empathy for his family. That Kirk's death happened at all is a stain on us, as humans. Jesus wept. It is easy, and socially acceptable, to have sympathy for others. Sympathy will click "thoughts and prayers" on the tragedy of the day. Sympathy is the drive-by of emotions, while empathy sits with you at the funeral. Even babies will cry at another infant's distress in sympathy, but if you've ever seen a toddler offer up their own cherished stuffed animal to comfort another, you've seen empathy, and that takes a power far from an "imaginary" source. That's something divine, to my thinking. My understanding of the Gospels leans heavily on that, from Lazarus to the Good Samaritan. In the aftermath of Kirk's death, I mourn for his family and I mourn for our country. And I lament the loss of empathy. I lament for the next layer of our shared humanity stripping away like an onion as those with ill intentions will hold this vile and senseless act up as their banner, their reason and their excuse for cruelties to come. When his death came at the hand of an assassin on a Utah campus this week, social media ignited with promises of war and retaliation from the White House to Congress and across the country like beacons along a cliff line. As I wrestled with how fully to explain how my horror at a culture so jaded we've turned empathy into a myth or a sign of weakness, my quiet was disturbed by the sound of something frantically wrestling outside. I stepped outside to find a wild-eyed stray cat in a trap my neighbor had set between our back yard sheds, trying to catch raccoons that had been lurking around his chicken coops. I approached it slowly and spoke gently to it, intending it no harm. I alerted my neighbor, who came right away to set it free but the trapped cat was terrified, frantic and hissing, ready to lash out. I think of a country living in increasing fear, or hatred, of "the other," and I am chilled. No good comes from the sewing of these bitter harvests, and we will eat the bitter fruits for generations. Contact Chronicle-Telegram columnist Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.