The brutal shootings by conservative activist Charlie Kirk on university campus have shocked the country and forced them to stand up to what appears to be an increase in political violence across the country.
Kirk was shot by a rifle-equipped gunman during an event at Utah Valley University on September 10th.
learn more: Trump says the “malicious radical” on the left is the problem.
Police arrested Tyler Robinson, 22, of Utah, on September 11, as a suspect in the shooting.
With Robinson in custody, Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox asked the young Americans to refuse violence after Kirk’s death. “You’re inheriting a country where politics feels like anger. You feel anger is your only option,” Cox said.
Is political violence rising in the US?
In the first six months of 2025, terrorist attacks increased 85.5% in the US compared to the same period last year, according to an analysis of the University of Maryland’s terrorism research and response to terrorism (initiation).
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Start has compiled this database of terrorism and targeted violence in the United States, including political violence, since January 2023. The university has been tracking terrorism since 2001, which tracked global terrorist acts from 1970 to 2020.
Both databases define terrorism as “the threat or actual use of illegal force and violence by non-state actors to achieve political, economic, religious or social goals through fear, coercion or intimidation.”
Their analysis found that about a third of the terrorist events that occurred in the first half of this year were targeted at government facilities and staff.
Start’s research director Michael Jensen said in his analysis that these 2025 terrorist plots and attacks “were not driven by a single political goal, ideology or movement, but instead came from the entire political spectrum.”
Some examples of terrorist events included in the analysis are as follows:
◾January 1: A Texas resident of ISIS drove a truck with a bomb in a crowd on Bourbon Street, New Orleans. He kills 15 people, including himself, and injures dozens.
◾March 6th: The 17-year-old threw fireworks on a police officer in Glendale, Arizona, during an immigration protest, causing injuries to 22 officers.
◾June 1: Egyptian immigrants threw Molotov A cocktail to a crowd of protesters in Boulder, Colorado, marched for the release of hostages held in Gaza, causing 15 people to injure one.
How do Americans feel about political violence?
Public broadcasting services, National Public Radio, and Marist Poll, in 2024, asked 1,305 US adults if they thought Americans had to use violence to bring the country back on track.
How do political parties feel about political violence?
YouGov voted 2,623 US adults on September 10, asking if they thought it had been justified in the past for citizens to resort to violence to achieve their political goals.
Did YouGov voted 2,623 US adults on September 10th to ask how big a problem is political violence in the US today?
Cox is a longtime champion of courtesy and an opponent of political polarization, USA Today reported.
According to NPR, it is, compared to the left-wing posters on social media that responded to Kirk’s death. The other person on the right said the left was “at war with us.”
Cybele Mayes-Osterman, Thao Nguyen, Jeanine Santucci, Jeanine Garrison, Christopher Cann, David Demille, N’Dea Yancey-Bragg, Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, Davis Winkie, Nick Penzenstadler, Aysha bagchi
Source USA Today Network Report and Research. Reuters; yougov.com; PBS/NPR
