More Than One Conspiracy Theory Has Emerged Around the Shooting of Charlie Kirk

We live in a hugely fractured information environment, which might help explain why conspiracy theories pop up around basically every major news event. The shooting death of Charlie Kirk was no exception, and although there's still plenty we don't know about the case (his killer has not yet been apprehended), conspiracy theories that offered explanations for his death began popping up almost immediately.

These conspiracy theories don't fit neatly anywhere on the political spectrum. Some of them come from the right, and others from the left. Here's what we know about the theories and what they suggest.

The most prominent theory is not so much a theory and more just a scrubbing of video from the shooting. The theory is that there were multiple people coordinating the shooting attack.

The primary evidence people have to support this theory stems from two men standing behind Kirk who both seemed to make gestures in the moments before the bullet struck him.

The first, wearing a white T-shirt and cap, fiddles with his hat, brushes at his ear, and then adjusts the position of his phone. The other man, who is believed to have been Kirk's longtime security guard, appears to adjust the sleeve of his shirt and make a subtle gesture with his hand.

Those movements have led some to theorize that these men were in some way signaling someone in the crowd to fire.

This evidence is, at best, circumstantial, as the two men were more likely just adjusting themselves in the way that people often do when they are waiting around for someone else. People get antsy, and that might be all there is to the movements that these men made.

It's, of course, possible that the shooter did not act alone, but at this point, there's no evidence from law enforcement that confirms that.

There was also some chatter on Reddit from a subreddit that has now been banned, suggesting that the Republican Party might have orchestrated Kirk's assassination to distract from the ongoing scandal around the president and Jeffrey Epstein. There is no evidence to support this theory.

On the whole, then, the conspiracy theories around Kirk's death are just that. It might be tempting to believe that the death of such a prominent person was so carefully orchestrated, in part because it can be hard to believe just how vulnerable each of us ultimately are. As the investigation into Kirk's death continues, there are going to be a lot of questions about exactly what happened and when.

For now, though, we should wait for actual evidence instead of jumping to conclusions that simply reaffirm what we already suspected about how the world works. Charlie Kirk's death was a major shock to the political system, and one that many who follow politics are still recovering from. That doesn't mean, though, that every conspiracy theory about the incident is true.