Right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk shot

[C C]

Non-government public speakers may not receive much security to begin with, but what does it take (even with respect to high-level VIPs) for the available personnel to occasionally spend some time scanning neighboring rooftops (with binoculars, if necessary)?

https://nypost.com/2025/09/10/us-news/ch...n-utah-fbi

EXCERPT: The shooter is believed to have fired a single shot from an elevated position about 200 yards from the tent where Kirk was seated.

The university confirmed the gunman shot from a building across the quad, and police indicated the shots came from the rooftop.

Chilling footage circulating on social media could support that – moments after the fatal shot was fired, a distinct shape could be seen moving across the building roof as crowds cowered in the courtyard below.

[Yazata]

The "person of interest" who was being held has been released after being interrogated.

The search for the shooter continues...

I'm increasingly doubtful that they will catch him.

This guy apparently set up on a rooftop across the quad some time before the TPUSA event began. He killed Charlie Kirk with a single shot. There is video of him moving on the roof after the shot, but it is very indistinct. Then he seems to have escaped very efficiently during the resulting confusion without drawing any attention to himself. Presumably he still had the rifle, and it isn't clear how he concealed it. There is no information about what kind of vehicle he made his escape in.

There's speculation that the hit seems to have been rather professional. A former military sniper? A Mexican cartel sicario? Or just an unusually skilled and smart political radical?

[Syne]

Empathy literally does damage.

You're confusing empathy with mercy, which is a Christian virtue. They're not the same. Empathy is the ability to understand a person and why they do what they do, not excusing the crimes they committed. If you are incapable of empathy, you are pretty much a sociopath using people for your own advantage. Empathy is the ultimate basis for all morality. Remember the Golden Rule? But then I'm not surprised that is lost on you.

Really? Democrats have cashless bail and don't scrutinize the mentally ill out of the Christina virtue of mercy?
How do you show mercy without any empathy?

Yes, mercy typically requires empathy, as mercy involves understanding and alleviating another's suffering, a process that stems from empathy or compassion for their situation. While mercy is the action of offering that help, empathy is the felt understanding and connection to that suffering that often motivates the merciful act.
- Google AI

Maybe you missed where I said:

When empathy is allowed to override reason, it is bad.

The Golden Rule requires more reason than empathy, as you can reason how others want to be treated while not being able to empathize with their particular situation. For instance, a drug abuser would like to live homeless and do drugs, but reason tells us that is not good for them.

---

Non-government public speakers may not receive much security to begin with, but what does it take (even with respect to high-level VIPs) for the available personnel to occasionally spend some time scanning neighboring rooftops (with binoculars, if necessary)? 

An periodic scan of rooftops with a drone should become SOP for any open air public political event.

[Magical Realist]

Really? Democrats have cashless bail and don't scrutinize the mentally ill out of the Christina virtue of mercy? How do you show mercy without any empathy?

Perhaps they do. There's Christian Democrats too. And while mercy may require empathy, empathy doesn't require mercy. There's nothing in the definition of identifying with someone's experiences entailing morally overlooking their crimes. That's called mercy. And Christians are notorious for forgiving murderers of their crimes and believing they are new and moral people thru the blood of Jesus. Hence letting them go scott free.

The Golden Rule requires more reason than empathy, as you can reason how others want to be treated while not being able to empathize with their particular situation.

No..the GR assumes the identity of all people's desires and needs. To treat someone as you would like to be treated therefore assumes the empathic connection with those desires and needs. I see someone in pain, and I feel their pain as mine, and so I treat them as if I were in their exact situation needing help.

[Syne]

Really? Democrats have cashless bail and don't scrutinize the mentally ill out of the Christina virtue of mercy? How do you show mercy without any empathy?

Perhaps they do. There's Christian Democrats too. And while mercy may require empathy, empathy doesn't require mercy. There's nothing in the definition of identifying with someone's experiences entailing morally overlooking their crimes. That's called mercy. And Christians are notorious for forgiving murderers of their crimes and believing they are new and moral people thru the blood of Jesus. Hence letting them go scott free.

Forgiving, yes. Letting go unpunished, not so much. Hence why cashless bail and leniency toward mentally ill offenders is especially leftist. If those are mercy, they're not Biblical.

The Golden Rule requires more reason than empathy, as you can reason how others want to be treated while not being able to empathize with their particular situation.

No..the GR assumes the identity of each person's desires and needs. To treat someone as you would like to be treated therefore assumes the empathic connection with those desires and needs. I see someone in pain, and I feel their pain as mine, and so I treat them as if I were in their exact situation needing help.

Then you would not follow the Golden Rule for anyone you cannot empathize with.

[Magical Realist]

Then you would not follow the Golden Rule for anyone you cannot empathize with.

Right, which is why empathy applies unconditionally to all human beings. If they are human then we can have empathy for them. We even have empathy for animals.

"We have learned how reason can help us to establish what is right and wrong. However, reason alone cannot motivate us morally. We cannot work towards human wellbeing or support other people to flourish if we are unable to imagine what it might be like to be them, with their needs, passions, and desires. For that we need empathy. Thankfully, this is a capacity that most human beings have. As we have already seen, empathy evolved naturally to support our nature as a social animal. It can support us when we are reasoning about how we should act.

What enables human beings to live well rather than badly is their capacity for imaginative and sympathetic identification with the joys and sufferings of others. Empathy can motivate us to be good to others as we can imagine what it would be like to be in their position and think about how we would wish to be treated. Here, then, lies the origin of The Golden Rule."--- https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses...teps/37096

[Syne]

Without any limiting principle, empathy can become a vice. There's a ton of writing on the topic.

[Magical Realist]

That's like saying because most people die in hospitals, then hospitals are a bad idea.

[Syne]

Only so far as hospitals have the limiting principle of "do no harm." Mental hospitals had a history of doing harm.

[Magical Realist]

Like I said, empathy is the foundation of all morality. Without it we'd all be sociopaths and murderers. And empathy isn't the problem. It's mercy and judicial lenience. Take it up with the specific judge that released this criminal.