What have we become? Shock across the political spectrum after shooting

Charlie Kirk's death by an assassin's bullet has left the United States, a country already grappling with mounting political anger and polarization, in a state of profound shock bordering on despair.

- Ed Pilkington

Kirk, 31, a rising star of Donald Trump's Make America Great Again (Maga) movement, was struck in the neck by a single shot as he addressed a large student crowd at Utah Valley University.

The event had been billed as the grand opening of his 15-stop "America Comeback Tour", but instead will be marked as the place where he uttered his last words.

The leader of the rightwing student group Turning Point USA was about 20 minutes into a Q&A, ironically answering a question on mass shootings, when the shot rang out. Within seconds, hundreds of students had scattered screaming from the campus lawn.

Within minutes of that, gruesome videos began to proliferate on social media. They showed Kirk being hit, slumping to his left side and bleeding profusely.

Long before he was pronounced dead at 4.40pm, the wave of shock was breaking over both sides of the US's political divide.

"This is horrific. I am stunned," said the Republican senator from Texas Ted Cruz, who described Kirk as a "good friend" since the activist's teenage years.

Kirk was unashamedly on the far right of the US political spectrum and had expressed openly bigoted views and engaged in homophobic and Islamophobic rhetoric. He mixed evangelical Christian beliefs with rightwing politics into a combustible brew.

But mourning for Kirk crossed the political aisle. Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC's Morning Joe - who has been unrestrained at times in his criticism of Kirk's political posturing - called the shooting "tragic and sickening".

He added: "Violence targeting political public figures is violence against American democracy itself and the freedom of every American to express their views."