Rainn Wilson recounts liberal friends having a ‘kind of a good riddance’ response to Charlie Kirk’s killing

On his “Soul Boom” podcast Wednesday, “The Office” star Rainn Wilson recounted some of his liberal friends having a “kind of a good riddance” reaction to the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk last week.

“I spoke to a couple of — let’s say — some liberal friends last night at an event, and they were like, ‘You won’t find me shedding any tears,’ and someone else was like, ‘Oh well.’ There was a little bit of a, kind of a good riddance thing, and it’s like, ‘Guys, no,” he told actor Mark Ruffalo.

“We cannot think or talk that way. That is not okay.”

Earlier in the podcast, Wilson noted that while he didn’t agree with Kirk’s ideas, “shooting someone that we disagree with, even if they’re vociferous and loud and out there, is so colossally wrongheaded.”

The exchange between the two actors, Wilson explained, was a clip of a future episode that has not yet aired. 

Ruffalo also chimed in with his take on Kirk’s assassination and the deepening political divide within the country.

He mentioned that Kirk’s death hit especially close to home for him, considering his brother was also shot and killed.

“There’s no winning. We’ll never win this way,” he told Wilson.

“There’s no idea that if we cheer on our opponents being hurt or harmed in any way that we win as a society. And we all lose, like those — I know what his family is going through. Like, I understand that on such a personal level, and it’s a tragedy that not only the person who is killed experiences, but the entire family and community around that person.”

The actor continued, saying that although Kirk was his “political opponent,” his heart still broke for him when he learned the news of his assassination.

Wilson pushed back on Ruffalo’s use of the word “opponent,” arguing that kind of rhetoric fuels division.

“Someone who disagrees with, who we disagree with, even vehemently, and we think they’re sending the country in exactly the opposite, wrong direction that goes against even Jesus’s teachings himself — like how can we reframe it from opponent to, you know, just someone we disagree with?” Wilson pondered.

Ruffalo then shifted the conversation to gun control, saying that people are walking around with “weapons of war.” He admitted that he didn’t know the exact type of gun used to kill Kirk but insisted it fell into that category.

“It was a sniper rifle, so this was planned,” Wilson interjected. 

“Yeah, for nothing more than to kill human beings,” Ruffalo responded.

“That’s what these weapons are for, you know, and so when we keep signing off on that as a nation, we’re signing off on more and more of … When you keep signing off on those weapons being acceptable, you’re actually tacitly signing off on them being used on human beings as the ultimate solution … to any kind of conflict.”

The gun recovered by authorities in the assassination of Kirk was a bolt-action rifle, a common hunting weapon valued for its reliability but limited to a single shot before reloading.

Unlike a semiautomatic, the shooter must manually operate the bolt handle to cycle the weapon.

Lifting and pulling it back removes the spent cartridge, while pushing it forward chambers a new round from the magazine.

Lowering the bolt locks the round and seals the chamber, making the rifle ready to fire again — a simple, durable design that has kept it popular among hunters and target shooters.