Charlie Kirk Shooting: Sen. Lankford, national leaders condemn rising political violence

Legislative leaders across the United States are speaking out against political violence following the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Wednesday at an event in Utah.

SEE ALSO: Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk killed after being shot in Utah

As authorities continue their investigation into the shooting at Utah Valley University, News 9 spoke to U.S. Sen. James Lankford to learn how the nation's leaders are reacting to the news.

RELATED: Sen. Markwayne Mullin honors Charlie Kirk, denounces fatal shooting

What are your thoughts this morning about what unfolded? The president says this is a dark day for America.

Lankford: It's interesting that we're sitting on the morning of Sept. 11, and we talk about what happened 24 years ago to the entire country, and then yesterday we had the assassination of someone who was politically engaged, and a conservative, and wouldn't just be able to have dialogue on college campuses with people that didn't share his conservative beliefs. That seems to be a normal part of America, and it has been from the very beginning to be able to talk about this. We are incredibly grieved for his wife, for his children, for the people that worked around him, obviously for the thousands of people that were at the rally that watched the assassination right in front of them, and for who we have become as a nation. We just had Josh Shapiro, the Governor of Pennsylvania, his home was set on fire. We had legislators in Minnesota who were murdered in the middle of the night with a home invasion. President Trump, we had two assassination attempts last year. This is a very dark part of who we have become as a nation. My encouragement is to be able to live our faith, live who we really are, and not allow ourselves to be drawn into the darkness and bitterness of this.

How did we get here, Senator Lankford? You're kind of touching on exactly where we wanted to go with this political violence. It's worse than ever before, it seems.

Lankford: I'm not sure it's worse than ever before, but it does feel a little bit historically like 1968, in the rage of the nation and the multiple assassinations, and all the challenges that we had during that time in 1968. But we are at a spot where we won't talk to each other. I'm amazed by the number of family members that I talk to say, "You voted for Trump" or "You voted for Kamala Harris, and so we don't even talk anymore." The social media algorithms drive us to the darkest places of our conspiracy theories as a nation. We're at a very, very difficult moment, and I continue to be able to encourage people, people of faith, to be able to live their faith, get involved in actual community, not online community. Getting a chance to be able to engage with people at your church and small groups, and all kinds of ways to be able to do that. At the forefront of all that is to be able to say, when violence occurs, the response is to bring justice, to be able to make sure that we actually find out who this person is or persons is. They're being pursued by law enforcement now, they're held to account on it, but that we don't, as a culture, say, well, those people now need retribution. That's not who we are at our best as Americans. At our best as Americans, people who do this kind of heinous act are held to account. We turn to each other and say, "How do we make sure this never happens again?"

MORE: Lawmakers react to shooting, killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk

What is Charlie Kirk's legacy in your mind this morning?

It's pretty remarkable that he started Turning Point as a teenager, and to be able to talk about how we can talk about conservative beliefs for other high school students, and then it became college students. He was 31 years old, and when you think about how large his organization was, he was just passionate about having an exchange of ideas. He was at OSU a couple of years back just to be able to sit down on a college campus and to be able to say, let's talk back and forth. He was in Tulsa just last year at a Promise Keepers event. I was also one of the speakers there with him, to be able to speak in Tulsa about faith issues and where we are as a country, and living out our faith. He liked to have dialogue with people, and it was always the statement that if you disagreed, you come to the front so we can actually have dialogue. He was known to be bombastic in front of conservative crowds, but in front of liberals, it was, "How do we have dialogue? How do we talk about it? How do we actually solve the problems?" There is a great need in our culture to say if we disagree, let's talk about it. That was his focus.

You are on the Homeland Security Committee. How do you protect people who go to ballgames or political rallies? What is your committee going to be doing now?

Lankford: Interestingly enough, we had just a small group gathering of us just earlier this week, talking about that exact thing, about ballgames and such. The political violence has continued to rise. You'll see that several people are doing fewer public events. Security is actually changing on this. [Kirk] is just a conservative speaker. He's not an elected official. He is a person who speaks on college campuses all the time, and CNN was talking about, well, he didn't have metal detectors, and he didn't have snipers on the roof. This is just a person having a political dialogue out there. This is not a president. This shouldn't be required. There's work with the FBI; they're actively partnering with local law enforcement in Utah to be able to find out who this killer is. But right now, it's a matter of identifying who they are. Let's continue to be able to evaluate how we're going to handle security and events. As a culture, our first thing is, when we disagree, we disagree. We should be able to work this out and talk it out, and not lead to violence.