Washington: The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk is a shocking tragedy and an awful, scary reflection of the extreme political violence that now afflicts the United States of America.

It will reverberate across the country and around the world in ways that we cannot know in the immediate aftermath. But surely, American civic life just cannot go on like this.

Anyone and everyone might be next. It was only three months ago that Melissa Hortman, a Democratic member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, and her husband were shot and killed in their Minneapolis home in the middle of the night. One of her colleagues was shot and survived.

A couple of months before that, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, had his home set on fire while he and his family slept inside.

Last year, there were attempts on the life of now-president Donald Trump while he ran for office, including having his ear grazed by a bullet at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Mere millimetres saved him.

Add to that politically motivated violence against non-politicians, including the two Israeli embassy staff shot dead on the streets of Washington, and last year’s murder of a healthcare chief executive in New York, allegedly at the hands of then 26-year-old Luigi Mangione.

The United States is now a hyper-toxic shitshow of prevalent guns and even more prevalent hate. This has to stop, but it seems likely to get only worse.

The one thing that unites the extreme left, the extreme right and the just plain bonkers is that they can all get their hands on a gun with ease – and there is little sign of that changing.

Kirk was a prominent evangelical Christian and conservative activist. He was a high-level political player who relished taking on and defeating the people with whom he disagreed.

He put himself out there to be opposed, heckled, pilloried, criticised – but not shot. Not killed. Not assassinated. The man was 31, with a wife and two young children.

And indeed, the very event Kirk was conducting when he was murdered was based on promoting free and open civic discourse.

The “Prove Me Wrong Table” involved inviting audience members to debate him on stage – at a university, no less, where ideas ought to be freely debated and exchanged.

His appearance was controversial: progressive activists started a petition to have him barred from campus. Kirk, meanwhile, defended his brand of conservatism in comments to the local Deseret News.

“My job every single day is actively trying to stop a revolution,” he was quoted as saying.

“This is where you have to try to point them toward ultimate purposes and toward getting back to the church, getting back to faith, getting married, having children. That is the type of conservatism that I represent, and I’m trying to paint a picture of virtue, of lifting people up, not just staying angry.”

But staying angry is what too many Americans seem to be doing. And in the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination, there was more evidence of that continuing: people on social media happily made light of the shooting, cracking jokes or saying he had it coming.

“I’m not saying he deserved it but he deserved it,” said one post on X that racked up 190,000 likes in two hours.

Of course, there will come a time to reflect honestly on Kirk’s own contributions to the toxicity and hate that infect modern American life, and his staunch advocacy of guns.

Because the anger has built up over such a long time, it is difficult to see where the release valve to this hate epidemic might come from.

The man in the White House, though professing to be a man of peace, is hardly a force for unity and calm. Minutes after being shot in Butler, his instinctive words to his followers were: “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

One hopes Trump will meet the moment. That he will see his country is suffering from a maelstrom of hate and violence that requires leadership. It may well be beyond the capacity of a political leader to solve or remedy this situation.

In a video address to the nation, Trump said it was a dark moment for America, and it was time for all to reckon with the tragic consequences of “demonising those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year”.

But he also quickly blamed “radical left political violence”, when the truth is we don’t know who committed this heinous act or what their motives were. And while he listed several acts of violence against conservatives, he omitted the shooting of Hortman and her Democratic colleague John Hoffman.

Many people back home in Australia ask me what it’s like to live in the US at this unusual moment in history. They say or imply that I should be scared.

Today, for the first time, I was inclined to agree. Not scared for myself, but for the fabric of this country and its many fine people. They really deserve better.

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.