A Weekend of Tragedy

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Charlie Kirk Show

Episode: A Weekend of Tragedy

Date: December 15, 2025
Host: Charlie Kirk
Co-host/Commentators: Blake, others
Special Guests: Gary Melton (Paramount Tactical), discussion of Candace Owens, Viva Fry

Overview

This episode, titled "A Weekend of Tragedy," delves into a series of harrowing national and international events: the murders of Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle, the fatal shooting at Brown University, and the mass killing at Bondi Beach, Australia. The show frames these tragedies within ongoing cultural and political divides, examining both the specifics of each incident and their broader societal implications. A substantial portion of the episode centers on the assassination of Charlie Kirk, featuring tactical analysis from military expert Gary Melton, with a focus on countering conspiracy theories and providing factual clarity around the circumstances of the shooting.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Tragedies of the Weekend ([01:17]–[12:38])

• Candace Owens Meeting Update ([01:17]):

  • Candace Owens was initially slated for the show but declined; private discussions with Erica Kirk scheduled. All public communications are paused until after their meeting.
  • “We are prepped, ready either way. So that's basically where we're going to leave that discussion.” — Blake ([01:55])

• Rob Reiner Murder Case ([02:48]–[06:18]):

  • Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle were fatally stabbed, allegedly by their son Nick, who struggled with drug abuse and mental health issues.
  • Reflection on Reiner’s cinematic legacy despite strong political disagreements.
  • Criticism of any celebratory rhetoric around their deaths, especially on social media and by public figures.
    • “It doesn't mean it's okay for him to get stabbed to death by his son. And it's disgusting. If anyone is celebrating this.” — Co-host ([06:18])

• President Trump’s Response ([06:53]):

  • Trump’s “TDS” (Trump Derangement Syndrome) comment on Truth Social about Reiner’s death is critiqued as tactless.
  • “I'll be frank. I think the President should delete that.” — Co-host ([07:36])
  • Contrast in reactions: empathy vs. politicized gloating.

• Rob Reiner’s Reflection on Charlie Kirk’s Murder ([08:11]):

  • Clip highlights Reiner’s horror and call for forgiveness despite political divides.
    • “I don't care what your political beliefs are. That's not acceptable...and I believe in forgiveness. And what she said to me was beautiful and absolutely, you know, she forgave his assassin. And I think that that is admirable.” — Rob Reiner ([08:11])

• Brown University Shooting / Ella Cook Tribute ([10:59]–[12:13]):

  • Tribute to Ella Cook, vice president of College Republicans at Brown, killed in a campus shooting.
  • J.D. Vance’s tweet read aloud as a memorial statement.
    • “It takes a special courage to lead an organization of conservatives on a left wing campus...” — J.D. Vance ([10:59])

• Bondi Beach Terror Attack ([12:13]-[15:51]):

  • Mass shooting during a Jewish Hanukkah celebration, tied to Islamic extremism.
  • Discussion on lax prosecution and restrictive gun laws failing to prevent the massacre.
  • Condemnation of migration policies perceived as failing to protect national security: “Has it made England better? No. Has it made Germany better? No.” — Co-host ([14:58])
  • Notable that a Muslim bystander intervened to stop the assailants, later vilified online.

• Charlie Kirk’s Warning About Cultural Threats ([15:51]):

  • Clip from Kirk tying rising violence to a “spiritual battle” between “wokeism, Marxism, and Islamism” versus the “American way of life.”
    • “The enemies are wokeism or Marxism combining with Islamism to go after what we call the American way of life.” — Charlie Kirk ([15:51])
    • Emphasis on preserving “Christendom” in the West.

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2. Interview & Investigation: The Charlie Kirk Assassination

With Gary Melton, Paramount Tactical ([18:05]–[36:25])

• Gary Melton's Credentials ([18:05]):

  • Former U.S. Army Green Beret, weapons sergeant/sniper, federal agency instructor, owner of Paramount Tactical.

• On-Site Investigative Findings ([19:12]–[21:03]):

  • Melton retraced Tyler Robinson’s movements at Utah Valley University (UVU), spoke with eyewitnesses, and created a 3D mapping model of the campus—available online.
  • Emphasizes the physical simplicity of accessing the rooftop shooting location.
    • “As a matter of fact, you don't need arms. You can literally get up there if you didn't have arms.” — Gary Melton ([20:42])
  • Dismisses online conspiracy theories suggesting elaborate planning or professional involvement.

• Misconceptions & Conspiracies Debunked ([21:24]–[25:21]):

  • Clarifies misperceptions about the difficulty of the shot, access to the site, and timeline of event promotion.
  • Event location and timing were posted more than ten days in advance, debunking “no time to plan” rumors.

• Drone Controversy Addressed ([26:22]):

  • Rumors about restricted drone access at the event are explained as routine miscommunication, not evidence of cover-up.
  • Event crowd shots were from an elevated walkway, not a drone.

• Technical Breakdown: Ballistics & Weapon Assembly ([30:56]–[36:18]):

  • Details the unpredictability of bullet behavior (“bullets do weird things”) due to numerous variables in terminal ballistics.
    • “Once it hits a target, you know, there's so many things going on. It is an extremely high speed energetic event and there's so many things that happen at the micro level.” — Gary Melton ([31:23])
  • Explains plausible methods for smuggling and assembling the weapon on site—using separate stock and barrel.
    • “All it takes is two screws to put the action, the barrel of action, back onto the stock itself. ... It would take less than a minute.” — Gary Melton ([35:00])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Rob Reiner's Murder:

  • “No one should suffer that way. ... My heart goes out to their family. I have no idea the details of what was going on with their son Nick. Senseless tragedy...” — Blake ([04:29])

• On Handling Tragedy Across Political Divides:

  • “He was a left winger. ... The guy made some absolute classics of American cinema in the 20th century.” — Blake ([06:18])
  • “I believe in the teachings of Jesus, and I believe in doing to others, and I believe in forgiveness. ... She forgave his assassin. And I think that that is admirable.” — Rob Reiner ([09:11])

• On Ella Cook, Brown University Student:

  • “Everything that I've seen about this young woman says that she was brave, she was kind, she was helpful. ... So our heart goes out to Ella Cook and her family.” — Blake ([11:12])

• On Immigration, Terror, and National Security:

  • “Why do you need any Islamic migration into Australia? What country has ever been made better by saying, yeah, let's bring in more Islamic migration to the society.” — Co-host ([14:12])

• On Cultural Threats:

  • “Spiritual battle is coming to the west and the enemies are wokeism or Marxism combining with Islamism...” — Charlie Kirk ([15:51])

• On the Shooting Suspect's Background:

  • “Robinson's mother explained ... Tyler had become more political and started to lean more to the left, becoming more pro gay and trans rights oriented...” — Blake (Quote from charging document) ([24:25])

• On Physical Feasibility of Rooftop Shooting:

  • “It's not that complicated, not that hard. But people have tried to over complicate it.” — Gary Melton ([36:00])

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• Intro & Candace Owens Mention: [00:03]–[01:55]
• Weekend Tragedies Recap: [01:17]–[10:59]
• Rob Reiner’s Statement on Kirk: [08:11]
• Brown University Shooting / Ella Cook Tribute: [10:59]
• Bondi Beach Attack & Political Commentary: [12:13]–[15:51]
• Charlie Kirk ‘Spiritual Battle’ Clip: [15:51]
• Gary Melton Interview—UVU Investigation: [18:05]–[26:48]
• Debunking Conspiracies (Drone, Ballistics): [26:22]–[36:18]

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Tone and Style

Throughout the podcast, the tone is urgent, passionate, and unapologetically conservative—consistent with Charlie Kirk’s style. There is an emphasis on clarity, debunking misinformation, and framing events within cultural and political battles. Despite deep ideological differences, the hosts stress humanitarian empathy in the face of tragedy, notably in their tributes and calls for forgiveness.

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Conclusion

This densely packed episode addresses a tumultuous news cycle marked by violence, loss, and ideological conflict. While the analysis is often filtered through a partisan lens, the hosts and guests strive for factual accuracy in discussing the circumstances of Charlie Kirk’s assassination and acknowledge the human dimension behind headline events, regardless of political affiliation. For listeners, the episode offers both real-time investigation and meta-commentary on the narratives (and misinformation) circulating online.

Transcript

[Charlie Kirk]

My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro American student organization in the country, fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're gonna end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam, everybody. You gotta stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible. Go start a Turning Point USA College chapter. Go start a Turning Point USA High School chapter. Go find out how your church can get involved. Sign up and become an activist. I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade. Most important decision I ever made in my life. And I encourage you to do the same. Here I am, Lord. Use me. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. The Charlie Kirk show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends and viewers.

[Blake]

All right. Happy Monday, December 15th. Blake. Happy Monday.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Is it?

[Blake]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Well, how about we got to Monday.

[Blake]

A lot of stuff went down this weekend, not the least of which just want to call out the elephant in the room. We had invited Candace Owens to be a part of a live stream today on this show. Later today after our live show, she, of course, declined to show up in person. And then over the weekend, Erica Kirk announced that she's gonna be meeting privately and so with her. And so sometime today. Sometime today. And so per that tweet, she said basically all livestreams, public discussions and tweets are on hold until after this meeting.

[Co-host/Commentator]

We'll see what unfolds.

[Blake]

So we will see what unfolds. We are prepped, ready either way. So that's basically where we're going to leave that discussion. And, you know, we're actually going to have Paramount Tactical Gary Melton on the show at the halfway point in this hour. We're going to just talk about some of the.

[Co-host/Commentator]

We're going to have two different guests.

[Blake]

I believe, just talking about Viva Fry is going to come on and talk about why he believes Tyler is the shooter. He's going to go through some of the evidence and he's also going to talk about his own little sort of spats and squabbles on social media. And then we are going to, like I said, Gary Melton from Paramount, tactical ballistics expert. He's also visited the campus of UVU since and retraced the steps of Tyler Robinson. All that and more will happen today. And Then we're going to get into how Charlie was kind of a modern day. It's a wonderful life story.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting pitch. It's a friend of mine, Chris Rufo, reached out and said, this friend of mine has an interesting idea.

[Blake]

No, it's a good take. As soon as you told me, I was like, you know, he's pretty right. But we got a lot of news to go over in the meantime, and obviously, we had the Bondi beach terrorism, which was just horrendous. We're gonna get into that just in a second. We had. Rob Reiner was apparently stabbed to death along with his wife Michelle, who it appears that his. The son Nick, who's had mental problems and drug abuse problems, homelessness problems. He's now in custody. And of course, we had this Brown shooting where we're hearing reports that a Republican. Campus Republican. Well, she's dead. We know that, and it's a really terrible story. But there is also reports that she may have been targeted. So let's get into all of these stories because we got to go quick here. Hit Rob Reiner, because I think you and I both have some feelings about that.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Yeah. That broke last night out of nowhere. Very horrifying. Just, you know, it began with that police were at Reiner's home in the Los Angeles area, and they found two bodies there that matched their ages. And then they were stabbed to death. And it just sort of dribbled out over the course of the evening. And it now appears the same suspicion is that both Rob and his wife Michelle were stabbed to death by their son, who I believe had a history of some addictions and issues. And so I imagine we'll learn more about how exactly that happened.

[Blake]

It's a pretty gruesome way to go.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Very unthinkably terrible. No one should suffer that way. And it caused us to look back and we saw things. And I mean, among other things, Rob was on. He went on the air shortly after Charlie was shot. And he actually said quite kind things about him.

[Blake]

And he said about Erica. Kind things about Erica, too.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Yes. Do we have that ready to go?

[Blake]

If not, we'll get it. But the point is we need to look at that as a good example. Right. Of how to respond in these situations. And unfortunately, you know, with Charlie's death, gruesome. I instantly saw the parallels, and I felt terrible for this family. I felt terrible for Rob Reiner, his wife, Michelle. And honestly, my heart fell with compassion. So instantly I went and I said as much on social Media, I think that tweet has 2.1 million engagements now. A lot of people retweeted it and yeah, my heart goes out to their family. I have no idea the details of what was going on with their son Nick. Senseless tragedy, terrible to see. And by the way, Rob Reiner's movie career, it should be. The guy had incredible depth. Yeah, he gave in to TDS and Trump derangements. He was a left winger. He was a left winger.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Quite a sharp one. He got really in on anti Russia militarism. He said all the. He believed all that, you know, Trump's doing treason with Russia stuff. Let's like, okay, it's terrible politics. It's a free country. Yeah, it is a free country. And he was allowed to believe what he want. That doesn't mean it's okay for him to get stabbed to death by his son. And it's disgusting. If anyone is celebrating this.

[Blake]

Yeah, no, it really is. And you know, guys like James Wood, who's a conservative, he came out and he said that he had worked with Rob and they were able to maintain their friendship even though they are on diametrically opposed polar opposites of the political spectrum. But here's some of his movies. This is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men. I mean, this guy had range. And say what you will about his politics, the guy made some absolute classics of American cinema in the 20th century.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Yeah. And you know, we should acknowledge there's an elephant in the room. President Trump unfortunately posted on Truth Social this morning. He said a very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away together with his wife Michelle, reportedly due to the anger he, he caused others through his massive, unyielding and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome, sometimes referred to as tds. He was known to have driven people crazy by his raging obsession with President Donald J. Trump. And he goes on for a bit longer. I'll be frank. I think the President should delete that.

[Blake]

Yeah, I understand that sentiment. He's getting a lot of blowback, actually. Jake Tapper, quote, tweeted my tweet with Trump's truth to contrast them. I mean, listen, I wasn't tweeting what I tweeted, trying to make some large statement. My heart went out to him. What can I say? So I do think it's fair though, as soon as we have this clip loaded 141. This is Rob Reiner's reaction to Charlie.

[Charlie Kirk]

You first heard about the murder of Charlie Kirk.

[Gary Melton]

What was your immediate gut reaction to it?

[Rob Reiner (clip)]

Well, horror. Absolute horror. And I unfortunately saw the video of it, and it's. It's in. It's beyond belief what happened to him, and that should never happen to anybody. I don't care what your political beliefs are. That's not acceptable. That's not a solution to. To solving problems. And I felt like what his wife said at the service, that the memorial they had was exactly right. And totally, I believe, you know, I'm. I'm Jewish, but I. I believe in the teachings of Jesus, and I believe in doing to others, and I believe in forgiveness. And what she said to me was beautiful and absolutely, you know, she forgave his assassin. And I think that that is admirable.

[Blake]

Yeah. And I mean, really, that's the only correct response in this moment.

[Co-host/Commentator]

That is. That is the only correct response, especially in. It's. Whenever anyone dies, but especially when it's a heinous murder that no one deserves. And, you know, there's a vast tragedy that goes into that.

[Blake]

And he was also well known as Meathead on Was that all in the Family?

[Co-host/Commentator]

Which. That was such a big deal in the 70s, and it's more forgotten today.

[Blake]

But he was great. I actually went and watched some of the clips last night, and they were. They were hilarious. There was this. Oh, he was the dad and wolf of Wall Street. I didn't realize that. Anyways, Rob Reiner. I just think it's a total tragedy. Yeah, his politics were awful. Don't care right now. Literally, do not care. We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries, and today I want to point you to their podcast. It's called Culture and Christianity, the Alan Jackson Podcast. What makes it unique is Pastor Alan's biblical perspective. He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues we're facing today. Gender confusion, abortion, immigration, Doge Trump in the White House, issues in the church. He doesn't just discuss the problems. In every episode, he gives practical things we can do to make a difference. His guests have incredible expertise and powerful testimonies. They've been great friends. And now you can hear from Charlie in his own words.

[Charlie Kirk]

Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world. Today. The Culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging. You could find it on YouTube, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes. Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture. You can find out more about Pastor Alan and the [e-mail] Charlie.

[Blake]

Here'S a tweet from JD Vance paying his respects to Ella Cook. She was the vice president of the Brown University College Republicans. He says this beautiful young girl was one of the murdered students at Brown University. It takes a special courage to lead an organization of conservatives on a left wing campus. On a far left campus, you could say, and I'm very sorry. Our country has lost one of its bright young stars. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord. And that's from Vice President J.D. vance. Terrible tragedy. Everything that I've seen about this young woman said that she was brave, she was kind, she was helpful, she would throw in and help, you know, lend a hand on anything going on on campus, especially with the College Republicans. So our heart goes out to Ella Cook and her family. And another terrible sort of tragedy over the weekend. They do not have a suspect at this time. They have not released video evidence. There's some reporting that that would suggest that she was targeted. Blake. So they had a suspect, person of interest. They ended up releasing that. That person of interest, which is just like a whole crazy.

[Co-host/Commentator]

How do I just. It's unbelievable.

[Blake]

Cameras everywhere. Yeah.

[Co-host/Commentator]

In modern society that you could shoot that many people and get away and not have good leads.

[Blake]

About 10 were shot, two were killed. Unfortunately, Ella is one of those who were killed. And unfortunately there was another shooting that happened obviously in Bondi Beach, Australia. Fifteen were killed as some Jewish celebrants were enjoying a Hanukkah celebration. And it was right there on the beach. There's a whole bunch of crazy stuff with this timeline.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Everything about it is exactly what Charlie warned about so often with bringing Islam into the West. So this was obviously migrant origin and they targeted a Jewish community. And it was a father and son team. They like lived in a million dollar house, but they still just go for radical Islam. So they thrived in this country that welcomed them and they decide to go and murder a bunch of. Of Jews and they go raid the house. And the mother, she's, I saw on GB News, she was saying, you know, her son was a good boy. He was a good boy.

[Blake]

He was a good boy.

[Co-host/Commentator]

He was a good boy. If you could throw that.

[Blake]

And he was not a good boy, Dear Mom. He was not a good boy. He was actually a terrible monster. Killed a bunch of innocent people.

[Co-host/Commentator]

He'd been Investigated.

[Blake]

He'd been investigated because he was apparently tied to an Islamic cell of isis and somehow he was not detained, apprehended. His family was allowed to get guns. Like the whole thing reeks to high heaven here. I don't know how anybody in the Western world could be tied to an Islamic ISIS cell and first of all be allowed to roam free. Actually, they should have been deported immediately. We should take heed in the United States. Secondly, the fact that Australia, which has extremely restrictive gun laws, the father apparently had six guns legally owned. So the whole country cracks down on law abiding people having.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Yeah, yeah. And yet everything about this is just, it's outrageous because this is Australia. Australia is this big, almost entirely empty continent filled with natural resources. They get, they're settled by the English, the greatest country creators in the world. Australia has basically no reason to have any problems whatsoever. They could basically live, you could all. Everyone could live like a king in Australia. And what they do is because they have this left wing brain virus. Why do you need any Islamic migration into Australia? What country has ever been made better by saying, yeah, let's bring in more Islamic migration to the society. Has it made England better? No. Has it made Germany better? No.

[Blake]

Yeah. And there was this, I mean, you gotta give credit where it's due. There was a hero that ran in, I believe we have that footage, grabbed the gun and basically subdued it looks like the father, and ended up getting shot a couple times in the arm by the son who was perched up on the bridge. So his name was I think Ahmed or something. So it's actually another Muslim. He's been called a traitor online by fellow Muslims. And by the way, there was already video of people celebrating in Sydney, other Muslims celebrating the attack. It's eerily similar to what happened on October 7th where Jews get attacked and then Muslims around the world celebrate. So pretty sick stuff. And I think we should play a cut from Charlie here. Yeah. 115. We have just enough time. 1:15.

[Charlie Kirk]

Spiritual battle is coming to the west and the enemies are wokeism or Marxism combining with Islamism to go after what we call the American way of life. And the American way of life is very simple. I want to be able to get married, buy a home, have kids, allow them to ride their bike till the sun goes down, send them to a good school, have a low crime neighborhood, not to have my kid be taught the lesbian, gay, transgender garbage in their school, while also, while also not having them have to hear the Muslim call to prayer five times a day. That's important. We want the American way of life, which is, by the way, Christendom.

[Blake]

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[Gary Melton]

Hi, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

[Blake]

So just a little bit on your background so people understand why you know so much about this topic. Gary Milton is a former US Army Special Forces Green Beret. You served as a weapon sergeant and sniper team leader completing four combat tours. Following your military service, Gary, you held a position of unit chief and special tactics instructor for a federal agency. Today, Gary is the owner and lead instructor of Paramount Tactical Solutions, a company dedicated to professional professional firearms and tactical training. You work full time doing that. So, Gary, you also have a great YouTube and you're a great Twitter follower. So you know your stuff and I wanted to have you on because, you know, I refuse to go back to Utah, like anytime soon. I'll just be honest. It's no offense, I just can't bring myself to do it. But you actually went to the campus and you retraced the steps of the alleged assassin. We have to say that in a sort of journalistic sense, not in any other way. I believe he's the man who pulled the trigger. Gary, tell us what you saw when you visited uvu.

[Gary Melton]

Yeah, so, you know, one of the things that I wanted to do while I was there at the time, there was a lot of different, I don't know, conspiracies. We had the palm gun. We had different shooters in different locations. And what I thought was really important to do was go there, number one, talk to eyewitnesses. I talked to multiple eyewitnesses while I was there. You know, they had very, very similar stories. The other thing I did while I was there was actually. I actually flew a drone. And what we did was a 3D map survey of the campus. And we have since built a 3D model of that that's interactive. People can download it for free. It's. It's on my X account. And that way people can kind of see what is possible, what has lines of sight. And I knew just from what people were saying that some of these theories that they were putting out just weren't possible. I knew there was no line of sight. And then on top of that, I just wanted to get some hard ground truth and see what was going on. And, you know, this. This case was important to me. You know, I was a big fan of Charlie's, felt personal. And I think, you know, if you're going to get to the truth, you need to get there. You need to talk to some people and you need to see the ground truth. And, you know, that's kind of what we did.

[Blake]

Yeah, and there's a video here, Gary. I'm just going to set you show it really quick so people can see how easy it ultimately was to get on this rooftop. Access point 133.

[Gary Melton]

All right, folks, so here's the stairs that go to the roof.

[Blake]

Wow.

[Gary Melton]

This wall is about maybe three feet tall. All right, so right there is the shooting position. It's about 200ft away from there. You don't need to be Spider Man. As a matter of fact, you don't need arms. You can literally get up there if you didn't have arms.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Wow, that's a good. That's a good visual. That's a good visual. So just from your knowledge across the spectrum and your own visits, do you feel there's any misconceptions that you're seeing repeated over and over and over again that have spread really far that in your opinion are pretty easily debunked or.

[Gary Melton]

Opposed yeah, you know, there's been a cycle of people taking very normal things or maybe even slightly abnormal and then turning them into suspicious items. Right. One of the things that really struck me on the ground there was exactly how easy this entire thing was. You know, before I went there, one of the things that was being portrayed was like this was, you know, some big conspiracy. It's very complex. You need professional hitmen. It's 140 yards, it's so far, all these things. Now I knew the distances was nothing, especially for a scoped rifle. I mean that is, you know, my, my eight year old son was going to courses with us. Shooting 1200 yards, it's not hard. And then once you see the layout of the campus, you know, looking at it from a security standpoint unfortunately was a real challenge. You know, once the information was out that this was the location. And then on top of that, once you look at the UVU courtyard, it is channelized, there's only, it's obvious where any sort of speaker is going to be. So, you know, the thing that shocked me the most was how easy this was. And then once we get into coming back and then hearing things like, hey, you know what you need to be Spider man or people think that you have to have some sort of special access or that you have to climb up to the roof, when in reality you walk right up to the roof. The pathway that goes in between buildings is level with the roof and the only thing that separates that walkway from the roof is, you know, a three foot guardrail that you just step over and now you have access. And the other thing is, it's very obvious to me if you just look at Google Maps, if you're trying to plan this operation, it's simple, it's not that hard and it's not that complicated. And the thing is we have all these kids out there playing Call of Duty and they're very tactically minded and there was nothing, especially once I went there, talked to people on the ground, saw the campus, a lot of what wasn't clear to me was crystal clear. You know, especially by the time that we got the charging documents out, they laid out the evidence, everything made sense. It really did. And you know, they continue to push a lot of disinformation and there's a lot of reasons behind that. But you know, that's what I wanted to do. Look, I don't want to be lied to by the government, but I don't want to be lied to by the Internet either. And I think it's really important for us to make sure that we're pushing the truth and people are being honest about this. And, you know, I think that's one of the biggest problems is, is the omission. You know, a lot of people pushing these different conspiracy theories and exploiting Charlie's death for their own means, they're not telling you this information. Like, why haven't these people gone to this location and looked at this? Why aren't they showing people how easy it is to actually access the roof? And if people saw what I saw, a lot of this stuff would make a lot more sense to them and they wouldn't believe a lot of these other artificial narratives that people are pushing.

[Blake]

Well, and let me just. Because when you. I saw this video of yours, Gary, it reminded me of the charging document. So this is straight from the charging document. It says, Robinson's mother explained that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and started to lean more to the left, becoming more pro gay and trans rights oriented. She stated that Robinson began to date his roommate, a biological male who was transitioning gender. This resulted in several discussions with family members, but especially between Robinson and his father, who have very different political views. In one conversation before the shooting, Robinson mentioned that Charlie Kirk would be holding an event at uvu, which Robinson said was a, quote, stupid venue for the event. Robinson accused Kirk of spreading hate. And when you see how easy that rooftop access is, you start to kind of put one and one together and you realize that Robinson had a plan that he was going to ultimately take advantage of. And he. He obviously knew how easy it was to get up to that rooftop. Which is.

[Gary Melton]

Yeah.

[Blake]

Which is terrifying.

[Gary Melton]

It really is. And look, you know, one of the other things that's being pushed around for a long time was that, you know, you tpusa, both the local chapter and you guys didn't advertise this event till a couple days prior to now. The insinuation there is that that doesn't give Tyler enough time to plan for this. And what we found out with a little bit of, I don't know, 20, not even five minutes of Googling and looking, look, you guys already put out on your website as early as August 27th. So we have at least almost a full two weeks prior to this that not only the time of the event, but the location, the exact location of the UVU courtyard. So when you have over 10 days of planning and it sounds like that Tyler already was familiar with the campus to begin with, like a lot of the mystery of this starts to go out the window and it starts to really conform with what is exactly being proposed by the state of Utah and the FBI in the charging documents.

[Blake]

Yeah, and we can attest, we, you know, Andrew Cipher, who's our head of field, you know, Charlie would sometimes throw these events out, you know, seven, ten days in advance. If something opened up in his schedule, he would be able to do these outdoor events. A pretty quick turn. And so that whole theory kind of goes out the window. You mentioned drone. Explain to us the conspiracy theories about drones, Gary.

[Gary Melton]

Yeah, so, you know, early on, Frank Turek talked about that on the way there that, you know, he actually was looking at Charlie's phone and he saw drone footage from the event. Now, I had talked to with that in mind. I was number one. I went to UVU and I actually put the drone up. We were going to do the survey immediately. We were. Law enforcement came up and said, hey, look, we need you to take down a drone. Now, my drone pilot had already made all the necessary steps with the FFA to make sure that we could do that. And I explained to the law enforcement officer, hey, look, you guys don't control this airspace. He's like, well, we got policies. You have to do this and we're not going to sit there and argue with them. Right. So we ended up grounding the drone. We went and jumped through some hoops. We were trying to get some documents done. Long story short, what we ended up having to do was leave campus. We flew the drone, we were off campus, we flew the drone, we got the survey. So that kind of reinforced other people saying, Brian Harpole specifically saying, like, hey, we couldn't get, we couldn't get permission to get a drone up in the air. And of course, people took that. What Frank said at the beginning and said, hey, this is clear indication of lying and. Or a conspiracy. Well, what I found out was the picture that was being put pushed around saying, hey, this is proof that there was drone footage was actually. It was very clear to me once I saw that picture. It is a wide angle shot of the crowd from.

[Blake]

And let's throw that up. Yeah, let's throw that up. That's. This is actually the. I think the images, guys, I sent them to. Yeah, this is actually. There was a walkway or a bridge elevated. That was just. That was just. From our events team that was setting up that event. They went up there, as they always did, to show Charlie the crowd size. So they took those images.

[Gary Melton]

Yeah, I understand why Frank thought this was a drone. You know, but again, I think it almost shows that the lack of conspiracy because you guys aren't sitting in there, you know, micromanaging what people say. It's just different people's perspectives and there isn't some sort of collusion.

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[Blake]

Gary, I just want you to give you a chance, just you know, explain your background, how people can follow you.

[Gary Melton]

Number one, like I said, I know 911 happened a couple days later. I was in a recruiting station, ended up with the initial push into Iraq. I was sniper team leader during that tour that came back went special operations, did three more combat tours, multiple training tours, ended up working as a special tactics instructor for a federal agency. And long story short, I ended up wanted to work for myself. So I opened up Paramount Tactical Solutions. We offer training to civilians, military and law enforcement. And you know, from basic to advanced, whether it's handgun, we kind of specialize, we're known for long range. So you can find [e-mail] and on top of that you can also go check out our YouTube channel, Paramount Tactical and as well as our X account, Instagram. Look for Paramount Tactical. You'll find us and help you.

[Blake]

Yeah, you've been doing great work. I just want to everybody should follow Gary's work. He is like, I mean, I reference him all the time. And we're going to get into ballistics. Do bullets do weird things? So, Gary, everybody that I've talked to since all this happened that's been in combat, everybody I know in that, that role that's actually seen live fire in combat says that bullets do weird things. What do they mean by that when they say that?

[Gary Melton]

Look, you know, when we talk about ballistics, we have internal, external and terminal ballistics. And terminal ballistics is a study of what happens when a projectile hits target. And it is the most unpredictable. We can, we can, we're pretty good at predicting what happens internally and externally. But once it hits a target, you know, there's so many things going on. It is an extremely high speed energetic event and there's so many things that happen at the micro level. As soon as that projectile touches anything at the speeds that it's going, it's going to deform. And really the prediction of that kind of goes out the window after that. The real problem that we have here in this particular case is everything that we would even begin to try to use to try to predict things. What, what could possibly happen? We don't know. We don't know the type of ammunition was it, you know, store bought? Was it hand loads? We don't know the weight of the bullet. What grain was it? Was it 55 grain? You can go all the way up to 220 grain. What type of projectile was it? Was it frang?

[Blake]

Yes. When you're, when you're talking about the grain, what does that mean exactly? For the layman?

[Gary Melton]

It is, it's the weight of the bullet. So how hard it is? Nope, nope. Just how much mass the bullet is, how heavy, how literally how heavy it is, it's what we use to actually measure. We don't use ounces or pounds to measure bullets. We use grains. And so it's how heavy that is. And so, you know, the thing that we need to understand is that the.30 06 was one of the most popular rifles in the United States for a really long time. And when we're picking ammunition, whether we're shooting, you know, varmints all the way up to moose, there is a ammunition Type specified for the.30 off 6. And then you get into things like, you know, right here I have reduced recoil ammunition, low recoil ammunition, tumble upon impact ammunition, again, some additional reduced recoil. And when we have this large array of different ammunition and projectile types to, to come to the conclusion that they're all going to result in the, you know, have the same results, which is what people seem to think is a little. Little crazy. And then just on top of that, like, we could take the exact same ammunition, the exact same rifle, the exact same target, and you're going to have varied results if you were shooting that exact same target a hundred times. It's just a. It's. It's very hard to predict what's going on. And there's a lot of variables that. That we can't account for, and we don't even have that information with when it comes to the Tyler Robinson case to begin with. But there's also a lot of variables that you'll never account for. Just between the variances of the ammo conditions, the way that it hits the target, all of these things.

[Co-host/Commentator]

We have a question from a listener, Jazz. They ask, why didn't the dude have a gun when he was jumping off the roof? Plus, was him putting it together or taking it apart with those little tools and being able to do it so quickly, Was that plausible? Especially on the second one. I'd have to refresh myself on the first. My belief is, did he have it?

[Gary Melton]

He did.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Carrying in his pant leg.

[Blake]

Carrying his pant leg. He was walking with a weird gate on the video. And we actually have some images of this, Gary, if you want to start.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Yeah. But if you have thoughts on the. On the assembly question specifically.

[Gary Melton]

Yeah. So unfortunately, what we had was we had the governor of Utah make kind of a silly statement. And he said when he was. After the. After he took the shot, he disassembled it. That is not true. And he actually does have the rifle when he jumps off of the building, and you can actually see it in several shots. The problem is we have a really crappy video that has been cropped way in. But if you actually look and look at it, there are many times where you can see what is clearly a rifle. Now, as far as assembly, what we believe is that he actually had the barreled action separated from the stock when he was walking around with that barreled action down his leg. So that's just the action in the barrel, the part that holds it all together. Well, not really the part that holds it all together, but the stock, the part that we is separate from it so he could make it more compact and carry it to the shooting location. Here's some great examples of pictures that I pulled where you can actually see that he clearly has something much longer. The problem is that this video footage is so poor. And then on top of that, it's zoomed. So it's, you know, it's cropped so far in that it is very difficult to see this. And I understand why people are confused by that. But all it takes is two screws to put the action, the barrel of action, back onto the stock itself. And it's not going to affect accuracy or anything like that. It would take less than a minute. And it's not that complicated, not that hard. But people have tried to over complicate it.

[Blake]

Yeah, this was fantastic. Gary, we're going to have you on again soon. Gary Milton, Paramount Tactical thank you.

[Gary Melton]

Thank you for having me.

[Co-host/Commentator]

For more on many of these stories and news you can Trust, go to charliekirk.com.