Over the past year, folk singer Jesse Welles has become an unlikely star thanks to protest songs about everything from ICE raids and the health care industry to the opioid epidemic and the invasion of Ukraine. And less than 24 hours after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University, Welles dropped a mournful ballad about the incident.

“For all of the bile/The bold talk,” he sings. “The venom/The hate and the lies/No one should be killed/No blood should be spilled/Charlie shouldn’t have died/Well you can’t hate the gun and love the gun that shot yer rival/You can’t be kind and wish pain upon a child.”

The 31-year-old Kirk was shot dead on Wednesday while speaking to students at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, at an event on Turning Point USA’s “

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