Global Security, Privacy, & Risk Management

A Scout Sniper’s Forensic Analysis of the Charlie Kirk Assassination: Terminal Ballistics, Hydro-static Shock, and the Science Behind the Shot July 11, 2026

UPDATE! I have expanded upon this post and turned it into a much more comprehensive whitepaper. You can download here at Zenodo.org! or directly from this site below!

This is a long post but I think it is important. Recently I came across what I can only describe is an offensive AI ‘explanation’ by Candace Owen’ group that attempted to refute that Charlie Kirk was killed by a rifle round. More disturbingly, the ‘video’ is a mocking explanation of ‘conspiracy theorists’ who know what happened. The video was wrong at nearly every turn and was, quite frankly, offensively incorrect. Unfortunately, reading numerous comments on her page, a number of social media members believe and bought into her commentary. I want to refute her and explain with very direct math and science why it is 100% how Charlie Kirk was killed. Who am I to comment on this? I am a former Marine Corps Scout/Sniper, and Urban Sniper with combat time as a Sniper in the USMC. I was also a Force Reconnaissance Marine, and I have not only shot tens of thousands of rounds through rifles and am an avid hunter, but I also write extensively on firearm technology. In fact, I was selected for a DARPA counter sniper project during my time in the military due to my knowledge of ballistics and shooting.

Every time a high-profile shooting makes national news, social media fills with confident proclamations from people who have never fired a weapon in anger, never studied wound ballistics, and whose entire frame of reference comes from action movies and video games. The commentary ranges from the merely ignorant to the dangerously misleading (as in Ms. Owen’s) — and in some cases it is being amplified by public figures with large platforms who should know better. Recently, I was on a popular political commentator’s website and was amazed at how many people are now, suddenly, ballistics experts. Some of their comments were staggeringly ignorant. One person actually justified her very incorrect statement by saying she was the “ex-girlfriend of a hunter.” That is not a ballistics credential.

This post is not political. It is a ballistics education to provide insight into a terrible murder that is being overshadowed by a person’s pursuit of clicks, and money. That being said — for every so-called “ballistics expert” on social media who is doubting that Charlie Kirk was actually killed by that rifle at that distance, you need to read this post and understand a bit about how terminal ballistics actually works.

On September 10, 2025, at 12:23 PM local time, a single shot was fired from the roof of the Losee Center at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. The shooter was positioned approximately 142 yards from where Charlie Kirk was speaking. The weapon recovered was a Mauser-type bolt-action hunting rifle chambered in .30-06, loaded with (what appeared to be) Sierra GameKing 180-grain soft point ammunition. For consistency and we will simply say a non-bonded soft point bullet. Kirk was struck in the neck by a single bullet and was pronounced dead at Timpanogos Regional Hospital a short time later.

Within 5 minutes of the shooting my phone was blowing up with people asking what happened. My response: “Watching the impact, he was hit hard by a .30 cal. From an incline, close range. He was smacked so hard it looked like a .30-06”. Then, the hard question. Do you think he will live? My response? “No chance. His brain was dead nearly immediately and that was not a survivable wound. People asked why I thought that? Easy. He showed Decorticate posturing immediately upon being hit. Decorticate posturing is when arms flex inward, hands curl in. Indicates cortical or upper brain stem disruption. This is classic with hydro static shock impacting the brain (to be explained later). Classic high powered rifle shot that impacted the brain or nervous system.

People are claiming the distance is too far, the rifle was not ‘zeroed’ etc. etc. etc.. Many claimed that the wound characteristics don’t add up. That the bullet behavior was inconsistent with the stated circumstances. Every one of those claims reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of projectile physics, atmospheric ballistics, and terminal wound mechanics. This post addresses them directly, with math and science. What I am seeing circulate on social media right now needs to be corrected with facts, not speculation. A hunter is not a ballistics professional nor a professional at shooting humans.

I have radically updated the whitepaper as I received a number of requets from people wanting more information. You can download the whitepaper here or at Zenodo.com