Does a video from social media prove that the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk was carried out with a palm gun? No, that's not true: The video doesn't show what posts claim it does. According to the authorities, the gun found near the crime scene was a bolt-action rifle, not a handgun.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on September 14, 2025. It opened:
🚨🚨🚨 BREAKING FOLKS! A MUST WATCH VIDEO! THE 22 YEAR OLD TROUBLED TRANS KID WAS A PATSY TO TAKE THE FALL. THE ASSASSIN WAS THIS PROFESSIONAL WHO WAS NOT WATCHING THE CROWD, ONLY LOOKING DOWN UNTIL HE GOT THE SIGNAL, THEN HE LOOKED RIGHT A CHARLIE KIRK & SQUEEZED THE TRIGGER.
The post included a video that, in part, showed a man in khaki clothes. His right hand seemed to have been touching something around his left armpit.
In the clip, the voice-over continued:
This is your assassin -- right here, guys, right here. It's unbelievable that people can watch this and say, 'no, you're just delusional', or 'no, you snorted cocaine', or 'you're just stupid' -- like you can't see what I'm seeing. That is a palm gun. You may not know what a palm gun is, but that is a palm gun. Look it up. That is a palm gun. You can see him squeeze it. You can see the recoil, boom -- and Charlie Kirk is dead.
This is what the video looked like in the post on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at x.com/ValVenisEnt)
The image of a gun placed on top of the video in the upper left corner was not recent. According to Google, it had been on the internet for at least 10 years. It showed a palm pistol produced by Chicago Firearms (archived here) in the late 19th century.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of google.com)
The video showed Kirk being hit in the neck, but, contrary to the claim, did not capture the firing of a handgun by the person in the khaki clothes: No smoke or flame is seen in the video.
Authorities made no statements about a palm gun in the fatal shooting of Kirk. According to the Utah governor, what investigators found not far from the crime scene was a "bolt-action rifle wrapped in a dark-colored towel", a Mauser 98.
According to the FBI, the shot that killed Kirk was fired from more than 100 yards -- from the rooftop of a nearby building (archived here). As of this writing, the detained person of interest expected to be charged on September 16, 2025, was Tyler Robinson (archived here). Previously, authorities released images of him, as seen here (archived here) and here (archived here). As Amazon Rekognition confirms, Robinson is not the individual in khaki from the video on X:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Amazon Rekognition)
