U.S. NEWS Kirk assassin's alleged gun was powerful, vintage and hard to trace

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U.S. NEWS
Kirk assassin’s alleged gun was powerful, vintage and hard to trace

Former federal agents fear the potential for other would-be assassins to seek out widely available, decades-old firearms that require only basic proficiency to hit distant targets.


————— Members of an FBI forensics team investigate a wooded area on Sept. 11, 2025, near the crime scene where political activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University in Orem.Melissa Majchrzak / AFP - Getty Images

Sep. 20, 2025, 5:00 AM EDT

By Rich Schapiro and Andrew Blankstein
In the frantic hours after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, investigators discovered a gun in a wooded area near the scene in northern Utah. The federal agents seeking to trace the weapon faced a daunting task.

It was a decades-old, German-made rifle built for use by the military in both World Wars, according to multiple law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation. So old that it may have been brought into the U.S. before laws were enacted in the 1960s requiring guns to be affixed with serial numbers or other marks to enable tracing. … There are believed to be millions of such weapons in homes across America.

Fortunately for investigators, the alleged shooter was identified through other means — his family — who convinced him to surrender to police. But the alleged use of such a vintage weapon has raised fears among some former federal agents of the potential for other would-be assassins to seek out these powerful, accurate and hard-to-trace firearms.

“Short of the security afforded to the president, there’s no way to defend against the threat posed by this,” said Scott Sweetow, a retired official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

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