By Mataeo Smith | Orem, UT | September 12, 2025 

Investigators claim that the alleged assassin who killed Charlie Kirk had a childhood obsession with firearms.

The 22-year-old Tyler Robinson was identified on Friday as the suspected assailant who shot Kirk during the conservative influencer’s protest on Wednesday at Utah Valley University. Robinson was spotted liking firearms as a child and seemed to regularly visit shooting ranges, according to social media posts from his family.

One photo from when Robinson looked like a teenager showed him holding a scoped rifle, while another showed him with an M2 Browning 50. caliber machine gun. A bazooka was in his hand in a third picture.

His mother shared pictures of Robinson and his two younger siblings at military functions and shooting ranges on Facebook. Amber Robinson was pictured clutching a US Army machine gun with pride in one of her posts.

As his family dressed in similar red clothes for Christmas 2017, Tyler Robinson was spotted with a brand-new iPhone and his brother a “build it yourself” gun kit.

Another photo from that year’s social media posts by Robinson’s mother showed him dressed as Donald Trump for Halloween. FBI Director Kash Patel and other officials identified Robinson as the suspected assassin who killed Kirk from a rooftop about 200 yards away using a Mauser 98 bold-action rifle on Friday.

Robinson was arrested Thursday evening in southern Utah, according to law enforcement authorities who spoke to the Daily Mail. Approximately 260 miles south of Kirk’s killing site in Orem, he resides in a six-bedroom, $600,000 mansion in Washington, Utah.

According to people who spoke to the Mail, the accused murderer confessed to his father, Matt. He was persuaded to talk to a local youth preacher who was also employed by the US Marshals Service after he allegedly told his father that he would rather commit suicide than give himself in.

Amber Robinson, his mother, is employed by Intermountain Support Coordination Services, a state-contracted organization that assists in the care of individuals with disabilities. According to internet records, both of his parents are registered Republicans.

According to individuals who spoke to the Daily Mail, Robinson attended Utah State University on a scholarship for just one semester in 2021.

According to a probable cause affidavit, he is charged with aggravated murder, felony discharge of a handgun causing serious bodily damage, and obstruction of justice.

At a press conference Thursday evening, authorities stated that Robinson would be executed if found guilty. Utah Governor Spencer Cox opened his remarks at a press conference Friday morning by saying, “We got him.”

“The question is, what sort of watershed?” Cox said, referring to Kirk’s killing as a ‘watershed point’ in American history.

He stated that Robinson’s relatives had told detectives that he had recently become more political and had told them that he didn’t like Kirk, calling him “full of hate.”

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