Split Screen: Another Weekend of Murder, Here and Abroad

Jeff Robbins on Dec 16, 2025

Historians considering the state of American depravity will doubtless pause to reflect on the remarkable support in certain quarters for accused killer Luigi Mangione, charged with murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk last year. Mangione was caught on video pumping bullets into Thompson, a father of two, as he entered a hotel. There were times when cold-blooded murder would inspire universal revulsion; however, we do not seem to be living in those times.

It isn't that anyone doubts Mangione committed the murder, but rather that many Americans praise him for having committed it. Hashtags like #FreeLuigi have proliferated. His admirers stage rallies on his behalf and fill social media with pro-Mangione messaging. His website has reportedly raised over a million dollars, and his statement on it says it all. "I am overwhelmed by -- and grateful for -- everyone who has written me to share their stories and express their support," Mangione says. "Powerfully, their support has transcended political, racial and even class divisions, as mail has flooded (the correctional facility holding him) from across the country and around the globe."

Unfortunately, this isn't wishful thinking. According to an Emerson College poll taken a year ago, 41% of voters under 30 found the slaughter of Brian Thompson "acceptable." According to a poll taken by Generation Lab, 48% of young Americans found the killing either somewhat or totally justified.

Depravity visited the Providence, R.I., campus of Brown University last weekend, where students were studying for their final exams before returning to their families for Christmas break. A gunman took an automatic pistol and fired 40 rounds at students studying for an economics exam, murdering at least two students and critically injuring nine more. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of students hid in their dorms or in shelters for hours as law enforcement searched for the killer. Everyone at Brown will feel the trauma for the rest of their lives. "Students should be sledding on cafeteria trays from the (Brown dining hall) today, between studying for finals, as the snow falls, not sitting in lockdown, fearing for their safety, or mourning lost friends," posted Zaid Ahmad Ashli, the head of solar energy company Nexamp, who attended Brown in the 1990s. "This cannot be the norm."

Too late. According to CNN, in America, there have been nearly 400 "mass shootings," defined as a shooting in which four or more people other than the shooter have been injured or killed, this year. The arithmetic speaks for itself: that's over one every day.

Ten thousand miles away, on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, a father-son mass murderer duo targeting Jews massacred at least 16 people celebrating Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights. At least two rabbis were killed, at least one child and a Holocaust survivor who died while trying to shield his wife from the gunfire. It was, as Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt put it, "a sad and shocking event, but unfortunately not altogether surprising." Since 1200 Jews were slaughtered by a genocidal group that invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Jews -- the victims of that slaughter -- have seen dramatic increases in anti-Semitic assaults of one kind or another all over the world.

It's long past time to stop pretending that chants of "Globalize the intifada!" and "There is only one solution -- intifada revolution!" and "From the river to the sea!" are much more than endorsements of killing Jews. Let's face it: those who have tried to put lipstick on that pig, prettifying anti-Semitism by posing behind professions of progressivism, share responsibility for killings like those that occurred on Bondi Beach with those who pulled the triggers.

They ought to be ashamed.

They aren't.

A season of peace feels like a season of homicide. Countries like the United States and Australia, that are supposed to be exemplars of civilization, are looking like killing fields. And in too many quarters, the intentional taking of life is indulged, or even glorified.

Difficult days.

Jeff Robbins' latest book, "Notes From the Brink: A Collection of Columns about Policy at Home and Abroad," is available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books and Google Play. Robbins, a former assistant United States attorney and United States delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, was chief counsel for the minority of the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. An attorney specializing in the First Amendment and a longtime columnist, he writes on politics, national security, human rights and the Middle East.