From Zapruder to smartphones: Assassination footage reshapes America’s view of political violence

When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, it took more than a decade before Americans saw the infamous Zapruder film.

Today, the killing of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk can be replayed in dozens of high-definition clips across social media, reshaping how the nation confronts political violence in real time.

“You’ll never have an assassination again that we don’t have footage of,” Tevi Troy, a presidential historian and former secretary of Health and Human Services under the Bush administration, told Fox News Digital. 

“I have an image in my head of what Lincoln’s assassination might have looked like, but every assassination since the Kennedy era, or even assassination attempts, there’s generally going to be footage about it now, and that’s just a very difficult thing.”

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The Zapruder footage of Kennedy’s assassination remained largely unseen by the public until 1975, when it aired on national television more than a decade after his death. Its grainy frames shocked viewers. Americans, at the time, were “much more dependent on what the caretakers of the culture would put on TV,” Troy said, and if a broadcast was missed, there was often no second chance to see it. 

“The gatekeepers controlled what you saw.”

In the minutes after Kirk was shot in the neck on his “American Comeback Tour” at the Utah Valley University on Wednesday, graphic video clips captured by bystanders using phones flooded social platforms like X, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. 

Traditional outlets held back from airing the moment of impact, but social media users shared multiple angles — including real-time replays and slowed-down segments — many without content warnings or editing.

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“Desensitizing is the right word. … It’s not good for you,” Troy said when asked what the impact of such high-speed graphic footage could do to the public. 

“It’s not good for your soul. It’s not a question of not being available. It is available. Then you have to make an effort not to see it,” he said.

Troy noted that in the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s killing, some voices on the left appeared to rationalize or downplay the violence, while others rushed to frame the suspect’s background in ways that minimized political fallout for their side. He called the reaction “a ghoulish exercise.”

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“There’s a horrible tragedy where this person who just wants to have political conversations was murdered with three young kids,” Troy said. “But this is where we are today. If there is political violence, they want to make sure it’s framed in such a way that it doesn’t bring their side down.”

Kirk, 31, was killed Wednesday by suspected shooter Tyler Robinson while answering a question at Utah Valley University. He leaves behind his wife and two children, ages one and three.