{"id":138268,"date":"2025-09-12T09:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T09:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/138268\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T09:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T09:33:09","slug":"belfast-mma-fighter-lost-sleep-over-fatal-shooting-of-charlie-kirk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/138268\/","title":{"rendered":"Belfast MMA fighter \u2018lost sleep\u2019 over fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Saintfield athlete \u2013 who now lives in the USA \u2013 was speaking following the death of the father-of-two.<\/p>\n

McCourt recalled meeting with Kirk and his staff at Donald Trump\u2019s Inaugural ball in Washington DC back in January.<\/p>\n

Charlie Kirk (31) was shot dead in Utah on Wednesday. The American conservative political activist, author and media personality was the co-founder of the right-wing group Turning Point USA (TPUSA).<\/p>\n

Best known for his debates on college campuses on topics like abortion, LGBTQ rights and gun control, the Illinois father of two had been taking part in his American Comeback Tour at his \u201cProve Me Wrong\u201d table.<\/p>\n

US authorities have since released an image of a person of interest in the case. The suspect was seen running across a roof where the fatal shot came from, before making off into a wooded area.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Good Morning Ulster, the NI mixed martial arts star \u2013 who is also a devout Christian \u2013 paid tribute to Kirk.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met Charlie at the Inauguration Ball, the night before the official inauguration. His organisation, Turning Point USA held a really special night and had some of the best minds in the world at their ball,\u201d she told the programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met him briefly with his wife Erika, from then I was quite close with his chief of staff. They had over 450 people working for him, his chief of staff is 22. His chief of events was a young girl as well.<\/p>\n

\"Leah<\/p>\n

Leah McCourt at the pre-inauguration dinner for President Trump<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were just some of the most intelligent minds. I think he had such an impact on the youth in America and across the world because of his age, he was only 31.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was effective, he can could relate to them, and he understood the issues that young people faced.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [going out for debates] was what was so special about him. What is so misconstrued about him [is that] his views were common sense conservatism, not extremism.<\/p>\n

\"Champion<\/p>\n

Champion Leah McCourt<\/p>\n

Belfast History Explained: Who was Mary Ann McCracken?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was kind to people, he had a platform for young people to ask questions to give their point of view across. He platformed their point of view and put that online as well, not just his.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was such a strong voice for Christianity. Turning Point USA is seen as American first, but at the heart of it, Charlie really was Christ first. What he was doing was all for God and he just impacted so many lives across the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have many friends. I have many people from across the world, we have different opinions. That doesn\u2019t mean that hatred and violence has to be involved, or anger to extremism or violence has to be involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Charlie<\/p>\n

Charlie Kirk<\/p>\n

When asked about gun control in America \u2013 a frequent talking point of Kirk \u2013 McCourt claimed that taking arms away from Americans would be difficult to control.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have the good people who would give back their guns, criminals don\u2019t. Then the good innocent people are unarmed and in more danger,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould that [gun control] make that person [the perpetrator] stop having a gun? <\/p>\n

\u201cTo see the movement the Charlie was able to make in America and see who he impacted, it was so inspiring. I genuinely haven\u2019t been able to sleep over the past few days, because I just cannot believe such a great voice and a great man is gone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Saintfield athlete \u2013 who now lives in the USA \u2013 was speaking following the death of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[29427,49,48,641,74788,638,82,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-138268","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-belfast","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-gabrielle-swan","13":"tag-mma","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}