Inscriptions found on bullet casings in Charlie Kirk shooting: What we know

In September 2025, days after the conservative commentator Charlie Kirk died after he was shot during a speaking event at a Utah university, a claim (archived) circulated that investigators found cartridges or casings — including one from the bullet used to kill Kirk — engraved with expressions of "transgender and anti-fascist ideology."

One Facebook page that claimed it received the information through a source at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), one of the agencies investigating the Sept. 10 shooting, wrote (our highlight):

We received an email from an ATF source re the hit on Charlie Kirk: "ATF and other law-enforcement located an older model imported Mauser .30-06 caliber bolt action rifle wrapped in a towel in a wooded area near the campus. The location of the firearm appears to match the suspects route of travel. The spent cartridge was still chambered in addition to three unspent rounds at the top fed magazine. All cartridges have engraved wording on them, expressing transgender and anti-fascist ideology."

The claim also spread on X (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), Reddit (archived) and Bluesky (archived). Snopes readers wrote in, asking about the claim. 

Some claims (archived, archived) said that investigators had misinterpreted "TRN," an engraving used by the Turkish ammunition producer Turan Ammunition, as "transgender ideology."

On Sept. 12, two days after the shooting, investigators and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said during a news conference that authorities had arrested 22-year-old Tyler Robinson on suspicion of carrying out the shooting that killed Kirk.

Cox also said investigators found one fired and three unfired "bullet casings" inscribed with various messages. An unfired piece of ammunition is technically known as a cartridge. Firing a shot leaves behind a cartridge casing or case. Investigators found the four inscribed items — one cartridge casing and three cartridges — alongside a Mauser 98 in a .30-06-caliber, bolt-action hunting rifle in an area they knew the shooter had passed through, according to Cox. Two of the inscribed casings carried messages that could be interpreted as anti-fascist and one accused the reader of being gay. 

At the time of this writing, the ATF had not returned a request to confirm whether the reported bulletin describing the inscriptions as "transgender and anti-fascist ideology" had in fact circulated within the bureau. 

Authorities had also not released images of the casings, weapon or ammunition in question, so Snopes could not independently confirm whether the bullets carried the claimed TRN engraving. We'll update this story if further credible information about the inscriptions emerges.

Four inscribed 'bullet casings'

The Utah Department of Public Safety said in a Sept. 11, 2025, news release that it could not provide further details on "inscriptions" featured in reports about the weapon and ammunition used to kill Kirk. 

Then, on Sept. 12, Cox confirmed investigators found inscriptions on four "bullet casings." Investigators found the cartridges and casing alongside a Mauser 98 30.06 bolt-action hunting rifle that matched the description of a weapon that Robinson had messaged about with his roommate.

According to Cox, the single spent cartridge casing read, "Notices bulges OWO what's this?" Three unfired cartridges read, "Hey fascist! Catch!" with an up arrow, a right arrow and three down arrows, "Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao" and "If you read this you are gay LMAO."

The message on the spent casing was a meme parodying online communities such as furries. A furry is someone who identifies with animals that have human traits and, in some cases, enjoys dressing up like them.

The "Oh bella ciao" cartridge case could be interpreted as a reference to "Bella Ciao," a song dedicated to the Italian resistance that fought against Nazi German troops during World War II. That song contains the chorus line "O bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao, ciao, ciao." Authorities did not confirm during the Sept. 12 news conference whether the "Hey fascist! Catch!" and the "bella ciao" cartridges were both meant to be interpreted as anti-fascist messages.

Cox said during the Sept. 12 news conference that the "Hey fascist! Catch!" message "speaks for itself." Some news reports speculated that this cartridge referenced the "Helldivers 2" video game, with the arrows reportedly comprising a code that released an in-game bomb. Neither officials nor Arrowhead Game Studios, the developers of "Helldivers 2" had confirmed this connection at the time of this writing.

Investigators did not describe the suspected shooter's political beliefs during the Sept. 12 news conference. According to Cox, Robinson's family members said he had become "more political" in recent years and had expressed a dislike toward Kirk at a dinner before the Sept. 10 shooting.

Claim grew from WSJ report on ATF bulletin

The claim originated from a Sept. 10 Wall Street Journal report based on a bulletin about the shooting that reportedly circulated among law enforcement officials.

According to that bulletin, investigators reportedly "found ammunition engraved with expressions of "transgender and anti-fascist ideology'" inside the weapon they suspected a shooter used to kill Kirk.

However, on Sept. 11, The New York Times cast doubt on the authenticity of the reported bulletin. According to that paper's anonymous source, The Wall Street Journal's bulletin "did not match other summaries of the evidence and might turn out to have been misread or misinterpreted."

Snopes does not rely on anonymous sources and has not independently verified the reported ATF bulletin. At the time of this writing, ATF had not confirmed the existence of the reported bulletin.

The Trans Journalists Association warned that "transgender ideology" was "a term coined for and used in anti-trans political messaging to falsely equate identity with politics, which is a way to frame transgender identity as a political choice rather than an innate identity."

The Wall Street Journal later added an editor's note to its article. The note read:

Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray reportedly planned to file charges against Robinson on Sept. 16. Kirk, who was 31, was survived by his wife and two children.

Snopes continues to fact-check claims related to Kirk, including whether he said prominent Black women didn't have "brain processing power" to be taken seriously.

Staff writer Megan Loe contributed to this report.