The Cost of The Second Amendment

"I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights."

~~ Charlie Kirk April 25, 2023

 On September 10, 2025, at 12:23 Mountain Daylight Time Charlie Kirk was shot and killed, allegedly by Tyler Robinson. I was on my way home, driving through New Mexico and listening to a podcast about the band Deep Purple, so I was completely in the dark about the killing. When I continued my journey the next day I started to notice that flags were at half mast and assumed that it was in recognition of 9-11. It was not. Trump had ordered flags to be lowered in honor of Kirk. Late in the day I checked messages on Facebook and saw numerous references to the murder. (I won't call it an assassination, which implies the killing of a political leader: a president or other high government official. It is however, a murder).

As of today, we do not know the motive for the killing. It is reasonable to assume that it had something, indeed everything, to do with Kirk's politics and the way that he communicated those politics. Since Kirk was such a prominent voice on the right, is was reasonable to assume that the motivation of the killer was leftist ideology, or at least opposition to Kirk's ideology. 

Reasonable to assume. 

It's nothing more than an assumption.

We don't know.

Right now, everyone is grasping at straws, flailing around, trying to interpret the meager evidence that is publicly available. Certain phrases inscribed on the bullet casings suggest leftist anti-fascist ideology, which alternatively may have been online gaming references; someone suggested that these same phrases indicated that the killer was a supporter of a rival right wing figure. A family member supposedly told law enforcement that Robinson claimed that Kirk was "spreading hate". Robinson was registered to vote, but unaffiliated with any political party and had not voted in any election. He's reportedly not cooperating with law enforcement. 

Summary: WE DON'T KNOW

But what if we did know? What should we do? 

The same thing we're doing now: charge the alleged killer with murder and whatever related pile-on charges they can come up with, and put him on trial. And if he's convicted by a jury of his peers, enact whatever penalty the law requires. Does it matter what his motivation was? Whether he was "radicalized" by "leftist ideology", or by allegiance to another right wing figure, or if he was just a freakin' nut, Robinson was the one who made the decision to pull the trigger and kill another human being and he's the one who should be held accountable. No one else.

But what about "the left's" incitement to violence, to "dehumanizing" the Trumpists? There's a lot of discussion about the proper use of the descriptors Nazi, Fascist, Dictator, and Authoritarian as applied to Trump and his coterie. A friend recently wrote about why what the Trump regime is doing doesn't sink to the level of Nazism, and she had a point. Fascism, includes Nazism, but they aren't identical. I know there are some technical definitions of Fascism that don't fit the current administration either. I have consistently use the term "dictatorship" from Day One. Trump's attempts, sometimes successful, sometimes not, to institute one-man rule over the machinery of government certainly fit even the strictest definition of dictator. Most publicly available comments by progressives range from calling-it-like-they-see-it labeling of Trump as a Nazi or a Fascist to mockery of his disjointed speaking style, to pointing out the harm that his policies bring. Democratic "leaders" don't even do that, still lulled into the dream that "we can all get along". Maybe there's fringe figures calling for violence, but I haven't seen them. 

In contrast, the right, including Republican party leaders and elected office holders and including the President of the United States, have incited violence, mostly ambiguously worded, but in some instances quite overtly. These instances are well documented. Violence against opponents of the regime is well documented also. The attack on Paul Pelosi, which Republican leaders laughed about and mocked; to the assassination of a Minnesota legislator and her husband and the non-fatal shooting of her colleague, which Trump ignored, declining to attend the funeral; the attack on the Capitol in 2021; and the plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan. It's quite disingenuous and hypocritical for the Trumpublicans to wring their hands over hate speech. 

Trump is a dictator. Not a particularly effective one, but a dictator just the same. One thing any dictator worth his salt will do is turn a tragedy into an excuse to crack down on dissent, to exert more control. And that's what he's talking about doing. Even before we knew who the killer was, let alone why he did it, Trump and his cult were raging about "dismantling and uprooting" left-wing groups. "Major investigations are underway" into leftist groups supposedly tied to the murder. Supposedly. More assumptions. 

Adjacent to official actions, Kirk stans are mobilizing to expose anyone who publicly speaks disrespectfully of Kirk, calling for them to be doxed or fired from their jobs. In many cases these people are simply quoting Kirk, or pointing out the hatefulness of his words and positions, not celebrating his death. What's hypocritical is that most of these right wingers were First Amendment absolutists until recently. They were in favor of the waves of disinformation on Twitter and were rabidly against any infringement of free speech, at least against their own kind.  Cancel culture was reviled. They even claim that Kirk was killed for exercising his right to free speech. Yet here they are, advocating for  "cancelling" those that they disagree with. 

Charlie Kirk was a horrible human being. Over and above his support for the dictator-in-chief, he showed zero empathy for the people killed in gun violence every year, including the many school children. In fact he claimed that empathy was "harmful and made up". He said birth control made women angry and bitter; 10 year old rape victims should be forced to give birth; he assumed that if the pilot was Black he was probably unqualified; the 1965 Civil Rights Act was "a mistake"; "Jewish money" was ruining America; gay people were destructive and should be put to death; he encouraged his followers to bail out Paul Pelosi's attacker. His so-called campus debates were anything but. He did take questions from people who disagreed with him, but it was usually just a setup for public humiliation of "woke" students not used to public speaking or debate. Like a comedian handling a heckler. 

Despite my belief that he was a loathsome feeder upon hate and divisiveness, he had every right to say what he said, and had every expectation that he wouldn't be murdered for speaking his mind. I'll never celebrate someone being killed like a rabid animal in the street...but you know what? Charlie Kirk thought it was part of the cost of having the Second Amendment.