When the Cost of Freedom Comes Due

Charlie Kirk spent years defending gun deaths as necessary. Now he’s a victim of the policies he championed.

Photo of Charlie Kirk on September 10th, 2025 / pbs.org

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, there are two primary camps that have emerged. In some ways, there’s a bipartisanship to this moment. Many Democrats and Republicans are in agreement that no one deserves to be murdered in front of their families.

But many on my side of the aisle have adopted the belief that Charlie Kirk invited what he got because of the hostile policies that he supported. They believe that his years devoted to the dissemination of hateful, anti-trans propaganda and pro-gun rhetoric directly provoked the fate that he ultimately met. I can’t exactly call the notion senseless.

But there’s a middle ground. I think that the stance was well summed up by the Twitter account @mitchspresso when she said, “no one deserves to be a victim of gun violence but if you’re going to say gun deaths are necessary to uphold the 2nd amendment, you should probably be prepared to be one of them.” It may sound like just another way of saying that Kirk deserved to die. But the philosophical distinction is significant.

When Kirk claimed, “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so…