When the Cost of Freedom Comes Due
Charlie Kirk spent years defending gun deaths as necessary. Now he’s a victim of the politics he championed.
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 hateful policies that he supported. They believe that his years devoted to the dissemination of hateful, 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 said, “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,” he stated plainly that children should be sacrificed to achieve the political end that he and his allies fought for. He admitted that being the school shooting capital of the world is the price we have to pay for freedom. That people should die senselessly, frequently, and en masse if that’s what guarantees us the right to bear arms.
If his words are to be taken at face value, it’s fair to assume that he was willing to be that martyr. If he wasn’t, then he’s a hypocrite. Calling that out isn’t the same thing as saying that he deserved to die. It’s pointing out that, by his own admission, he thought that people deserved to be systematically slaughtered in the name of political expediency. And if he would have rather watched ten more Sandy Hook School shootings occur before laying his own life down for the cause, he’s one of the most craven cowards that could be imagined.
No one should be killed for the simple sin of being a coward, but nor is it fair to assume that Kirk lied when he uttered those words. And if he issued them in earnest, it’s no leap to say that he was willing all along to be this martyr. Maybe he believed so strongly that school massacres should be the price of liberty, that he was willing to put his life down for the cause.
That doesn’t mean he deserved to die. It means his death is an uncomfortable reflection of the world he helped create — one where bloodshed is framed as freedom, and where each victim is someone else’s expendable sacrifice. If we’re to take anything from this moment, it shouldn’t be satisfaction, but a renewed urgency to end the cycle he defended. The tragedy of Charlie Kirk’s death isn’t that it disproves his worldview. It’s that it takes it to its logical conclusion.
You have expressed this much better than I could, Ben. Thank you.
Well thought out & stated Ben.