I'm not particularly pro-gun but that's a legitimate view to hold. Most things have positive and negative consequences. As an example, like most people in the world, you probably hold a similar view in relation to cars. Over a million people globally are killed in motor vehicle accidents every year and tens of millions are injured or disabled by them. But nobody seriously proposes banning motor vehicles. We accept the loss of so many lives is worth the benefits we get from using motor vehicles. He believed the benefits of the right to bear arms outweighed the costs. You can obviously disagree, most people in Britain would, but that doesn't mean he deserved to be murdered.
No, he certainly didn't deserve to be murdered, but I would definitely disagree with your point re the right to bear arms (for a start, a motor vehicles primary use is to travel, a guns primary use is to kill). It's actually said far more eloquently by the black American radio host, Charlemagne, so I'll reproduce that here -
"Everybody is just assuming this is political violence and it quite possibly it is, matter fact I'm sure it is, but you know what else it is? Gun violence," Charlamagne said on "The Breakfast Club."
"Okay, these nutjobs who don't believe in freedom of speech clearly believe in their right to bear arms and because of the lax gun laws in America they are able to get firearms to carry out these violent acts," he continued.
"Now, let the record show that when I heard what happened to Charlie Kirk yesterday, I immediately felt fear. Okay? I was afraid. I'm a Black man in America, I think about getting shot every day," he went on. "But guess what? Every American should think about getting shot every day when you're out and about in a public place simply because it's been zero days since a mass shooting happened in this country."
Kirk, a hardcore pro-gun demagogue who made a living stoking racial and gender divisions, was shot and killed at a speaking even at Utah Valley University, seemingly with a high-powered long range rifle. The shooter is still at large.
"But my personal fear was also because I'm a media personality," Charlamagne said. "I don’t want to live in a country where media personalities are being shot and killed for their opinions or what they believe, but I also know that as much as we like to point to the First Amendment and say we all have freedom of speech, we are not free from the consequences of said speech."
“That’s why mindfulness of what we say is very important, because there is a cost to everything that comes out of our mouth. And unfortunately, we don’t get to set the price," he continued.
"And I must say, Charlie Kirk understood the price of our freedoms more than most,” said Charlamagne before playing a clip of Kirk that has gone viral in the wake of the tragic killing.
"You will never lived in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won't have a single gun death. That is nonsense. It's drivel," said Kirk. "But 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. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe."
If Republicans did not habitually block every attempt at sane gun violence out of a need to pander to gun nut voters and firearm manufacturers, Kirk might still be alive. His ideology has created an America that is awash in guns.
"I just wonder when people say things like that, do they think they may be one of those deaths?" said Charlamagne. "Is worth it when one of those casualties is you or someone you love to protect the rights given to us by the Constitution?”
“If they believe they too could be one of those deaths, and they’re cool with that, I respect it so I guess you honor Charlie Kirk by buying more guns — based on that logic yeah — but I don't know about y'all but that sounds kind of ridiculous to me," he added.
“See, even if Charlie Kirk had a gun yesterday, it wouldn’t have protected him,” he continued. "When somebody got the drop on you, they got you. Only thing that could have saved Charlie Kirk yesterday was keeping guns out of the hands of violent extremists like the person who killed him.”
"And the only way to do that is with common sense gun reform," the host concluded.
