Charlie Kirk – Free Speech and Violence

On 10 September 2025, Charlie Kirk was shot dead while addressing a crowd at Utah Valley University. A single bullet from a rooftop ended his life in an instant, bringing a violent close to one of the most divisive voices in American political life. His alleged killer has since been arrested, and the facts of the case will play out through the criminal courts. Yet the meaning of what happened extends beyond one man and one crime. It strikes at the heart of what it means to live in a society that claims to value human rights and freedom of expression.

There is no need to pretend that Kirk’s views were not often offensive and harmful. His politics were abrasive and frequently exclusionary, his rhetoric scornful of communities already marginalised. For many of us who hold human rights as a universal entitlement, not a privilege, what he said seemed antithetical to the very concept of equality and dignity. His words could wound, legitimise prejudice, and make life harder for those who already face discrimination. And yet, no matter how repellent we might have found his message, the manner of his death should disturb anyone who values the principles of a free society.

The killing of someone because of their words is an attack not only on that individual but on the very bedrock of rights that allows us to live together despite profound disagreements. At its core, human rights mean that we resolve our disputes without violence, that we answer words with words, that we rely on reason, law, and persuasion rather than force. When someone is silenced with a gunshot rather than with argument, we lose more than a life, we lose a piece of our collective commitment to live by rights rather than by fear. It cannot be ignored that Kirk’s speech likely incited division, possibly even violence, but it equally cannot be ignored that the position often ran by the opposite of Kirk can be said to do the same.

What makes Kirk’s death especially poignant in this respect is that he never shied away from confrontation. He thrived on challenge, he invited debate, and he exposed his ideas to the public square, for better or worse. That willingness to defend a position openly, to risk being questioned and rebutted, is a quality that should be cherished even when we deplore the substance of the argument. The free exchange of ideas is the bedrock of progress. It is messy, often uncomfortable, and inevitably painful when the ideas being traded feel like a denial of one’s own humanity or to be told that one is worthless, crazy, or inhuman. But it is the alternative to violence, and it is what gives us the chance to persuade, to change, or to resist without descending into bloodshed.

The famous adage comes to mind, I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it. This does not mean that all speech is beyond criticism, nor that the harms of speech should be minimised. Quite the opposite, it is precisely because speech matters, because it has consequences, that we must defend the principle of countering harmful ideas with more speech, better speech, and stronger arguments. To give in to the idea that a person may be killed for their views is to abandon human rights themselves, to replace it with a politics of vengeance rather than dialogue. This was recognised some 50 years ago by the European Court of Human Rights in Handyside v UK [1976] ECHR 5, where the Court stated:

“Freedom of expression … is applicable not only to ‘information’ or ‘ideas’ that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population.”

There is, of course, no single correct worldview. For every person repelled by Kirk’s beliefs, there were others who shared them, just as sincerely as you may hold your beliefs dear. That too is part of the reality of pluralistic society – we will never arrive at a moment when one set of ideas can be announced as final and universally binding, or at least the same is highly unlikely. The task is not to erase disagreement but to learn to live with it, to regulate it within the boundaries of law and rights, and to ensure that no one is stripped of life or liberty for holding views others despise.

The killing of Charlie Kirk is senseless in every sense of the word. It has deprived his family and supporters of a son, a husband, a leader. It has deprived his opponents of the chance to keep challenging him, to prove him wrong, to demonstrate that his vision was not the only one. It has deprived society of the opportunity to show that ideas, however poisonous, can be confronted without resorting to violence. Human rights do not exist only for those we admire, but also for those we reject. To forget that is to hollow them out until they are no longer rights at all, but privileges dispensed to the few.

History shows us the devastating consequences of going down that road. When societies abandon the principle of free expression and permit violence to silence dissent, what follows is rarely justice but tyranny. The most notorious example remains the Third Reich, where opposition voices were systematically eliminated, political parties dissolved, independent media crushed, and ordinary people cowed into silence by the threat of imprisonment or death. The result was not a society free from harmful ideas, but one consumed by them, where hatred and violence became state policy, unchecked by criticism or debate.

Other authoritarian regimes, past and present, follow the same grim pattern. The Soviet Union under Stalin, Pinochet’s Chile, Franco’s Spain, and more recently authoritarian governments that imprison journalists or suppress protest, all demonstrate that silencing opposition by force does not create peace or truth. Instead, it corrodes the very possibility of human rights, because when speech is extinguished, accountability disappears with it.

As we reflect on this killing, we should recommit to the principle that debate, not destruction, is the only acceptable answer to speech. The measure of a rights-respecting society is not how it treats those whose voices we welcome, but how it protects the right to speak of those we would rather not hear. Charlie Kirk chose to speak openly and to face his critics in public.

That choice should have been met with arguments, protests, and rebuttals – not with a bullet.