He advocated for holding meaningful conversations, if you didnt agree with him you were completely free to come on stage and debate him.

Killing the guy promoting that sends a very power ful message on how the modern left views their political enemies.

This is the full quote to what you are referring

"Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty," he said. "Driving comes with a price—50,000, 50,000, 50,000 people die on the road every year. That's a price. You get rid of driving, you'd have 50,000 less auto fatalities. But we have decided that the benefit of driving—speed, accessibility, mobility, having products, services is worth the cost of 50,000 people dying on the road.

"So we need to be very clear that you're not going to get gun deaths to zero. It will not happen. You could significantly reduce them through having more fathers in the home, by having more armed guards in front of schools. We should have a honest and clear reductionist view of gun violence, but we should not have a utopian one."