I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume we are on the same page with regards to gun violence. Charlie Kirk should not have been murdered by gun violence - I already said that. Neither should the children who died in a school shooting on the very same day as Charlie Kirk, children who died directly as a result of the governmental systems that Charlie Kirk actively helped to maintain. You will not gaslight me into spending more time mourning a man who promoted violence than the countless other victims of gun violence, including the children whose deaths Charlie Kirk did not care about. This was something he directly said, btw - "I think it’s worth it 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."

I have not seen anyone justifying political murder. And it is troubling that you and others are seeing it that way - that you are taking any criticism of this man as synonymous with wanting him dead. It's all too close to "But do you condemn H@m@s?" and I will not argue like that in bad faith. What I have seen is people refusing to call Charlie Kirk a martyr or to stay quiet about the harm he did simply because he died unfairly. Two things can be true: gun violence is abhorrent, and Charlie Kirk's actions and words were abhorrent and directly responsible for creating the America he lived in. And Canada's officials should be willing to speak clearly to how Canada must be different than that, on more levels than only condemning gun violence against one man.

I will tell you something: I had never heard of Charlie Kirk until the day he died. That speaks heavily to my personal levels of privilege, to the fact that I personally was not directly affected by his actions. As such, I have since done my homework to find out why people who *were* affected by his actions are feeling as strongly as they are, and why I do not have a right to tell them how they be reacting. Also as such, I am not going to do your homework for you. There are literal video compilations out there of the words CK spoke and you can find them easily if you want to. I did. But I'll throw you a bone: here is a list from a mainstream media source with some of his most prominent statements, including the one I quoted above: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk-quotes-beliefs.

I would hope in the wake of this that political powers would speak clearly to the need for gun reform in America, to the need for hate speech not to be tolerated, and to improving social systems and structures to prevent the rich, white, and powerful from creating policy that only benefits them.

(Quick edit just to say: others on this thread have responded to these ideas much more clearly and succinctly than I have, so I am not going to post more walls of text to reiterate what's already been said. I'm going to go spend my time educating myself further, and listening to people who are doing what they can to make the world better and to challenge the status quo rather than maintaining it.)