Some people using guns to defend themselves against who they believe are the harbingers of this authoritarian State is 2nd amendment working as intended. Not a "tragic but necessary sacrifice" as some will put school shootings, but actually what right to bear arms is supposed to be about.
And it's immaterial if you ultimately disagree to whether this administration is authoritarian, but these things will keep happening as long as enough people believe that to be the case. It's a feature, not a bug.
https://bsky.app/profile/chrisjustice01.bsky.social/post/3ly...
He was asked this question: "When do we get to use the guns?" "How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?" [sic]
I think it's best to watch his answer in full, and decide the nuances for yourself.
From my PoV, he agrees with the spirit of that comment. His response to "When to do we get to use the guns?" is to concede: "We *are* living under fascism. We *are* living under this tyranny" [sic]. In the context of that 2nd Amendment question about shooting tyrants, he identifies President Joseph Biden as a tyrant.
It's not ambiguous who these people think deserve to be shot.
I think it's highly remarkable that in that answer, Kirk actually never once condemns political violence. Listen to it and hear: not a word breathed to say killing political opponents is wrong, or immoral, or abhorrent to civics or American democracy, or, well: murder. His non-response is in a qualitatively different direction: he explains to the "When do we shoot them?" guy that murdering leftists would instigate a draconian law-enforcement response (by that same US government he had identified as "fascist" and "tyrannical"), and that that would set back far-right causes. That is, beginning to end, the entire substance of his response to "Why not shoot them?": fear of consequences.
- Pro–killing “undesirable” children (look up T4 or Tiergartenstraße 14)
- Virulently anti-Jewish
For starters, Charlie Kirk, for all his flaws, is the opposite on those two points.
I’m not pretending Charlie Kirk was a saint or planning to livestream the funeral but it does puzzle me how people who share far more political DNA with the Nazis keep declaring that others are the "modern Nazis" or Goebbels equivalents.
You mean people like Mohammed Khalil or Rumeysa Ozturk?
They weren't shot, but they were arrested, imprisoned without trial and threatened with expulsion for their opinions.
This isn't a "when did you stop beating your wife?" gotcha attempt. Rather, it's an attempt to point up that many of the folks (I'm emphatically not saying that you are one of those folks) who are making the same argument were all in favor of silencing Mr. Khalil, Ms. Ozturk and even argued for stripping Zohran Mamdani of his citizenship because he had the temerity to run a successful primary campaign for mayor of NYC.
If we're (the general 'we') going to make the argument that free expression is important and that we should see differing opinions as a normal part of the process of society, we need to do so for everyone. Even (especially) those whose opinions are objectionable.
And so, as long as we're willing to make the same statements for everyone, I'm in 100% agreement with you.
Those who are only willing to make that argument WRT opinions with which they agree, and again I am emphatically not accusing you personally account42, are not acting in good faith or with intellectual honesty.
Unfortunately, there are far too many folks who fit that description. And more's the pity.
Why did Donald Trump order flags to be lowered to half-mast for 5 days for this media personality ?
The Second Amendment fantasy is that you should own guns, so that you can kill people in the government and who are adjacent to the government. That means shooting real people with real bullets to kill them.
I think their reply is a criticism of the Second Amendment fantasy, rather than a remark that this is a worthwhile avenue for fighting fascism.
As others have pointed out, Charlie Kirk built a career on the Second Amendment fantasy, even explicitly delineating Democrats as targets he believes are acceptable to shoot and kill.
That said, I do disagree with the assumption that the shooter is necessarily opposed to the Trump administration or even to Charlie Kirk's rhetoric.
I'm curious though: In what way do Democrats (or "the left") share far more political DNA with Nazis?
While the cost of the second amendment is high, it might prove to be a better political stress release valve than I thought.
If anything, I wonder if the increased political violence will eventually cause conservatives to reconsider their lack of support for Red Flag laws.
This is wrong, it was not a moderated debate. The event was a campaign rally and anyone could be ejected for asking the wrong questions.
I believe those things are true of both the MAGA movement and of Nazis, albeit in different amounts of severity.
This is a very strong claim to make without support, especially given the history TPUSA had with people who were at best pushing the boundaries of the right. No historical comparison is going match perfectly but it’s hard not to see parallels in the attempts to subvert a democratic political system, demonize minorities, or the justifications they use. TPUSA frequently provided a place for fringe right people to circulate with the larger Republican sphere so while there were worse groups, they certainly weren’t trying to fight that trend.
> I’m not pretending Charlie Kirk was a saint or planning to livestream the funeral but it does puzzle me how people who share far more political DNA with the Nazis keep declaring that others are the "modern Nazis" or Goebbels equivalents.
Other than Fuentes and his farther-right faction that historically has attacked Kirk for being too wishy-washy and soft in his White nationalism, who do you think this “share far more political DNA with the Nazis” description concretely applies to?
It suspect you either have taken things out of context (or refer to someone else who did) or you are writing things that didn't happen.
How do you figure?
> The event was a campaign rally
For whose campaign, in what contest?
> anyone could be ejected for asking the wrong questions
According to what policy, cited where? What are "the wrong questions", and how did they apparently not include the ones Kirk was addressing when he was shot?
And Nazi Germany regime was at some point very into idea of a Jewish state.