What not to say about Charlie Kirk’s murder

I reflected yesterday on how not to respond to the shocking murder of Charlie Kirk. We should not either try to demonise or whitewash and canonize him.  He was neither monster nor angel.  I do think it is permissible to talk about his legacy and it is absolutely right to engage with and critique his ideology and agenda though that means reporting accurately what he said and did.  

However, what we also need to be careful about is using his death to shoehorn in other agendas that may feel tangentially linked but in fact are not. For example,  it seems highly likely that Kirk’s murderer was motivated by a desire to silence Kirk on specific issues but that does not immediately make Kirk right or wrong on those issues. 

I was particularly concerned to see memes and articles including this one immediately jumping on the gun control band wagon.  I think this one is particularly egregious because it barely engaged with who Kirk was before leaping into an argument for gun control.

Now, here’s the thing.  I favour gun control. I believe it is a good thing that we have strict controls here in the UK. They have limited the number of deaths, we don’t see the regular mass shootings we do in the US.  I wish the US has such protections and it frustrates me to see nothing done and in fact to hear that on the contrary gun sales go up after mass shootings.  The  weapons trade benefits from those atrocities.

However, Charlie Kirk’s death has nothing to do with gun control. This was not about an indiscriminate shooter. This was about a deliberate, targeted, cold blooded murder. Gun control laws cannot and are not designed to prevent such evil.

We should not use a tragedy or indeed a specific evil crime as a pretext to push other agendas no matter whether we feel strongly on the issue, no matter whether we are right on the issue.  On the day that Kirk died, there was another mass shooting atrocity. Sadly that will have been pushed down the agenda but it should remind us that the case against uncontrolled gun ownership stands without resorting to using Charlie Kirk’s murder to push it.