Yesterday, Charlie Kirk was assassinated on a college campus in Utah, plunging the United States into a heated debate on the role of guns in our society once more.
Kirk, aged just 31, was a leading figure in the right-wing political sphere, and was even personally endorsed by Donald Trump, who rightly viewed Kirk as a means of bridging the generational gap between himself and younger voters in the United States.
Within minutes, a tide of messages offering prayers to Charlie and his family consumed the internet and television broadcasts nationwide. Soon after, opinions from left-leaning citizens swept in, and criticized Kirk for his zealous advocacy against gun control in this country. The amorphous ‘Woke Liberal’ cohort was quickly chastised for what the Conservatives characterized as a ‘lack of empathy’ in the wake of a tragic event.
I will state, unequivocally, that what transpired yesterday in America was a tragedy, and needs to stop. My stance on gun control has always been consistent - we need it. Read my article here for more.
What is most-gripping to me is the sheer irony of the situation. Only in America could a political advocate be assassinated in broad daylight defending the need for the 2nd Amendment, followed closely by yet another mass school shooting in the neighboring state.
Although a horrific event like Charlie Kirk’s murder could not be anticipated, the response to it can be. Conservatives will continue to defend their right to bear arms, holding strong to their stance that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” offering their thoughts and prayers as Kirk’s tragic demise becomes fodder for the raging rhetoric vilifying the mentally unstable ‘Liberals.’ The Liberals, for their part, will condemn the event, and signal once again that this should be a turning point in the endless war against gun violence in the United States.
What we must remember in this moment is the importance of empathy for others in our society, and that this does not have to be reality in the richest nation on earth. There are solutions to this problem, and we have but to look around us to see how other countries around the world have mitigated the inherent dangers of an over-armed populous.
Numbers Don’t Lie
In the debate on gun rights, we often hear the same rhetoric tossed around ceaselessly - guns are not responsible for the deaths; people are. However, the data demonstrate that the correlation between guns per capita and gun deaths is undeniable and unassailable.
The United States is a clear outlier in two categories on the global stage - guns per capita, and gun-related death. No other nation even comes close. Even more-disturbing is that, according to a study from Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, it is still the leading cause of death for children and teens, and has increased by 106% since 2013. Without argument, more guns is the direct cause of more gun deaths.
Those who continue to support the 2nd Amendment often defend it as an inviolate right of every American citizen. However, I would like to point out that the 2nd Amendment is just that - an amendment to the Constitution that was added in the Bill of Rights after the initial version that was ratified in 1788. Both of these proclamations were predated by the Declaration of Independence, which laid the groundwork for the formation of the United States as a sovereign nation, and clearly stated that all people are endowed with the unalienable rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. In my mind, this points to the fact that these are the initial rights of every human being, which are then expanded upon in the Bill of Rights in 1791.
Therefore, the question becomes - does an individual’s right to bear arms eclipse the rights of the victim to Life? I believe that it does not.
Thus, to me, the argument that the guns are not the problem rings hollow. In a country that averages a gun death every 11 minutes and has the highest rate of firearm homicide among developed countries, we have to come to the conclusion that guns are, indeed, the problem. Everything else follows.
Until we have reached a mutual agreement, the deaths will continue to rise, and citizens of the United States, along with their children, friends, family, and neighbors, will continue to suffer as a result.
Failed Promises
Each time we watch on in horror as yet another mass shooting is revealed on the news and spread across social media, we, as Americans, hear two conflicting messages. The Conservatives refuse to blame the guns, and we see a precipitous rise in purchases of firearms across the country. On the opposing side, we hear cries for common-sense gun reform, and a promise that this time will be different, that it is an inflection point in the battle against gun violence in our country.
Upon highlighting the irony of a supporter of gun rights, who argued that gun deaths are ‘worth it’ if it means protecting the 2nd Amendment, being shot for expressing these beliefs, I was immediately labeled as ‘sick’ and lacking empathy by people of different opinions. Nevertheless, in my view, if gun control were to become more-strict and universal, senseless killings like that of Charlie Kirk would be greatly reduced. At the end of the day, regardless of his status as a well-known and controversial political advocate, Kirk is but the latest victim of an endemic problem in our society, and buying more guns and praying that next time will be better simply isn’t cutting it.
This is generally when the topic slides into the issue of mental health in America, which I understand all too well as someone who suffers from a severe mood disorder. Yet, in a time when many organizations operating in the Mental Health space are struggling to keep the lights on, the Trump administration has cut billions of dollars in federal funding for programs meant to address this critical issue. It should also be mentioned that, according to the National Library of Medicine, a ‘large majority of people with serious mental illnesses are never violent.’
It didn’t take long for President Trump to accuse the ‘radical left’ of killing Charlie Kirk. As evidenced by daily outbursts by the Leader of the Free World opining that the Left are comprised of violent terrorists, the address was just another instance of Trump using his incendiary rhetoric to pin the citizens of this country against one another. Even more-baffling is that Trump, in the same speech, called this type of violence a ‘tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree.’ Is it not hypocritical to indict your opponents for demonizing those with whom they disagree?
Within hours of the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk, we learned from FBI Director Kash Patel that there was a mass shooting in the suburbs of Denver, the 47th school shooting in 2025 alone. This has become a near-daily occurrence, and still, Conservatives argue that guns are not the problem, and gun regulation is not a deterrent for criminals seeking to exact terror on the public. This argument is flimsy, at best, with data showing that nearly 80% of weapons used in mass shootings in the last 40 years in the United States were obtained legally. A uniquely chilling example was the Mandalay Bay shooting in Las Vegas in 2017, during which Stephen Paddock used a staggering arsenal of advanced weaponry to kill 58 and injure hundreds more, all of which was obtained legally. The math is simple - the harder it is to obtain a weapon, the less likely that any person, even those with ill intent, is to perpetrate these types of killings.
Mere words are not enough anymore. In fact, they haven’t been for a long time. We need clear, defined, and expeditious action to mitigate the dangers of unregulated gun ownership in the United States, lest we, and our children, remain the victims of these senseless acts of violence forever.
The Price of Freedom
I am firm in my belief that the United States can do much better on this issue, because I have seen how other developed nations have successfully grappled with it. An example to which I often refer is the response of the Australian government following the tragic events of the Port Arthur Massacre, which claimed the lives of 35 people in 1996. Soon after, a gun-buyback program was instituted that reclaimed over 700,000 weapons from the public, and was the turning point for gun reform in Australia. As of 2023, firearm homicide rates in the United States were 33 times greater than in Australia. This is not a coincidence; it is proof that gun reform works.
The question of security in the United States is one that was elevated in the wake of the catastrophic events on 9/11, which precipitated the Bush administration’s ‘War on Terror.’ Since then, Americans have watched on as surveillance and security measures have been augmented at-scale by the federal government, leading some to question whether this invasion of privacy was representative of a violation of the rights of citizens. Even corporations, like Facebook and Google, have overstepped their bounds, repeatedly abusing their power over sensitive consumer data to drive profits. In recent months, Palantir signed a government contract to build a database on United States citizens in a stunning instance of a corporation stepping into a political role. Sam Altman, head of OpenAI, recently stated that ChatGPT does, in fact, scan user conversations for potentially dangerous intentions, and will report these to law enforcement if deemed necessary. Considering all of that, does privacy truly exist in the United States?
After visiting China earlier this year, and traveling extensively in Europe and Central Asia, I often question whether oversight by the government in these countries is any different than what we experience at home, and find myself admiring the effectiveness demonstrated by these nations in mitigating the dangers of gun violence. China, for example, has a gun death rate 595 times lower than that of the United States, 11.9 per 100,000 compared to China’s 0.02. I have to say that I felt safe for my entire stay there, and was thoroughly impressed by China’s dedication to the security of its citizens.
I also had the privilege of visiting Denmark, which was rated the second safest country in the world, and has only had 3 mass shootings since 1997. For the sake of comparison, the United States ranked 131st on the Global Peace Index, and has had 302 mass shootings in 2025 alone. During the time I spent in Denmark, I walked freely on the streets, and did not feel an ounce of concern being in public, even late at night. This is, likewise, not a coincidence. Denmark has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, with a total ban on automatic weapons like the ones used in some of the most-terrifying mass shootings in the United States, including Uvalde, Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Parkland.
As the Conservative base likes to say, ‘facts don’t care about your feelings.’ Every ounce of data and every study on this issue shows that America’s gun problem isn’t an anomaly - it is a result of unbridled access to dangerous weapons that are too often used to commit these atrocities.
Is it fair to continue to consider these astonishing acts of gun violence the ‘price of freedom’ in 2025? I don’t think so. Now, more than ever, we have to consider the wellbeing of our citizens above all else, and the implementation of proven methods to counter gun violence is not only paramount, but critical to the survival of our nation.
