Perspective: Violence Is Never the Answer to Speech

Our First Amendment freedoms protect the right to speak out, worship, share ideas, gather with people of like minds and demand change. It particularly protects political ideas that challenge standards or beliefs.

We must remind ourselves that the First Amendment's 45 words contain a simple but powerful admonition: "peaceably."

The shooting of 31-year-old political activist Charlie Kirk — killed Wednesday afternoon as he was exercising his First Amendment freedoms of speech and assembly on a Utah college campus — is a betrayal of both human decency and of those very core concepts that are the foundation of our democratic republic.

The nation's founders provided strong protection for all five First Amendment freedoms, even as they built a nation amid fractious, dangerous times that ranged from revolution to religious disputes, vicious partisan politics and a hostile press.

They recognized that debate is not destructive, that discordant views need not be seen as divisive to the point of national destruction and that disagreement was inevitable among free people. The very existence of the freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition acknowledges the back-and-forth — a process sometimes involving rancor, impolite or insulting words, epithet, and concepts, but one that should never include violence, retaliation or threats of harm.

The founders realized the country needed a legal "safety valve" to deal with expected challenges of living in a nation where people may have starkly divergent points of view. The right to express ourselves serves as that safety valve, allowing people to use their First Amendment freedoms rather than act on their anger.

Attempting to silence a voice like Charlie Kirk's — or any of the all-too-many slain activist figures in our history — is a rejection of those freedoms and obligations of a civil society.

We know from multiple Freedom Forum annual surveys on First Amendment rights that some of us — 45% in 2024 — fear violence and other negative effects if we speak out. Kirk's murder, and the violence visited on others in recent years — from protesters to members of Congress, to a campaigning President Donald Trump — may accelerate those fears.

In the wake of his death, and amid today's fractious political climate, we must work to put aside those fears and threats and focus on using our core freedoms to achieve the founders' intent for self-governance: After debate, discussion and disagreement, we think, talk, gather and propose ideas and policies.

Regardless of your First Amendment-protected views, renewing a commitment to that system protects your right to express yourself freely. An America that resoundingly rejects political violence would be a real and long-lasting memorial to any American who's ever paid the ultimate price for speaking out.

Gene Policinski is a senior fellow for the First Amendment at Freedom Forum. He can be reached at [email protected].