Any death due to gun violence is unacceptable

Charlie Kirk once said that the occasional death due to gun violence is the price we must pay to have unlimited gun rights. I’m guessing that he didn’t include his own death in that calculation, but there it is.

And I disagree with his statement, because it is an unacceptable price. The Constitution is about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the second amendment is not about gun rights, it is about state militias, with arms being mentioned as a side issue. It is tragic that Kirk died from gun violence, and that this happened is one more example of why we need to laws to restrict access to firearms that are far more deadly than anything the framers of the Constitution could have imagined.

The president ordered flags to be lowered to half-mast in memory of Kirk. If that was appropriate, then we should lower the flag for every schoolchild who dies from gun violence, as surely that is a more tragic death. And sadly, if we do that, then our flag will rarely be at full mast.

Russ Lenth

North Liberty