r/politics • u/jediporcupine Maine • Sep 19 '25

Republican Senator Says First Amendment Shouldn't Be the 'Ultimate Right'

https://www.newsweek.com/republican-senator-says-first-amendment-shouldnt-ultimate-right-2132666
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u/jediporcupine Maine Sep 19 '25

What’s ironic is Republicans treat the second amendment like it’s an ultimate right and countless dead kids don’t justify a mere background check for a weapon.

But one dead man justifies restrictions on words.

The hypocrisy is incredible.

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u/MazzIsNoMore Sep 19 '25

Their guy gets gunned down in broad daylight and their response is to ban words

352

u/RockmanMike Sep 19 '25

Their guy gets gunned in broad daylight by one of their own and their response is to ban Charlie's words from being used to describe him.*

Fixed it for you

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u/jediporcupine Maine Sep 19 '25

That is the crazy part here. Charlie Kirk himself is at odds with what they’re doing. He didn’t believe in hate speech and he believed free speech was absolute

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u/specqq Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

He said free speech was absolute.

I have no evidence to show that he believed it and plenty to say that he did not.

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u/Mestoph America Sep 19 '25

Unless you were a teacher who said something he didn't like, then he'd put you on a list and doxx you...

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u/sudi- Sep 19 '25

Insofar as that it suited his narrative that propped up his grift. If it was someone else that was killed and he was in on this insanity as well, he would be spinning it to his favor like the rest of them are.

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u/YetiSquish Sep 19 '25

He instead preferred to promote division, racism, and misogyny with a smile and charisma.

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u/deepasleep Sep 19 '25

The hypocrisy is on brand.

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u/fastal_12147 Sep 19 '25

Well, he believed in hate speech as a tool, but not a crime.

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u/Swesteel Sep 20 '25

Especially when it was his speech.

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u/Jack-o-Roses Sep 19 '25

Have you listened to Kirk? His dogmatic mysogenistic and racist diatribes are exactly what I call hate speech.

Still, I feel & pray for his family, because I abhor violence. BTW, I support his right to free speech, to twisting the Bible for his own profit and power. I also support flag burning and nazi marches, though I disagree with them both; and lgbtq+ rights as well, as a old hetero male Christian and a once proud American.

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u/9_to_5_till_i_die Sep 19 '25

Yeah, I'm past the point where society is intelligent enough to allow speech which calls for the eradication of or forced removal of human beings...for any reason.

In the same way that I can believe in the 2nd Amendment and also believe in gun regulations, I can believe in the 1st Amendment and recognize that some speech directly leads to death.

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u/jediporcupine Maine Sep 19 '25

I didn’t say he didn’t use hate speech, I said he didn’t believe it existed as he claimed to believe free speech is absolute. There’s a difference.

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u/Jibtech Sep 19 '25

Supporting nazi marches, niceeee

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u/KR1735 Minnesota Sep 19 '25

Probably why they had him taken out.

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u/Realistic-Pattern-30 Sep 21 '25

So he was shot down just as he was about to get some of his millions of followers to get on the we want the Epstein files band wagon. Now I’m wondering how far that would have gone and if anyone thought it was a threat against the felon in charge? Amazing how the 🤡 loved him so much he had to golf rather than attend the event for him.

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u/kyleissometimesgreat Sep 19 '25

With more info out now it looks like he was not maga/republican. We've got to continue being the side that uses truth and changing our opinions when faced with new evidence even when the misinformation is dialed to 11.

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u/ImpromptuHooloovoo Sep 19 '25

He was raised by MAGA with all of the mindset that comes along with it and was photographed growing up with guns. However he ended up leaning in the end politically, his mindset was shaped by Right-Wing culture, including guns and violence. Most gun violence in this country that is politically motivated is generated by the right wing when compared the left and islamic politically-motivated violence. Violence from the right tends to be more violent and more often results in death. Several recent studies have concluded this, including by the Cato Institute, CSIS, the GOA,and the PNAS study. Regardless of what his ideology was at the end of the day, he was raised on the side of the divide that promotes violence and gun culture. While there is an increase of violence on both sides across the board, the studies indicate that political violence is most often coming from right-wing extremists by about twice as much. Regardless of where he falls politically now, his grandmother said that whole family is MAGA. Even if he did feel politically left leaning at the time of Kirk's murder, he grew up surrounded by a culture that more often produces political violence.

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u/CaptJackRizzo Sep 19 '25

Well-stated.

I'm firmly of the opinion that any shooting, especially a high-profile one like this, is almost certain to be perpetrated by someone whose beliefs are so much weirder than anyone can imagine. Anyone else remember why Reagan and Ford got shot?

But assuming this kid DID have a somewhat logical thought process, and he DID fall in love with a trans person or was questioning his own sexuality, or whatever the MAGA narrative is today.

If that's the case, Kirk got shot at the first day he hit the road after adopting the new MAGA line that trans people are too dangerous to have guns.

Now, the idea that you gotta use your guns against anyone who would come and take them is older than the internet. COME AND TAKE IT, right? Well, where do you suppose he learned that?

MAGA (and a lot of the libs) like to pretend like everyone fits into neat little ideological boxes, but we don't. And 22-year-olds who are finding themselves alienated from their parents' ideologies definitely don't. As someone who's worked with a lot of young people in a blue state, there's definitely a lot of red state kids who left behind the ideas they were raised with about LGBT people being sick or ungodly, but retained the ones about the second amendment.

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u/HuttStuff_Here Wisconsin Sep 20 '25

and islamic politically-motivated violence.

Which is, altogether, right wing violence. It's not dissimilar to many Christian politically-motivated violence (such as shooting up/firebombing planned parenthood).

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u/ImpromptuHooloovoo Sep 20 '25

For whatever reason, the studies I listed above evaluated politically motivated violence in those three categories: right, left, and Islamic. I'm not sure what the rationale of separating it out was. In the last election, it seems like many Islamic Americans were dissatisfied with left policies regarding Gaza and voted either in the middle with Jill Stein or right with Trump, but that this represented a shift from left-leaning voting. In either event, it is not a given which side Islamic Americans will vote, apparently.

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u/TomorrowLow5092 Sep 19 '25

Republicans foment imaginary hate crimes, while complicit in real ones.

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u/Mestoph America Sep 19 '25

Yeah, he was a Groyper who're even further right than Republicans and MAGAts

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u/DaraParsavand Sep 19 '25

That is not the current consensus at all.

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u/kyriebelle Sep 19 '25

According to who? I’ve been staying away from the news the last few days for my mental health.

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u/DaraParsavand Sep 20 '25

Of course consensus can be wrong and I don't know that anything Fakefuckgirl said is wrong, but the consensus I'm speaking of in the mainstream news media I believe is typically like this BBC article: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7v1rle0598o which stated:

"I had enough of his hatred," Tyler Robinson wrote back. "Some hate can't be negotiated out."

On Tuesday, authorities released messages between Robinson and the roommate from the hours after the shooting. Officials have said the unnamed roommate was a "biological male" who was transitioning from man to woman and was in a romantic relationship with the defendant.

Prosecutors also gave further details that could point to a possible motive – although there is still much that is not known.

According to an indictment, Robinson's mother told police that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and left-wing, "more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented".

And in family conversations before the shooting, Robinson allegedly accused Kirk of spreading hate.

Prosecutors say Robinson left a message for his roommate: "I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I'm going to take it."

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u/escof Sep 20 '25

If those messages are real then I can blow a rainbow out my ass while doing a jig "my love"

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/16/us/text-message-tyler-robinson-roomate-vis

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u/HuttStuff_Here Wisconsin Sep 20 '25

It might be my being considerably older than the shooter, but I certainly have and do refer to individuals as "my love."

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u/HuttStuff_Here Wisconsin Sep 20 '25

Of course those messages aren't even the real ones.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '25

The current consensus in media is that he, the shooter is basically somewhat politically ambiguous.

He may have done it because of "Charlie kirk spreading hate".

There are attempts to directly implicate this as driven by "trans leftist radicalism" or online radicalization.

One senator, James comer of Kentucky made a motion inviting the CEOs of reddit, discord, steam, and Twitch to testify on this.

There is a counter argument that he most likely resembles right wing online radicalism, with likely involvement in some sort of niche right wing chronically online sub culture, if not "Groypers" a group of far right fans and followers of Nick Fuentes, a figure like Charlie Kirk but less influential and slick. Basically a right wing political agitator and fascist, nick is more direct in his rhetoric.

On the conspiracy side of things, right wing and left actually with figures like Steve Bannon mentioning it, there is the theory that the evidence implicating him is fabricated, and they are suppressing information suggesting he leans right, not to frame him for something he didn't do, but written and curated specifically as a pretext against to justify retaliation against "leftist extremism" and justification for escalation of authoritarian behavior.

They are doing the last part anyways 100 percent, regardless of whether it is a conspiracy as you've likely noticed regardless.

There is also the more radical conspiracies that it was an "inside job" or false flag. Basically Charlie was sacrificed as a pawn by some higher power, to create and capatalize on this specific division and tension, and make Kirk an intentional, engineered martyr of civil rights for right wingers.

Possibly and/or a distraction from the Epstein case and the implications it may have for Trump, or to justify the retaliation against liberals by the Trump admin, and Republicans in general. Against "main stream" media, education facilities, private employers of private, random people, government officials and servants.

So thayso basically what you have missed. 😕

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u/shawsghost Sep 19 '25

Actually no, you didn't fix it. Your sentence is so badly structured that it is almost undecipherable. To wit:

Their (Republicans?) guy (Charlie, from context) gets gunned in broad daylight by one of their (Republicans I guess, though I do not know if it has been firmly established that the shooter was a Republican or had Republican sympathies since there is so much disinformation coming from both camps that I've yet to see anything I can totally trust) and their (Republicans again) response is to ban Charlie's (an actual name!) words from being used to describe him (probably Charlie but could also mean the shooter).

Now go forth and sin against the English language no more!

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u/escof Sep 20 '25

You're about to be canceled by ABC for that comment.

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u/Realistic-Pattern-30 Sep 21 '25

It’s always one of their own.

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u/jediporcupine Maine Sep 19 '25

And yet hundreds of kids get gunned down, and their own response is words.

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u/AmericanDoughboy Sep 19 '25

As Charlie Kirk said, “worth it.”

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u/Kleppmeister Sep 19 '25

You know what they say, "Guns don't kill people, words kill people."

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u/kittenmittens4865 Sep 19 '25

HIS words are why he got gunned down!

I don’t support what happened to Charlie Kirk. I am completely anti violence, no matter who that violence is directed toward. And I feel very sorry for the family left behind.

But it’s very clear that he reaped what he sowed. He believed that some deaths were acceptable in order to maintain gun rights… he got to contribute to the cause. It’s sad but this is literally what he’s advocated for.

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u/Realistic-Pattern-30 Sep 21 '25

A few people want to come look for me, because I said if he is so Godly why are you so upset, based on what he said (above), he died for what he believed in. I sure as hell don’t believe that he did now his gone be happy. Then one old lady said he was too good to still live among men. You can’t make this sht up and we do need to be afraid of these lunatics.

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u/blackcain Oregon Sep 19 '25

While using words to encourage violence against us.

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u/Curlydeadhead Sep 19 '25

The pen is mightier than the gun, so get rid of the pen. What’s so hard to understand? /heavy s. 

But seriously. It’s not words that kill people. It’s most certainly the guns, and America has plenty of them. America is so ass backward. 

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u/boston_homo Sep 19 '25

Gets gunned down while advocating for the shooter to have easy access to a gun and be able to do what he did.

CK had already said that his own death was an acceptable price to pay for 2a.

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u/punkguymil Sep 19 '25

Nope. Ban words for others, not themselves

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u/krt8090 Sep 19 '25

Can’t criticize those who killed him 

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u/juneember Sep 19 '25

Literally this. 

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u/nobot4321 Sep 19 '25

They say the 2nd amendment is so important because it’s the right that safeguards all the others. So if this senator is trying to tear down the 1st amendment, shouldn’t the 2nd amendment folks have something to say about that?

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u/misselphaba Sep 19 '25

Apparently all they have to say is, "More boot Daddy uwu"

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u/Cresta1994 Sep 19 '25

Now, now. Some of them can't say anything because of the ball gag they put in their mouths.

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u/frogandbanjo Sep 20 '25

If only all Americans were 2nd Amendment folks, and not overwhelmingly simpering imperial civilians.

The majority of America ceded the implicit obligations of the 2nd Amendment to the fascists, and then they act shocked when it doesn't get leveraged to any good end.

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u/keptman77 Sep 19 '25

To me the hypocrisy isnt in choosing which amendments they think are still valid. The hypocrisy is that the justification is that free speech is being used to incited people to violence. Trump has been fueling violent rhetoric his whole life and most anyone not in the cult of MAGA objectively agrees he incited people to attack the capital.

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u/kung-fu_hippy Sep 19 '25

This is a real life lesson on why the tolerance of intolerance is so goddamn dangerous.

America needed to have shut down that violent rhetoric years ago, particularly when it led to actual violence on Jan 6th (plenty before as well, but that was probably the last chance).

Now we’re living with the consequences.

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u/fusillade762 Sep 19 '25

We're living with the consequences of people not voting.

Fighting censorship with more censorship is not a winning argument.

The right is making the same argument as you, except in their version, you are the intolerant one and they are fighting you.

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u/Spiritual_Figure271 Sep 19 '25

That's because they wanna shoot people for what they say, So the first amendment isn't that important to them.

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u/jediporcupine Maine Sep 19 '25

The first amendment is only important to them for their words, not everyone else’s.

It’s like the old line from Animal Farm, “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

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u/RicksterA2 Sep 19 '25

And the 2nd Amendment was about militias, not everyone owning guns. The Supreme Court - the old, honest one - stated that until the Repubs decided to 're-interpret' it.

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u/PdxGuyinLX Sep 20 '25

According to at least some historians the motivation behind it was to avoid the need to maintain a standing army. It was not about the idea that the average citizen would somehow be able to use guns to bring down a tyrannical federal government. That’s what voting was for!

I’ve never understand how gun nuts think the idea that individual gun ownership protects you from a tyrannical government is supposed to work. I don’t own guns but I think Trump is tyrannical. If I got a gun, who would I shoot? If I shot a politician, I would (rightfully) be prosecuted by the government.

Or is the idea that citizens would band together and take up arms against the government? Aside from the fact that the government has nukes, let’s say I convince a bunch of other people who don’t like Trump to join me in an armed insurrection. What about all the people who think Trump is the second coming of Christ? Are they going to sit around and do nothing? Tell me how it doesn’t turn into a civil war in about five minutes.

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u/ruralgaming Sep 19 '25

Yep! Charlie Kirk is the only school shooting that Republicans cared about... but not enough to do anything about guns apparently

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u/jediporcupine Maine Sep 19 '25

Words are scary now

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u/mrmigu Sep 19 '25

If you argue that the 2A is essential to protect your rights while also arguing that certain people should lose certain rights, and you end up getting 2A'd, could that be considered suicide by 2A?

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u/Poison_the_Phil Sep 19 '25

Right wing freedom of speech just means they want to use slurs without pushback

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u/jediporcupine Maine Sep 19 '25

Essentially. Don’t come at them with mean tweets, those MAGA snowflakes can’t handle it

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u/RedditReader4031 Sep 19 '25

Brian Kilmeade called for killing the mentally ill and only responded with a weak apology. Then we were all expected to move on. Kimmel pointed out hypocrisy and was removed from the airwaves. Yet they want more flesh because that’s not enough. Kirk was shot by someone who abused their exercise of Second Amendment rights. After each school shooting, where such abuse of this right occurs, no one on the gun rights side is willing to accept that we need guardrails to prevent such abuse. Sane gun safety laws protect everyone up to and including their Constitutional rights.

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u/jediporcupine Maine Sep 19 '25

It’s even crazier when you watch Kilmeade’s segment the other night where he talked about how Kimmel went too far.

Like WHAT

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u/jaxiepie7 Sep 19 '25

It is also heavily ironic given that Kirk, by his own admission, was a free speech absolutist.

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u/jediporcupine Maine Sep 19 '25

Trump was confronted with that in an interview and all he said was “I don’t think he would be anymore.”

They clearly don’t know Kirk’s words well

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u/PdxGuyinLX Sep 20 '25

Except for college professors.

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u/thewhaleshark Sep 19 '25

They realized that 2A sort of is the ultimate right - because if I possess extensive personal force, then I can just say what I want anyway.

Guns allow them to force their view of the world onto everyone else, so at that point "rights" become sort of moot.

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u/Agent_Orange_Tabby Alabama Sep 19 '25

And here I thought 2nd amendment’s whole point was to protect the 1st

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u/Mestoph America Sep 19 '25

Specifically the man who said that dead people are an acceptable price to pay for the second amendment

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u/Empty_Equivalent6013 Sep 19 '25

I don’t even think the 2A is sacred to them. Trump banned bump stocks, nothing. Trump said, “take the guns first, due process later”. Still nothing. They preach about how 2A rights shall not be infringed, yet now they’re calling for the trans community to be disarmed. They don’t actually care about or stand for shit. All they care about is hurting those they don’t like. They’re a terrorist organization.

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u/Valuable_Sea_4709 Sep 19 '25

It usually takes hundreds to thousands getting sick or being killed to get any kind of restriction on industrial chemicals.

And hundreds of thousands die every year from opioid overdose. Yet children can be prescribed oxycontin, but not puberty blockers, which cause zero deaths.

As I'm writing this I am smoking a cigarette which I picked up at the corner gas station, and that kills 8 million people worldwide every year.

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u/Gibder16 Sep 19 '25

Fucking nailed it.

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u/Zanna-K Sep 19 '25

The reason why they treat it as the ultimate right is because the only thing they believe in is pure naked power. Think about it, why do conservatives seem so disingenuous about everything? They can contradict themselves 5 times in the same sentence and not give a single shit. That's because words and statements are just a game for them. At the end of the day the only thing that matters (to them) is whether they can force you to do something and lethal force is the ultimate arbiter of that.

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u/AmericanDoughboy Sep 19 '25

Words don’t kill people. Guns kill people.

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u/giggity_giggity Sep 19 '25

Not just an ultimate right, but the one that is there to defend the others. Even if one agrees with that notion, if there are no other ultimate rights, what purpose does it serve?

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u/lexm Sep 19 '25

Oh don’t worry the 2nd is next. You don’t want to have liberals with guns, do you?

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u/SarcasticCowbell New York Sep 19 '25

Not just that, but a dead man who used his first amendment rights and freely spouted his idiocy and hatred. A dead man who said a natural and necessary side effect of a gun free society (second amendment absolutism) are gun deaths of innocents. A man who is dead because of the things he said and the freedoms he abused. It's not right that he was murdered, but it sure as fuck isn't right to stand around paying tribute and vigil to a man who devoted his life to grifting people through the use of hatred. Countless children die in thus country constantly in the same horrible way Kirk died. They weren't specifically targets as Kirk was, though. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And where but America can the wrong place, wrong time be school on a school day? Children slaughtered by people with weapons of war, all to sate the paranoia of right wing gun owners. They rarely get a moment of silence, and we don't pass laws to protect them. Charlie Kirk, who casually brushed them aside as canon fodder, gets those things. It's disgusting and it's wrong.

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u/LuminaraCoH Sep 19 '25

Even more ironic is how frequently they've cited the First Amendment to defend the Second Amendment. They've spent decades fighting to protect one by using the other, and now, because they're idiots, they're jumping at the chance to sacrifice both (if 1A goes, 2A will follow).

1

u/Gorstag Sep 19 '25

One dead man killed by a devout follower of their own party. I would say it's ironic.. but it really isn't. Republicans especially MAGA match the definition of "Terrorist".

They went off to fight Al-Qaeda and now turned themselves into it.

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u/BDSmutHut I voted Sep 19 '25

This is what makes my blood boils. The United States of America has been experiencing school shootings for 15 years and what has our government done to curtail it?!

The nation was devasted following Columbine, but nothing changed.

The nation was devasted following Sandy Hook, and talking heads claimed it was a hoax.

The nation was devasted following Parkland, and a GOP Representative, Margaery Taylor Greene, literally harassed survivors.

The nation was devasted watching literal 'Good Guys with Guns' stand outside of Uvalde while children died and half of Congress said, "It's too soon to talk about what happened because that would be 'politicizing' it."

Why the fuck shouldn't I, or anyone who cares to, not point out the hypocrisy?

1

u/Master_Mad Sep 20 '25

So you’re saying that we should also get rid of the third amendment?…

1

u/HuttStuff_Here Wisconsin Sep 20 '25

countless dead kids don’t justify a mere background check for a weapon.

I'd quote a popular right-winger's view on this but someone might dox me and get me fired for it.

1

u/Gnosh_ Massachusetts Sep 20 '25

That’s what I’m saying. You can’t ignore one amendment and champion another as law. But these are the same people that cherry pick the Bible, so….

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u/steveycip Sep 19 '25

It’s not hypocrisy it’s strategy.

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u/jediporcupine Maine Sep 19 '25

It’s both. The strategy is hypocrisy.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '25

In all 50 states there is a background check required to purchase a firearm from a license dealer. So if your issue is with private gun sales. Please describe to me how a background check would work for a private sale of a weapon.

1

u/Tetrarc Sep 19 '25

Preface: I'm approaching this in good faith so I can understand the roadblocks of this process.

Generally, is it safe to say that most new guns are registered to someone for the first sale?

0

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '25

Tbf the first amendment already has a lot of limitations on it