The U.S. Constitution creates a civic space that is supposed to be free from violence, including from abusive violence by the state. It envisions a society in which all people have the right to think, speak, and associate freely, to disagree with others, to seek redress, to be protected against unfair accusations, and to expect justice will be our collective response to injustice.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk is a crime against all of us—including against anyone who disagreed with his political views. Most Americans disagreed with some of Kirk’s stated views. Disagreement is the essence of democracy. If we are not free to disagree, and to debate ideas, then we are not free at all, and no words about fundamental rights have meaning.

Political violence is an attempt to throw out our most fundamental laws, to eliminate open debate, punish disagreement, to rule out democracy itself. It is terrorism, and it is intended to terrorize all of us—and those who represent us in government—into being less honest about our views, less open to one another, and less willing to have hard conversations about how we work through big problems together.

And it is becoming more common.

In June, the former Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, Melissa Hortman, and her husband were shot and killed in their home. The man who killed them wore a silicon mask and claimed falsely to be law enforcement. He also shot Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, who both thankfully survived. The killer was also plotting to kill dozens of other elected officials and public figures, across multiple states.

An arsonist set fire to the Pennsylvania Governor’s residence, while the Governor and his family slept inside. During the 2024 campaign, President Trump—then a candidate and former President—was shot at, while speaking at a rally. He was reportedly the target of another plot, which was stopped before shots were fired.

Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani infamously called for “trial by combat” about an hour before a violent mob stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Some of those attackers hunted elected officials including the Speaker of the House and the Vice President. On the same day, pipe bombs were planted at Democratic Party offices.

In a separate, tragic and sadistic crime, the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was brutally assaulted by a man wielding a hammer. Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was one of 18 people shot in an mass shooting attack that killed six people. Congressman Steve Scalise was shot during a practice for the Congressional softball game.

On the same day Kirk was killed, a shooter went on a rampage at Evergreen High School in Colorado. Last month, a shooter killed two children at Annunciation Catholic School in Minnesota, while they sat in a mass held to open the new school year.

The leading cause of death among children in the United States is gun violence.

The United States has experienced 301 mass shootings so far this year. At least 10,382 people have been killed by guns, not counting suicides (which have averaged above 25,000 per year this decade).

Since the start of 2015, 445,937 people in the United States have lost their lives to guns—including homicides, accidental shootings, and suicides. 13,450 children under the age of 18 have been killed by guns in that time.

All of these crimes were crimes against all of us—denying not only the humanity of those attacked but of the rest of us as well. Each of us has a right to live in a society in which violence is never acceptable.

The U.S. Constitution is so committed to this principle that even people accused of the most heinous crimes are shielded against arbitrary violence by the Fifth Amendment guarantee that:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury… nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…

Some of Kirk’s allies have called for “vengeance” or “payback” against what they perceive as a society hostile to their views. Their grief is understandable. Tens of thousands of American families know that horrible feeling too well. But bloodlust does not seem like a fair representation of Charlie Kirk’s way of making his ideas heard.

On this 24th anniversary of the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, we must remember: The best way to overcome the inhuman tactics of terrorists is to put ideology aside and to collectively embody openness, freedom, and cooperative work for meaningful justice—the founding purpose of our republic, as clearly stated in the Preamble to the Constitution.

Charlie Kirk was intensely critical of people he disagreed with, and unashamed about saying what he believed, but he insisted that rivals and allies alike should be more willing to contest ideas with language rather than hostility. He organized like-minded people and welcomed and debated critics. Any effort to honor his memory should center on a deep commitment to open, nonviolent dialogue and debate.