By Judd Dunning, author of 13½ Reasons Why NOT to Be a Liberal (*About 10 minutes reading time: , 3,500 words)
The facts. The truth – as well as how Charlie Kirk’s amazing legacy, America’s 234-year-old Second Amendment, and why armed citizens—from moms to patriots—remain freedom’s ultimate safeguard.
When I first wrote 13½ Reasons Why NOT to Be a Liberal, I warned that the Second Amendment was not a quaint relic but the hard steel spine of the American experiment.
When I hosted John R. Lott Jr.—the nation’s most prominent former gun-control advocate and author of More Guns, Less Crime, now a leading pro-Second Amendment scholar—repeatedly on my KABC 790 show, and as I published numerous Newsmax columns advancing the same message, the evidence has only continued to mount into an ever-growing, irrefutable body of empirical proof.
Guns in the hands of good people preserve and create a better America. They are “worth it”. And that’s what I am going to talk about today—because that is exactly what Charlie would have wanted.
Charlie was never about Charlie. He was about America. This article, like the cause it and he defends, is also not about one man’s name but about a nation’s enduring freedom. Sadly, many on the Left have seized on Charlie’s own words to weaponize them in the darkest kind of politicization.
“I think it’s worth it, I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”
— Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA event, Salt Lake City, April 5, 2023 (NDTV)
Yet, bravely—just like our Founders, who pledged their lives, their liberty, and their sacred honor—Charlie understood and accepted those same risks. He knew that the defense of liberty is inseparable from the willingness to confront mortal danger, and that the power to wield force in the service of good is what ultimately preserves life, freedom, and the republic itself. And it has always been this way; it is not new. And Charlie, even stated it as such. Yes, for true patriots it is worth it — freedom is. And it has been for 234 years.
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on December 15, 1791, as part of the Bill of Rights. Its 27 words affirm that “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
From that ratification in 1791 to today—a span of 234 years—this guarantee has repeatedly proven its worth. For more than two centuries Americans have kept their country free and their families safe, and men like Charlie have carried that responsibility in their time.
The facts are stark that guns clearly enhance and preserve freedom, protect us and our civil society. They are not wanted, but needed to do so. According to the FBI’s Crime in the United States 2024 report, Americans endured roughly 21,000 murders and non-negligent manslaughters, more than one million burglaries—many of them home invasions—and about 4.4 million violent crimes overall. That is the scale of the darkness every law-abiding citizen confronts.
And yet, year after year, between half a million and more than three million defensive gun uses occur in this country, a range validated by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Academies of Science and reaffirmed in the CDC’s 2024 Firearm Injury Surveillance data. Even the most conservative end of that range means that armed citizens prevent far more crimes than criminals commit with guns.
The FBI’s own numbers show a 12 percent year-over-year increase in justifiable homicides by private citizens, reflecting more criminals stopped in the act.
At the same time, the legal landscape has shifted dramatically toward liberty. In 2019, only about sixteen states recognized constitutional carry—permitless carry for law-abiding adults. By mid-2025, twenty-seven states have adopted it, according to legislative trackers from NRA-ILA and the Giffords Law Center.
The results are measurable. The FBI’s Active Shooter Incidents in the United States 2024 report found that armed citizens stopped or disrupted roughly 48 percent of active-shooter attacks, up from about 35 percent a decade ago. Violent crime nationally fell about four percent from 2023 to 2024, even as the number of people legally carrying firearms surged. Freedom expanded and violence receded—exactly the opposite of the disarmament narrative.
“Every time a state passes constitutional carry, freedom expands and violent crime falls. The data proves it. The Second Amendment works when we honor it.”
— Charlie Kirk, TPUSA Faith & Freedom Conference keynote, July 2023
Fresh national polling confirms that public opinion is moving the same way as the hard data.
A July 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that 62 percent of American adults now say gun ownership increases safety by allowing law-abiding citizens to protect themselves, while only 36 percent believe guns reduce safety.
A November 2023 Gallup poll echoes the trend, with 56 percent of Americans saying a gun in the home makes it safer, versus 41 percent who say it makes it more dangerous.
In 1999, a narrow majority—about 52 percent—believed gun ownership reduced safety. The shift is generational and decisive. Nearly eight in ten Republicans and about two-thirds of independents now say guns increase safety, while fewer than four in ten Democrats agree. And roughly 44 percent of Americans now live in a gun-owning household, up from about 42 percent in 2018.
(Sources: Pew Research Center, “Key facts about Americans and guns,” July 11 2023; Gallup, “More Americans Say Gun in the Home Makes It Safer,” November 2023.)
Critics say America is unique in gun ownership, and they are right—but not in the way they intend. According to the Small Arms Survey and corroborating 2024 U.S. Commerce data, American civilians collectively own more than 450 million firearms, while the combined inventories of the U.S. military and all law-enforcement agencies total roughly 2 million.
No other nation entrusts so much of its ultimate defensive power to its own citizens. That disparity is not a flaw. It is the living proof that in America, sovereignty rests with the people, not the state. Global freedom today is measured less by treaties than by whether ordinary citizens can still meet force with force. On that score, only the United States fully delivers.
“The right to bear arms is the last firewall between freedom and government overreach. Disarmament anywhere has always preceded oppression everywhere.”
— Charlie Kirk, Twitter/X, March 28, 2021
Some recoil at the idea that liberty carries risk. But freedom has never been free. Average 911 response times remain seven to eleven minutes in urban America and longer in rural counties, while violent assaults unfold in seconds. For a woman facing a stalker, a family awakened by a home invasion, or a shopkeeper confronted by a crew of smash-and-grab looters, the only immediate equalizer is the firearm in a law-abiding citizen’s hand. To demand that such citizens disarm is to demand their submission.
“The Founders didn’t write the Second Amendment so deer hunters could buy rifles. They wrote it so moms can protect their kids and citizens can stand up to criminals and tyrants alike.”
— Charlie Kirk, Fox News Primetime interview, May 2022
History keeps teaching the same lesson. The 1994–2004 federal “assault weapons” ban failed to reduce murder rates, as documented by the National Research Council. Australia’s 1996 gun confiscation produced no lasting decline in gun violence, with homicide rates already falling before the buyback. Newer state bans in places like Illinois and New York, enacted in 2023 and 2024, are likewise showing no statistically significant homicide reduction in early FBI trend data. Criminals ignore gun laws; only the innocent are left defenseless.
The constitutional foundation is equally unshaken. From James Madison’s Federalist Papers to the Supreme Court’s landmark District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022) decisions—reaffirmed by multiple appellate rulings in 2024—the meaning is explicit: the right to keep and bear arms belongs to the individual. It was designed so that free people could defend themselves from predators and from government itself. In a century where authoritarian models in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran openly challenge liberal democracy, that guarantee is not antiquarian. It is vital.
Beyond the Bullet: Fentanyl, Human Trafficking, and Illegal Immigration—A Modern Civil War
The Second Amendment was written for far more than keeping our own government in check so that it never tyrannically infringes on our freedoms and for more than stopping a burglar or halting an active shooter. It also guarantees that our civil society can endure—an assurance especially vital in 2025, when Americans face a new kind of modern civil war, battling a growing darkness of traffickers, cartel operatives, and violent criminal networks that use sophisticated, technocratic tools to extend their reach into our country and our families.
Our Founding Fathers understood the power of the threat of force in preserving life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Nothing has changed: good and evil still exist, and force in the hands of good people remains the ultimate check on those who would destroy freedom. And, Charlie knew this well.
“Enough fentanyl to kill every American has crossed our southern border. This is an undeclared war on our nation and our families, aided and abetted by open-border policies.”
— Charlie Kirk, Twitter/X, December 2022
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 112,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in the 12 months ending May 2024, and about 70 percent of those deaths involved illicitly manufactured fentanyl. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) warns that two milligrams of fentanyl can be fatal, and that Mexican cartels and U.S. distributors now operate at unprecedented scale, flooding communities with counterfeit pills and powders.
As that war on our safety rages on, it the same time, modern slavery is surging, even in countries like our own. The National Human Trafficking Hotline (Polaris) documented 17,381 likely sex- and labor-trafficking victims in 2023—the highest total ever recorded—while Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) reported over 3,600 trafficking arrests and more than 1,100 victims rescued in FY 2024.
And those figures barely scratch the surface: the Global Slavery Index (Walk Free, 2023) estimates that around 1.1 million people are enslaved in the United States at any given time, hidden in forced labor, debt bondage, domestic servitude, and sexual exploitation.
“The cartels aren’t just smuggling drugs—they’re trafficking people. Women and children are being brutalized, and Washington’s refusal to enforce the border is complicity.”
— Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA podcast, 2023
Investigators confirm that the same cartels moving fentanyl also traffic women and children, making these two crises inseparable. These are mass assaults on life, law, and civil society that flourish wherever enforcement fails.If one of these victims were your child, would you leave their rescue to chance and to overworked authorities? No.
The Second Amendment guarantees that Americans are never helpless when traffickers, cartel operatives, or violent criminal networks expand their reach. Its very presence—the knowledge that millions of law-abiding Americans are armed—pushes back the darkness and preserves civil society against these savage predators. Border security is sovereignty, but an armed, vigilant citizenry is the last safeguard when predators slip through.
Freedom is not xenophobia; it is the refusal to let cartels or traffickers decide the safety of our streets and the future of our children. Our police and justice system—together with the citizen’s right to lawful deterrence—hold that line, hand in hand.
HONOR, SACRIFICE, AND THE AMERICAN RIGHT TO STAND GUARD
None of this is abstract. It is rational and undeniable. Women now account for nearly thirty percent of all defensive gun uses, and first-time female gun ownership rose fourteen percent from 2023 to 2024, according to new FBI victimization surveys. For a mother protecting her child from a fentanyl-fueled intruder or a trafficker’s violence, a firearm can mean survival. It can also mean safeguarding national freedom from tyranny. Both—and all the rights they embody—are of equal merit, and all are worth it.
And yes, some Americans, like our wonderful Charlie, will pay the ultimate price defending these rights—confronting intruders, halting shooters, or simply refusing to surrender constitutional liberties on campus.
Across the conservative movement, leaders and everyday citizens alike—people like Charlie Kirk and countless unsung Americans—have long warned that liberty demands courage, even sacrifice. Their voices continue to inspire new generations to stand guard over the Second Amendment and the freedoms it protects. Their willingness to face danger is not senseless; it is the very reason the rest of us remain free. Our country is radically free precisely because brave citizens are willing to stand a post that the state alone cannot man. Their courage deserves not pity but only great honor.
And that honor is already forthcoming. True heroes deserve recognition: after his passing, Charlie’s casket was personally escorted aboard Air Force Two by JD Vance (see JD Vance’s touching final words about Charlie here), and President Trump has announced he will posthumously award Charlie the Presidential Medal of Freedom—and rightly so.
On Charlie…
A FAVORITE CHARLIE CLIP OF MY OWN: Charlie’s works are long and established. Worth it or not, this was definitively a man who deserved nothing but liberty and honor, not death. In one of his finest moments—and one I urge his critics to remember—Charlie advised a young questioner to think for herself and honor her parents rather than follow any party ideology.
He cared far more about helping young Americans learn how to think than telling them what to think, a principle evident throughout his work again and again.
And no one is asleep—Right or Left—to the fact that if the same events of last week had unfolded on the Left, cities would be burning and outrage would spill into chaos. Instead, we see the American Right meet loss with honor, with grieving, and with facts—proving again that principled defense of freedom is stronger than fury. Every day, a voice grows bigger and brighter to inspire a rising generation. Attempts to silence that voice have backfired.
A great country is not defined by the five to ten percent of bad actors, or by the repressive politics some of them practice in the name of control. It is defined by the vast majority of good, decent Americans whose commitment to truth and liberty is now entering hyper-drive.
The revolution of truth—rooted in the freedom of our God-given American soul, and in the Second Amendment that has long anchored it while so many other nations have lost that very freedom—is accelerating, not retreating.
That is why every credible dataset—from the millions of defensive gun uses documented by the CDC to the FBI’s finding that armed citizens now stop nearly half of active-shooter incidents—points in the same direction. Lawful gun ownership does not erode our republic; it sustains it.
Disarming the law-abiding would not make families safer; it would hand victory to predators and to would-be tyrants. What I wrote in 13½ Reasons Why NOT to Be a Liberal remains truer than ever: guns don’t kill people—they protect them, and they protect the American experiment itself.
I had the great honor of meeting Charlie many times, and I was an early TPUSA donor. I sought him out in his early twenties because I had never seen anyone so bold on American campuses—his intelligence, character, and charisma at such a young age were remarkable.
More than winning debates, his mission was to inspire young Americans to think for themselves. He never shamed students; he pushed them to reason. And even if their thinking led them away from his own beliefs—yes, even to the Left—he welcomed it, so long as they arrived there honestly. I genuinely believe that’s what he wanted most.
Great freedom has always required great courage. Today that courage is alive, louder, and more unyielding than ever—and it ensures that the light of American liberty will not only endure but burn even brighter for generations to come.
Our American guns protect our liberty and create a greater personal and civil safety for all of us. And if some brave souls fall holding that line, their loss is not in vain; it is the hard price our great nation pays to remain the freest on Earth.
Thank you, Charlie, for protecting our God-given rights. Yes—just as you said so bravely—“a prudent deal. It is rational.” Horribly painful, regardless—you will be missed.
Yet, there is no doubt your legacy will fight on—even brighter and stronger than ever before.
Rest in peace, Charlie. We will not stop. Thank you for your life and your work.
Sources
CDC, Firearm Injury Surveillance Report, 2024 • FBI, Crime in the United States, 2024 • FBI, Active Shooter Incidents in the United States, 2024 • National Research Council, Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review, 2004 • NRA-ILA / Giffords Law Center constitutional carry legislative trackers, 2025 • Small Arms Survey & U.S. Commerce firearm manufacturing/import data, 2024 • Pew Research Center, “Key facts about Americans and guns,” July 11, 2023 • Gallup, “More Americans Say Gun in the Home Makes It Safer,” November 2023 • CDC, Provisional Drug Overdose Death Counts, 2024 • DEA, National Drug Threat Assessment, 2024 • DHS Blue Campaign / Homeland Security Investigations Year-End Statistics, 2024 • Polaris, 2023 U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline Data • Walk Free, Global Slavery Index U.S. country study, 2023.
Judd Dunning is a regular Newsmax Insider columnist and the bestselling author of 13½ Reasons Why NOT to Be a Liberal: And How to Enlighten Others (Humanix/Newsmax). His follow-up, 13½ Reasons to Love America: How to Stop the Angry Woke Left and Preserve the America We Love, is currently in production.
Over the years, Judd has created and hosted multiple political media projects, always blending wit, Judeo-Christian values, and hard constitutional truth. His work champions free speech, American exceptionalism, and the eternal battle against Marxist ideology and elite corruption.
Follow Judd on X (Twitter), visit JuddDunning.com, and read his and read more of his latest work on Newsmax:
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