Source: The American Conservative
by Peter Van Buren
“A week before it happened, over 1,000 students at the university where Charlie Kirk was assassinated signed a petition asking that he be banned from speaking. Many others came to the event hoping to see Kirk shouted down — the heckler’s veto. One assassin exercised the ultimate stop to the exercise of free speech: a bullet into Kirk’s neck. Violence against the First Amendment exists on a scale. It only takes a little nudge to move the dial the wrong way. … There are legitimate ways to challenge speakers: engagement, or ignoring them entirely. The heckler’s veto and its worse successors not only stifle a particular idea, but public discourse in general by discouraging others from sharing controversial ideas.” (09/22/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-big-free-speech-chill/