Braun: To truly address violence, we must be Americans first

Charlie Kirk brought his formidable debating skills, love of country and strong faith in God to the University of Washington’s Seattle campus in May 2024. The popular young conservative leader did the same this past April at the Pullman campus of Washington State University.

There was tension between supporters and detractors at those visits, like every stop on his “American Comeback Tour” of campuses across the nation. However, the closest thing to violence was vandalism and what was reported as a few brief scuffles.

Charlie Kirk’s mission, which created a forum for exchanging opinions with all comers in an uncompromising yet safe and respectful way, was rooted in a belief he stated frequently: When people stop talking, that’s when violence happens.

His focus on free speech is what makes it tragic that the life of this 31-year-old husband and father of two young children was ended by an assassin’s bullet as he talked freely with students at a Utah university on Sept. 10.
Coincidentally, Charlie Kirk’s visits to UW and WSU were wrapped around the first, second and third meetings of the state’s new Domestic Extremism and Mass Violence Task Force.

This 28-member group was created by majority Democrats through a 2024 budget appropriation. Its job is to make recommendations to the Legislature regarding a framework to combat “extremism and mass violence.” The final recommendations are due no later than Dec. 1, 2026.

A preliminary report submitted in June suggests the task force may be capable of looking at this question in a broader way that is less reactionary and alarming than we saw from the majority in previous years.

For instance, it describes “targeted violence” as including mass shootings, school shootings and violence directed at public figures or individuals targeted due to their identities. That makes some sense.

The political assassination of Charlie Kirk would certainly appear to fall into the targeted-violence category. However, the very subject he was addressing when the sniper shot him — mass shootings related to gang violence — is specifically excluded. That doesn’t make sense.

Also, the task force admits its approach is meant to offer alternatives to “security-based” responses like surveillance and incarceration. This sounds an awful lot like much of the criminal-friendly legislation we’ve seen in recent years.
To its credit, the task force acknowledges the challenge of defining what domestic extremism and mass violence mean, even though those terms are found in its title.

I agree it won’t be easy, but to use a recent example, it’s important to discuss whether something like the vandalism or occupation of a UW engineering building or the harassment of college students based on their religious beliefs is capable of crossing a line into domestic extremism. And if so, where?

Charlie Kirk showed our nation it’s possible to have that kind of dialogue without being hateful. If it doesn’t happen within the task force, legislators need to step up.

It’s unfortunate that the final recommendations are still more than a year away, but the task force has a lot of hard work to do if those are going to be more than political talking points. When they get here, Republicans will be ready to consider them swiftly and seriously.

In the meantime, the fact that Charlie Kirk died while promoting free speech on a college campus is a sad reminder that our Legislature has yet to address the topic of encouraging free speech on our state’s higher-education campuses.
I introduced my first bill on that subject in 2019, and most recently in 2024. Along with our state Capitol campus, Washington’s college campuses are the closest things we have to the traditional public square. They should be safe places for anyone, especially students, to express the widest range of viewpoints.

That’s a discussion we should take up in the 2026 session, while the task force on extremism and mass violence continues its work.

Following the June murders of a Minnesota Democrat lawmaker and her spouse, and the attack on another Minnesota legislator and his spouse, I wrote in this space how common decency has been replaced by the disrespecting, vilifying and dehumanizing of those with differing opinions.

Sadly, we are well past the point where some feel justified in ambushing and murdering people they disagree with, like an elected official. Now the victims include someone who sat peacefully at a college campus, answering questions and inviting people to come up and debate.

You don’t have to agree with Charlie Kirk to respect what he stood for: family, faith, country — and free speech. We can honor his memory by remembering we are Americans before we are Democrats, Republicans or independents, whether we agree with one another or not.

Let’s commit ourselves to building a state where differences are resolved through debate and dialogue, not violence. We must do better.

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Sen. John Braun of Centralia serves the 20th Legislative District, which spans parts of four counties from Yelm to Vancouver. He became Senate Republican leader in 2020.