Gun violence has become such a normalized part of the American experience that people often react to new incidents with apathy, with resigned sighs, or, increasingly, with selective outrage. But the truth is this: if we truly want to end gun violence—or at least reduce it significantly—we cannot tolerate it in any form, no matter who it is directed at. That includes people we admire, people we don’t know, and yes, even people we ideologically oppose.
This essay is a reflection on that principle, and why I believe the moral consistency of rejecting gun violence always, everywhere, is essential to building a just and humane society. Along the way, I want to talk about the tolerance paradox, a concept often used to justify opposition to dangerous ideas, but which I think has a wider application: to violence itself.
The Tolerance Paradox and Gun Violence
The philosopher Karl Popper is often credited with articulating the tolerance paradox. The idea is simple: if a society extends unlimited tolerance even to those who are openly intolerant, the tolerant society itself may be destroyed. Therefore, tolerance must have limits—we cannot and should not tolerate the active promotion of intolerance.
On the left, this concept has been embraced to explain why we should not allow fascism, white supremacy, or extremist rhetoric to flourish unchecked. The logic is sound: tolerating hatred empowers hatred, and eventually, hatred consumes the very possibility of tolerance.
But here’s where I want to take the idea one step further: the tolerance paradox should apply not only to speech and ideology, but to violence itself.
If we tolerate gun violence—if we treat it as acceptable when used against our enemies, or laugh about it when it happens to someone we dislike—we feed the very cycle of destruction that ultimately endangers us all.
Gun Violence as a Universal Threat
Gun violence doesn’t care about ideology. Bullets don’t stop mid-air to ask whether their target is conservative, liberal, libertarian, socialist, or apolitical. When a gun is fired, human life is put at risk—full stop.
By mocking or celebrating the shooting of someone we oppose, we cheapen every life lost to gun violence. We say, implicitly, that some victims matter less. That some blood is cheaper than others. That some lives are expendable if they are on the “wrong side.”
But the moment we accept that logic, we abandon the moral high ground. We also make ourselves more vulnerable, because once we say violence is acceptable against those who “deserve it,” we cannot control who gets placed in that category.
Today, it’s a right-wing figure. Tomorrow, it could be a left-wing activist. The day after, it could be someone who simply spoke out of turn or happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Gun violence thrives in the soil of selective tolerance. If we want to reduce it, we have to pull it out by the root—and that means rejecting it no matter who it touches.
The Danger of Celebrating Violence
I have seen, in recent days, people I know—people who normally stand firmly against gun violence—sharing memes, cracking jokes, or outright celebrating when a controversial right-wing figure was targeted. I understand the anger they feel toward him. I understand the desire to see someone who spreads harmful rhetoric face consequences.
But death by gunfire is not justice. It is not accountability. It is not progress.
Celebrating violence against political opponents erodes our moral consistency. How can we argue for a world without mass shootings, without armed intimidation, without the daily drumbeat of gun deaths, if we also wink, nod, and laugh when violence targets someone on the “other side”?
If we truly mean it when we say we want gun violence to end, then we must extend our compassion, our horror, and our condemnation to every instance of it. Anything less is hypocrisy.
Gun Violence as a Social Cancer
Gun violence is not just about the individual shooter or the immediate victim. It’s a social cancer, one that metastasizes into communities, politics, and culture. Each incident normalizes the next. Each celebration of it signals permission for more.
When the left tolerates violence against the right, or when the right tolerates violence against the left, both sides are really tolerating violence itself. And violence has no loyalty—it will always circle back.
We cannot afford to play with that fire. Because the people who suffer most are not political figures or influencers. They are the ordinary people caught in the crossfire: children in schools, workers in offices, worshippers in churches, shoppers at grocery stores.
The same bullets that struck down political figures have torn through countless nameless, faceless victims. Their lives matter just as much. And when we laugh about violence in one context, we belittle the suffering of those countless others.
Building a Consistent Ethic
What I am calling for is not complicated. It is simply a consistent ethic: that gun violence is never acceptable. That it is never something to celebrate. That it is never justice.
This ethic means condemning mass shootings, targeted assassinations, drive-by shootings, domestic shootings, and yes, even the shooting of political opponents.
It means understanding that violence cannot build a better world. That cycles of violence only produce more violence. That if we want a society grounded in dignity, fairness, and peace, we have to start by setting a clear, unshakable line: no to gun violence, period.
The Hard Work of Real Solutions
Of course, rejecting gun violence morally is only the beginning. The harder work is preventing it practically. That means policy reforms, yes—universal background checks, restrictions on weapons of war, red flag laws, community programs. But it also means cultural change.
It means rejecting the glorification of violence in politics, media, and rhetoric. It means refusing to share memes that celebrate shootings. It means refusing to laugh when “the other side” suffers. It means holding ourselves accountable to the higher standard we claim to believe in.
Because if we allow our compassion to be conditional, we’ve already lost.
Returning to the Tolerance Paradox
The tolerance paradox teaches us that tolerance cannot be limitless. And yes, we should never tolerate the promotion of intolerance itself. But I think the paradox teaches us something even deeper: that violence is the ultimate form of intolerance, and it too must never be tolerated.
A society that accepts violence against some will eventually accept violence against many. A movement that cheers the death of opponents will eventually excuse the death of innocents. A culture that tolerates killing has already surrendered to its own destruction.
If we want a society that values life, then we must be unwavering in rejecting violence. Not sometimes. Not selectively. Always.
Conclusion
Gun violence is not a tool of justice. It is not a way to settle ideological battles. It is not something to laugh about when it strikes someone we disagree with.
It is a human tragedy, every single time.
If we are truly serious about ending gun violence—or at least reducing it—then we must start with consistency. We must say clearly: no life is expendable, no death is cheap, no shooting is acceptable.
The tolerance paradox reminds us that to protect tolerance, we must draw firm boundaries. Let’s draw one here: violence cannot and must not be tolerated. Not in our politics, not in our culture, not in our communities.
Because at the end of the day, if we give in to celebrating gun violence, we’re not just betraying our opponents—we’re betraying ourselves, our values, and every victim who has ever fallen to the barrel of a gun.