The immediate aftermath of horrendous shootings is perceived by some in media to be the best opportunity to interject calls for gun control, or at least imply it. Such was the case during a panel discussion on MSNBC’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki.
Watch as Bryan Schott of Utah Political Watch interjects speculation over whether Utah’s GOP supermajority legislature might now roll back legislation allowing open carry on college campuses:
MSNBC Guest: Charlie Kirk’s Murder Might Flip Utah’s GOP Legislature on Open College Carry pic.twitter.com/5RgdJOSuKn
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) September 11, 2025
MSNBC THE BRIEFING WITH JEN PSAKI
9/10/25
9:13 PM
JEN PSAKI: Clearly, this must have shaken the university leadership. I don't know that most colleges and universities would be prepared for something like this. There are events with speakers of all different political backgrounds at colleges and universities across the country. But have there been any discussions or what have you heard about, sort of how they've thought about security moving forward for these type of events, or even in the immediate future?
BRYAN SCHOTT: I know a number of the other universities around the state. They are taking this very seriously, and they have told faculty and staff that they will be increasing their security presence on campus. Utah Valley is closed for the next few days because of this event. They will not be holding any classes, which is completely understandable. An interesting aspect of this is our- the Utah Legislature, which is- which has a Republican supermajority. They changed the law earlier this year to make it legal for someone to openly carry a weapon on college campuses. Previously, you could carry a concealed weapon if you had a permit. They changed the law that if you have the permit, you can carry the weapon either concealed or in an open fashion. And I'm going to be tracking that over the next few days to see if there are any attempts to maybe roll back that change to the law after this.
PSAKI: Yeah, Brian, that will be really interesting to hear more about.
There is always something particularly unsavory about rolling out policy preferences in the wake of national tragedies. And it is particularly ghoulish to wishcast for gun control in the wake of a still-unresolved assassination with no suspect in custody (as of this writing).
Charlie Kirk was murdered in defense of free speech and civil debate- which are protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The Second Amendment stands as guarantor of the entirety of the Constitution, including the First Amendment. And that is not likely to change any time soon, no matter how many times the media call for it.
In this case, it is also purely speculative. Yes, Utah passed a college open carry law. But there is zero evidence that the shooter open-carried all the way to his concealed position on a rooftop 200 yards away from where Kirk stood on stage. At MSNBC, apparently, it is too much to ask that guests abstain from injecting policy preferences into discussions of national tragedies.