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"Absolutely" yes, "correctly" no. Again, what else would you expect a sincere Second-Amendment-opposing non-assassination-supporting person to say? "This is why the Second Amendment is bad" is an obvious, vanilla thing for any anti-2A commentator to say when there's been a prominent murder of this kind, whatever the opinions of the victim. Why should it suddenly become verboten just because the victim happened, as icing on the cake, to support gun ownership? And wouldn't it be pretty odd to write around that pretty salient fact?
"Correctly", because "absolutely". If I'm having an amiable conversation with a new acquaintance, and I say something insulting out of the blue, and there's common knowledge that I realized it would be insulting before saying it, then no matter what other thoughts I was having at the time (excluding thoughts such that there's common knowledge that I had them and that they're mollifying), or the emotional coloration of those thoughts, it's fair to say I've insulted my interlocutor. E.g., if my interlocutor weighs 500 pounds and my insulting comment is a fat people joke, he'd be right to take it personally. It doesn't matter if it's ambiguous whether I meant it personally first and foremost, or if I habitually make fat people jokes and his being fat was just icing on the cake. The common knowledge that I might "just" think of it as icing on the cake won't endear me to him. You don't make fat people jokes around unmistakably fat people either unless you mean to cause pain, or there is common knowledge that they're meant in good fun. And if I only realized after the fact that I'd said something insulting, and determined my interlocutor had probably noticed the insulting interpretation, I would consider disavowing it.
I think there basically is common knowledge of how negatively all but the lightest (or most candidly non-maleficent), say, 10-20% of criticism of Charlie Kirk will be received by both enemies and allies. Lots of leftists out there don't care to clear themselves of a reasonable suspicion that they think he deserved it (reasonable because that seems to be a common belief, and because there's somewhat of an incentive, at least for respectable people writing under their real names, not to say "he deserved it" in so many words), and they put things out there that their enemies and allies will know (etc.) that they knew in advance would code as "good riddance". The timeframe is crucial: what you can say at what point in time is a social convention that creates the conditions for common knowledge. If you go on the offensive before the body is cold, you know what you're doing.
There are some exceptions, like professional anti-2A lobbyists. In their case, there's some common knowledge that they pretty much have no choice. I guess you can generalize that to everyone who has surrendered some of their agency to an egregore. Along with anti-2A people who credibly demonstrate remorse, like Dean Withers, they serve to weaken the chain of common knowledge.
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"What a horrific tragedy". And then a week later go ahead and write your thinkpiece about how he had it coming.
(this was written before your edit, I'll update to your update when I have time)
I'm not accusing you of deliberately moving the goalposts, but I will say, as far as I can see this is the first time in this thread you've brought up a question of time-frames, where some types of commentary are wrong now but will be fine later. And I don't think that makes a ton of sense, unless you're making these comments right to the face of Kirk's surviving family. Respect for the dead doesn't have an expiry date, or if it does, it isn't measured in weeks. And I don't see how "too soon" impacts on the main topic at hand, ie whether criticizing the victim would or should be perceived as signaling support for assassinations like his.
Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. The point I'm trying to make is entirely about time-frames. Quoting my original comment at the top of the thread in reply to TheAntipopulist talking about rightists treating criticism of Charlie as saying he deserved it:
My point was specifically that the timing of choosing to level criticism of the man immediately in the wake of his killing sends a (probably unintended!) message that can be avoided by waiting. I think it's pretty commonly true throughout life in general that when and how someone says something (let alone the relationship of the speaker to the audience, intended or overheard) is as much a part of the message as what they say. When someone's immediate in-the-moment response to a political opponent's assassination is "well he sucked anyway and his policies lead to this", it communicates a way stronger message that sounds an awful lot like "he deserved it" at worst and at best it just communicates incredible callousness.
I do genuinely think that (hopefully unintended) additional message can be avoided by just waiting a week or so and then writing whatever well thought out criticism about him once the heat has started to diminish. I don't think that's some novel or complicated rule either; in day to day life most people have an instinct not to badmouth the recently deceased where the grievers could hear unless their entire point was to start a fight. Unfortunately the nature of social media puts us all in the position of being crashers at somebody's funeral whether we meant it or not and I think the easiest way to turn down the heat is to slow down the takes.
So to summarize my point as best I can: someone genuinely interested in discussing the consequences of his policy or other reasoned criticism and not dunking would wait tactfully for the appropriate moment. It's entirely reasonable for grievers to interpret their enemies lack of tact as saying he deserved it, given it would be so easy for someone who meant not to cause undue offense to avoid it.
(personal disclosure: unfortunately I think a lot of the people "criticizing" do actually mean to communicate he deserved it and that bleeds through in a variety of ways beyond timing and having so much of that in the air really hurts the ability of well-intended people to communicate a milder message, but I really sincerely think that just waiting would help those people to the extent that they genuinely exist.)
(put another way, if in the wake of an enemy hero's tragic death you're more interested in making a point than extending an olive branch, your enemies are correct not to extend any charity in interpreting your point)
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