'It's the death of free speech!' Jay Leno expresses his shock at killing of Charlie Kirk

Jay Leno expressed his shock and bewilderment about the assassination of Charlie Kirk in a call to a local Los Angeles radio talk show Wednesday evening.

Leno expressed his outrage to Tim Conway Jr. on his KFI AM show about the death of Kirk and opined that it was a political assassination meant to squelch free speech.

'A lot of times, you watch somebody like Charlie Kirk, it might enforce your beliefs more or it might change your mind. But at least it gets you thinking.'

"It's not a random shooting. It's the death of free speech!" said Leno, after saying he had listened to Kirk before the attack. "To think that you are so illiterate and so stupid you can't answer verbally, and you have to shoot somebody with a gun to 'win the argument.'"

He contrasted the current political climate with that of many decades ago when political opponents would debate often in public.

"You know, when I was in school, lively debate was unbelievable — to have the SDS, the Students for Democratic Society, debate somebody else, I can remember when James Baldwin debated William F. Buckley at Oxford University. It was just fascinating," Leno added. "Here are two guys, both way smarter than I am, and I understood both their points of view. It was just fascinating."

He went on to compare the killing to the shooting of student protesters at Kent State in 1970.

"This is a political assassination of a man I didn't necessarily agree with but I certainly enjoyed listening to," Leno continued.

"A lot of times you watch somebody like Charlie Kirk, it might enforce your beliefs more or it might change your mind. But at least it gets you thinking," he added. "At least you're thinking about what's going on."

RELATED: 'You woke us the f**k up!' Greg Gutfeld fires off message on Fox News after assassination of Charlie Kirk

Leno seemed to be exasperated by the horrible incident and had trouble expressing his feelings at times.

"It's really the death of free speech," he concluded.

As of Thursday afternoon, no suspect in the shooting has been apprehended, but authorities have released two images of a person of interest whom they are seeking.

President Donald Trump ordered U.S. flags to be flown at half mast in honor of Kirk and has announced he will award him a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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