This morning I'm making just a quick hitter post, as the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict may come today. Just a few thoughts and unpopular opinions, so here goes:
I support Second Amendment rights and gun ownership. But as soon as I heard about this incident my reaction was to think, 'the kid had no business taking a long gun (or any gun) up there'. Should it have been or was it legal to do that? Yes. But I put a kid like Rittenhouse taking the gun up there squarely into the "nothing good can come from it" category.
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| Pointing a gun at an armed man down can lead to tragedy. And it did. |
So just to be clear, I'm not calling Rittenhouse a knight in shining armor or anything like that. But if you're reading this and see him as the single villain in the story, you're also probably someone who bought into the Antifa and BLM protests as being "peaceful protests". No, they weren't peaceful protests, and you're a goddamned liar or stupid if that's what you think. Let me refresh your memory: the criminals had gone wild, using some peaceful protestors as cover, across the country they were taking over police stations, burning vehicles, including police cars. They were threatening people in restaurants, breaking into businesses, burning, robbing, and in full on riot mode. If you're pretending that all the shit that was going on, and the intentionally ineffectual police responses nationwide to the crime and destruction, was all okay and normal and acceptable, you're part of the problem. Police were largely standing down so as to not escalate the situation, leaving innocent persons and business owners victims to violent, destructive, criminal mobs, masquerading in and amongst some peaceful protesters. If the police weren't going to step in and control the mobs, then who?
I saw the videos. I have read the trial testimony. Anti-gun people want to make Rittenhouse the aggressor solely because he had the audacity to bring a gun to the rioting, looting, and arson in Kenosha. The prosecutor is trying to make his shootings into premeditated murder. Bullshit. If he wasn't threatened, nobody ever was. The fact he had the audacity to bring the gun to a riot does NOT surrender his right to defend himself, in my opinion. A lot of people, myself included, carry a gun for self-defense. Many of us have a gun in our vehicle for that same purpose. Many, many, many of us have guns in our home for home protection. When we are threatened, should circumstances come to pass that bring us to use those guns in self defense, the fact we exercised our right to have the weapon does NOT constitute premeditation. That is what the prosecution is alleging, and it's bullshit.
Rittenhouse showed up with a gun. Back to where I started, my immediate thinking is, "What was he thinking? Nothing good can come from it." But if you want to ignore what was going on in Kenosha, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, and other cities, and characterize this kid as the lone villain, I don't know how to help you. You're in a echo chamber where anything I say isn't likely to resonate. I contend that had nobody gone after Rittenhouse, then nobody would have gotten shot. His error in judgement for being there with the gun considered, in my opinion the kid acted in self defense.
Not guilty.
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