Okay, so, the fallout from the case piqued my interest to get more informed about it. Most of my observations are gonna be based on the events themselves here, and are largely informed by this video which seemed to cover the whole thing from start to finish.
The setting
So, 2020 was a very screwed up year. First we had covid, then the george floyd thing happened where a white cop knelt on a black dude's neck for 8 minutes while he said he couldn't breathe, and this caused the crap to hit the fan. People protested and started burning down the police station in Minnesota and crap. Nationwide protests happened, and rioting was a common occurrence on the news. I remembered watching this stuff from the comfort of my own home, and thinking, yeah this is screwed up. Obviously I sympathized with George Floyd, but not being a fan of vigilante violence and taking the law into one's own hands, I didn't like burning down stuff. And things got messy and polarized. Sometimes police used excessive force vs protesters which I didn't like, and this largely caused me to actually be for calls to "defund the police", but at the same time, rioting still happened. It should be noted most protests were peaceful, but the media hyped it up to be a big thing for ratings like they always do.
As the country polarized, some people decided to fight back, and due to the Jacob Blake incident that the video described, it looked like unrest was going to come to Kenosha, Wisconsin.
And white Trumpy type people big on their 2nd amendment rights and basically being ammosexuals looking for an excuse to shoot someone, decided to grab their guns and go there to "defend' the community from rioters. This is actually perfectly legal as we both have a right to bear arms, and the right to assemble, so right wingers decided to bear arms at their counter protest, which was deemed to be intimidating by the left. I can't blame them for thinking that. At the same time, riots have happened, so I can see the need to keep the peace, but to be honest, isn't this the police's job, not armed vigilantes who seem to be looking for trouble? Nothing ILLEGAL about showing up there with your guns, but I'm gonna say it's morally questionable.
Kyle Rittenhouse was one such dude. He wasn't even from that state, but apparently his friend invited him up there, and provided him with a rifle to protect a car dealership or something. This is a bit different than the common narrative that his mom drove him up and dropped him off with a rifle, which was apparently disproven by politifact.
Should he have been there? Probably not. Again, not big on vigilantism, and then you got this guy who ended up up there despite not being from the community, and provided a rifle by his friend. He had clearly not intended to use it, but being part of a counter protest like this is kind of asking for trouble. Honestly, it's not a private citizen's concern to get themselves in between a bunch of rioters and private property. And honestly, the best thing to do in my opinion is to back off and let the police handle it. The police were there, observing the protests, and as shown in the NYT video, even praising the counter protesters, so there was some systemic screwery there that the left is good to point out (honestly, police shouldn't have to rely on civilian vigilantes to keep the peace). And this set up a powder keg.
The protests eventually went past curfew, and this led to the incidents that happened.
Rosenbaum shooting
So, as we can see in the video, Rosenbaum was just released from the mental hospital, and ended up at the BLM protests. The protests started fairly benign, and relatively peaceful, with little rioting, but then something happened, and rittenhouse started briskly moving away. And people started chasing him. And then one dude with a pistol started shooting in the air, and Rittenhouse, panicked, essentially turned around and shot the dude who was chasing him.
Was Rittenhouse in the wrong? Legally? No. The dude was being chased, he was clearly trying to get away. Guns were going off. The dude was scared. I mean, if I were in that situation, i probably would've been crapping my pants and did the same thing. Should rosenbaum have chased him from the get go? I would say no. It's unclear what the context was that led to this, but uh, chasing after an armed dude, throwing a plastic bag at him, etc., is not a good idea. And given another dude apparently fired a gun, Rittenhouse had clear reason to fear for his life in my opinion. Again, not big on vigilantism, and you shouldn't be freaking chasing an armed guy. It's only common sense if he feels threatened he WILL use the weapon.
The other 2
So, for some reason, Rittenhouse fled the scene. I don't know why. I agree with the person in the video that it seemed stupid. He just shot someone, the best thing to do would've been to disarm himself, call time out, and wait for police to arrive. But for some reason he fled. Maybe he felt he was in danger, I don't know.
But then the dude started running away. And people started saying "hey, this dude shot someone and he's running away", so this led to...more vigilantism. A bunch of protesters decided to take it into their own hands to chase him down as he fled from the scene, and one hit him with a skateboard and knocked him down and tried to pull the gun away from him and was shot, and another dude tried to pull a gun on him and was shot too.
Then he got up and kept running away.
So....honestly, this is one of those cases where no one's wrong, but no one's REALLY right either. Did rittenhouse have a right to defend himself from aggressors? Sure. He was being tackled, they were trying to disarm him if not shoot him, so he shot them first.If you're trying to flee a harmful situation, Rittenhouse's actions were perfectly rational. And given the legitimacy of the rosenbaum shooting, I don't think that Rittenhouse's actions were illegitimate here either. If he were an active shooter who shot in cold blood or something as he was portrayed, yeah, self defense shouldn't work on an aggressor trying to flee. But given the Rosenbaum shooting was a "legitimate" shooting, I believe these are too.
Now, to be fair to the people who were trying to disarm them. They were trying to do the right thing themselves. They heard he shot someone, and they decided to step in in order to disarm him, which is actually quite heroic given that set of facts to work with. A bit reckless, and they paid for it with their lives, which is yet another reason why I think people injecting themselves into situations and being vigilantes is stupid, but I can't say what they did was immoral either. They both thought they were doing the right thing I guess, and that's what makes this situation all the more sad and tragic.
The aftermath
So, after he shot three people, Rittenhouse reached the police, and he put his arms up, to show he wasnt a threat. And people were yelling he shot people, but the police didn't arrest him for some reason. Maybe because open carry was allowed, but it seems to be given I've seen a video with people yelling at the time "HEY POLICE, HE SHOT PEOPLE", them letting him go seemed a bit of a bad call. Either way, the damage was done. He was arrested and brought up on charges later.
Did Rittenhouse do anything wrong?
Legally, no. I mean, from his perspective, these were legitimate instances of self defense. And apparently the weapon's charge was dropped because he had a rifle over 16 inches and that was legal in Wisconsin. The law was intended for hunting, but regardless, it was dropped.
And for some reason they suspended the very minor charge of being out past curfew.
Honestly, it comes off to me like there's so many things wrong with the Rittenhouse case. Like the fact that this 17 year old shouldn't have been running around playing soldier, but the laws were what they were, and let's leave it at that. With the rosenbaum thing, yeah, chasing an armed guy is stupid, and he was right to open fire given he felt very obviously threatened.
And while I would argue him fleeing the scene should've maybe been illegal, no charges were brought, and the dude might've feared for his life anyway. And then he was chased down and tackled and he shot people to get away. It's really just...tragic. Like, that's my actual opinion on it. The circumstances just got so out of control that he was being chased, and he shot people to get away. but then the people chasing him thought they were doing the right thing going after an active shooter, but in reality...this just screams at me that vigilantism is bad. A bunch of ammosexuals running around protecting businesses and potentially intimidating protesters isnt a good thing. They're injecting themselves in an already bad situation and it didn't end well. And then in response to rittenhouse shooting the first guy, they chase him down and try to play hero to disarm him, and he shoots them. It's just bad all around. Everything, from a legal standpoint, seems to give Rittenhouse the benefit of the doubt, and outside of a few minor law changes I really can't find fault in that legal logic. I know a lot of lefties are gonna be mad at my seemingly conservative streak on social issues lately, but eh, as I see it, I see both sides of the argument. I'm no fan of Kyle Rittenhouse. I just believe that legally, the facts of the case did lead to him being innocent for good reason. You kinda have to PROVE guilt in order to imprison someone, and that's a GOOD thing. And in this case, it just couldn't have been proven. In some ways, MORALLY, I believe rittenhouse IS culpable. I honestly believe the dude shouldn't have freaking been there in the first place. But, I have trouble finding a law saying he shouldn't have, or even making one that meaningfully solves the problem. Unless we're just gonna say open carry should be illegal, which maybe it should be. Or maybe kids shouldn't be allowed to have guns AT ALL, which maybe they shouldn't be. Or that maybe they should enforce curfew better, which they were in other instances, and it just led to more police violence.
Honestly, it's just a tricky situation and given these facts, i can't really agree with the left fully here. Maybe I do MORALLY, but there's a difference between ethics and law. While ethics and law should often ideally reach the same outcomes, a more libertarian society like the US is going to fail at that. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. A society that imposes a specific moral code on all and enforces it with an iron fist is often fairly authoritarian. And I honestly dislike that idea myself. But, if we are going to give people more freedom, well, sometimes what's right ethically isn't always the right thing legally and vice versa. All in all, Rittenhouse is morally culpable for those killings, but not legally culpable. Had he not been there injecting himself into a situation he had no business to inject himself into, those people would've still been alive. Had they not decided to chase a man with a gun for whatever reason, justified or not, well, the same applies.
Moral of the story. Don't show up at protests armed like a wannabe soldier, and if you do show up at protests for the love of god, don't try to chase down a man with a gun.And let's just leave it at that.
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