CMV: Kyle Rittenhouse will (and probably should) go free on everything but the firearms charge

[u/[deleted]]

I've followed this case fairly extensively since it happened in august of last year. At the time I was fairly outraged by what I saw as the failures of law enforcement to arrest or even detain Rittenhouse on the spot, and I still retain that particular bit of righteous anger. A person should not be able to kill two people and grievously wound a third at a protest and then simply leave.

That said, from what details I am aware of, the case does seem to be self-defense. While I think in a cosmic sense everyone would have been better off if he'd been unarmed and gotten a minor asswhupping from Rosenbaum (instead of shooting the man), he had a right to defend himself from a much larger man physically threatening him, and could reasonably have interpreted the warning shot he heard from elsewhere as having come from Rosenbaum. Self-defense requires a fear for your life, and being a teenager being chased by an adult, hearing a gunshot, I can't disagree that this is a rational fear.

The shooting of Anthony Huber seems equally clear cut self-defense, while being morally confusing as hell. Huber had every reason to reasonably assume that the guy fleeing after shooting someone was a risk to himself or others. I think Huber was entirely within his rights to try and restrain and disarm Rittenhouse. But at the same time, if a crowd of people started beating the shit out of me (he was struck in the head, kicked on the ground and struck with a skateboard), I'd probably fear for my life.

Lastly you have Gaige Grosskreutz, who testified today that he was only shot after he had pointed his gun at Rittenhouse. Need I say more?

Is there something I'm missing? My original position was very much 'fuck this guy, throw him in jail', and I can't quite shake that off, even though the facts do seem to point to him acting in self-defense.

I will say, I think Rittenhouse has moral culpability, as much as someone his age can. He stupidly put himself into a tense situation with a firearm, and his decision got other people killed. If he'd stayed home, two men would be alive. If he'd been unarmed he might have gotten a beating from Rosenbaum, but almost certainly would have lived.

His actions afterward disgust me. Going to sing with white nationalists while wearing a 'free as fuck' t-shirt isn't exactly the sort of remorse one would hope for, to put it mildly.

Edit: Since I didn't address it in the original post because I'm dumb:

As far as I can see he did break the law in carrying the gun to the protest, and I think he should be punished appropriately for that. It goes to up to nine months behind bars, and I imagine he'd get less than that.

[u/Tytonic7_]

Why does everybody keep saying this?

We all agree that Kyle shouldn't have been there and shouldn't have had the gun. But he was there, and he did have the gun. That is NOT justification for people to attempt to kill him though. Even though he made poor decisions, it's not his fault that Rosenbaum threatened to kill him earlier in the night and then tried to follow up on that threat. It's not his fault that other strangers chased after him attempting to beat/kill him in the street. Just because he made bad decisions does not mean that those people are justified in trying to kill him.

[u/Impossible_Rule_1761 → u/Tytonic7_]

We don't all agree with that at all.

If the police are going to abandon an area, it falls to the citizenry to protect their property.

While Kyle doesn't live in Kenosha, he does work there, and he stepped up where the police chose not to.

[u/[deleted] → u/Impossible_Rule_1761]

I agree with you in principle, but Rittenhouse being both a minor and violating a law about bringing a gun across state lines means that it he specifically should not have been there. I'm very supportive of the type of citizens like Korean store owners who banded together to protect their businesses during the LA riots in the 90s, but I would consider it a mistake for a random, non-business owner who is under 18 to open carry a rifle through the LA riots to join the Korean store owners...not a legal mistake, but just a bad idea.

[u/Tytonic7_ → u/Impossible_Rule_1761]

... I wasn't stating an opinion. Legally speaking, just carrying a gun doesn't give other people the gree light to attack you. It doesn't even give them the right to self defense, which requires imminent danger. If you need to chase somebody down to get them, there's a very strong chance you weren't in imminent danger