"Those who insist he was acting in self-defense are pretending that he was asleep in his own bed but awoke and found himself in the middle of a riot with an assault rifle, that there was no choice in his being there armed to kill."
Again, I'm not defending Rittenhouse's stupidity, but Rittenhouse was very clearly acting in self-defence. T…
"Those who insist he was acting in self-defense are pretending that he was asleep in his own bed but awoke and found himself in the middle of a riot with an assault rifle, that there was no choice in his being there armed to kill."
Again, I'm not defending Rittenhouse's stupidity, but Rittenhouse was very clearly acting in self-defence. The shootings are all on video. In each of the incidents, he tries to run away from the threat before firing only when he is physically attacked or when a gun is aimed at him. And in each case, once the threat is over, he lowers his gun and tries to leave the situation. It's hard to imagine a more perfect definition of self defence.
All the arguments about whether he should have been there at all or whether he should have had access to a gun are valid. But they're nothing to do with whether he acted in self defence. The question of whether somebody is acting in self defence is unrelated to whether they were being stupid beforehand. As long as that stupidity didn't legitimately make somebody else fear for their life or safety.
If I walked into a sundown town after dark with a gun and a sign on my back saying "I love white women," that would be a stupid thing to do. But if somebody attacked me, and I shot them, that would still be self defence.
We really need to separate our personal dislike for a person's actions and the question of self defence. They're nothing to do with each other. And for good reason.
OK I phrased that poorly, it sounds as if I am denying the self-defense and saying he was just shooting people for sport. All me to rephrase:
"Those who emphasize the role of self-defense in Rittenhouse's three shooting ..."
Is that better?
Suppose I ran into a crowd of yelling bigots protesting some LGB ruling that didn't go their way, waving a rainbow flag and festooned with gay regalia like long acronyms carrying a rifle. Suppose I killed a dozen of them and video showed that every one I shot had attacked me in some way first. Would I be blameless? With matters reversed, would I not be seen as someone who went looking for trouble, inviting attack by bursting among unstable people already enraged?
The general issue I see missing in your formulation is that Rittenhouse carried a weapon of massacre into a chaotic riot situation and strutted around with his rifle at a ready angle, not strapped to his back. The only murders were his. To me that is the very image of looking for trouble and while yes he technically acted in self-defense in each carefully decontextualized situation but is he innocent?
"Those who emphasize the role of self-defense in Rittenhouse's three shooting ..."
But this is the only element relevant to Rittenhouse's self-defence case. So of course it's emphasised. All the other stuff, the pictures with the Proud Boys, the "back the Blue" posts on Instagram, even the video of him saying he wsh he had his gun, none of it is relevant to whether he should have been convicted of murder in this case.
When you say he's not innocent, what is the crime you're saying he's not innocent of? His crime can't be that you or I think he's stupid.
If you ran into an LGBT crowd with a rifle, they'd almost certainly be able to argue that they feared for their safety. And so the question of who was acting in self defence would be a lot less clear. But this is nothing like what happened with Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse was away from the main body of the protests, and he wasn't, from anything we've seen, behaving in a threatening manner at all.
But Rosenbaum, who set the whole sequence of events in motion, was absolutely behaving in a threatening manner. Both before he saw Rittenhouse, and afterwards, where he chased after him, threw his bag at him and tackled him to the ground. If you do that to a man carrying a rifle, one who, let's bear in mind, hadn't done anything wrong at that point, why are we pretending it's shocking that he was shot?
"Those who insist he was acting in self-defense are pretending that he was asleep in his own bed but awoke and found himself in the middle of a riot with an assault rifle, that there was no choice in his being there armed to kill."
Again, I'm not defending Rittenhouse's stupidity, but Rittenhouse was very clearly acting in self-defence. The shootings are all on video. In each of the incidents, he tries to run away from the threat before firing only when he is physically attacked or when a gun is aimed at him. And in each case, once the threat is over, he lowers his gun and tries to leave the situation. It's hard to imagine a more perfect definition of self defence.
All the arguments about whether he should have been there at all or whether he should have had access to a gun are valid. But they're nothing to do with whether he acted in self defence. The question of whether somebody is acting in self defence is unrelated to whether they were being stupid beforehand. As long as that stupidity didn't legitimately make somebody else fear for their life or safety.
If I walked into a sundown town after dark with a gun and a sign on my back saying "I love white women," that would be a stupid thing to do. But if somebody attacked me, and I shot them, that would still be self defence.
We really need to separate our personal dislike for a person's actions and the question of self defence. They're nothing to do with each other. And for good reason.
OK I phrased that poorly, it sounds as if I am denying the self-defense and saying he was just shooting people for sport. All me to rephrase:
"Those who emphasize the role of self-defense in Rittenhouse's three shooting ..."
Is that better?
Suppose I ran into a crowd of yelling bigots protesting some LGB ruling that didn't go their way, waving a rainbow flag and festooned with gay regalia like long acronyms carrying a rifle. Suppose I killed a dozen of them and video showed that every one I shot had attacked me in some way first. Would I be blameless? With matters reversed, would I not be seen as someone who went looking for trouble, inviting attack by bursting among unstable people already enraged?
The general issue I see missing in your formulation is that Rittenhouse carried a weapon of massacre into a chaotic riot situation and strutted around with his rifle at a ready angle, not strapped to his back. The only murders were his. To me that is the very image of looking for trouble and while yes he technically acted in self-defense in each carefully decontextualized situation but is he innocent?
No.
"Those who emphasize the role of self-defense in Rittenhouse's three shooting ..."
But this is the only element relevant to Rittenhouse's self-defence case. So of course it's emphasised. All the other stuff, the pictures with the Proud Boys, the "back the Blue" posts on Instagram, even the video of him saying he wsh he had his gun, none of it is relevant to whether he should have been convicted of murder in this case.
When you say he's not innocent, what is the crime you're saying he's not innocent of? His crime can't be that you or I think he's stupid.
If you ran into an LGBT crowd with a rifle, they'd almost certainly be able to argue that they feared for their safety. And so the question of who was acting in self defence would be a lot less clear. But this is nothing like what happened with Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse was away from the main body of the protests, and he wasn't, from anything we've seen, behaving in a threatening manner at all.
But Rosenbaum, who set the whole sequence of events in motion, was absolutely behaving in a threatening manner. Both before he saw Rittenhouse, and afterwards, where he chased after him, threw his bag at him and tackled him to the ground. If you do that to a man carrying a rifle, one who, let's bear in mind, hadn't done anything wrong at that point, why are we pretending it's shocking that he was shot?