The Kyle Rittenhouse trial raises some interesting observations. Rittenhouse was seventeen when he decided to intervene in a riot that was burning the small town where his father lived less than 20 miles from where he and his mother made their home. As a seventeen-year-old, it was a poor decision, and it probably would have better if he had just avoided the mayhem and stayed home. There were calls on social media for people to protect the homes and businesses under attack and Rittenhouse responded.
Unfortunately, Rittenhouse answered the call with a Smith & Wesson M&P 15, an AR-15-like rifle he legally owned despite false press reports echoing the prosecution saying the gun was illegally in his possession. For some reason no one in media bothered to check Wisconsin laws on firearms that made Rittenhouse’s gun legal for a seventeen-year-old instead just taking the word of the prosecution that was lying.
The judge threw out the charge of illegal possession of a firearm early on in what turned out to be a slew of criticism aimed at prosecutorial sloppiness and outright incompetence. It became evident as soon as video evidence was shown that the prosecution’s case was built on a house of cards, and it started falling apart almost immediately. The video clearly showed that Rittenhouse was being pursued by a mob and that he acted in self-defense.
At this writing the jury is still out likely because lynch mob influence is seen by the jury as a threat to them and their families. Incredibly, national press coverage was so poor that up until the trial started most African Americans thought Rittenhouse had used his rifle to shoot three blacks especially after Joe Biden had publicly accused the teenager of being a white supremacist. The lone black member of the jury is no doubt under tremendous pressure to vote guilty and ignore the obvious evidence that Rittenhouse discharged the rifle to save his life from imminent attacks of rioters that were out of control and out for blood.
Rittenhouse stuck his neck out when the rest of us just stood back and hoped Washington would come to its senses and put a stop to the destruction of communities under the banner of a concocted Black Lives Matter movement when no one in the country was saying black lives do not matter. Maybe Rittenhouse's actions were dumb or maybe they were what was needed.
