Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
I Have Questions
Twitter is revelatory. The general population has probably always had a stupid streak, but Twitter makes it possible for ignorance to light itself on fire and burn so brightly it overwhelms the sun.
Reading the rants about the Kyle Rittenhouse trial is something else. First, there seems to be a large segment of the population who thinks the prosecution is doing a good job. Now, granted, I just catch the “lowlights,” but from what I have seen, Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger has been surprised way too many times by his own witnesses.
Second, the “conventional wisdom” about the law is astoundingly bad. I mean, most people commenting on the trial would be confused watching a Matlock rerun. I could be a very rich man if I could collect a dollar from everyone who assured their fellow progressives that, no matter what, the prosecution will eventually win on appeal. That’s how bad civics education is. How the hell do that many people believe an acquittal can be appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court?
And the comments about the presiding judge, Bruce Schroeder, are something else, too. Local attorneys describe him as fair but willing to be combative. My theory, which would be easy to prove or disprove with the proper resources, is that this is not the first time this judge has witnessed this prosecutor’s ineptitude. But no journalist seems even remotely interested in any backstory between them. The media loves the clips of Schroeder’s admonitions, but doesn’t go out of their way to make clear that he makes sure the jury is out of the room when he does it.
Rittenhouse will probably be convicted on the gun charge. There is no doubt that he was underage and outside the home with a firearm. The man who supplied the weapon is probably in more trouble than the person who fired it. There is a persistent belief that Rittenhouse, who lives in Antioch, IL, carried the rifle across state lines into Wisconsin. He did not. And even if he did, there is no Federal law against that. (States have their own transport regulations but anything interstate would be the jurisdiction of the Feds.)
But one never knows how a jury will rule. Especially one that feels intimidated. The political pressure has been huge, which is why in so many of these cases overcharging has become the norm. The DA feels the heat, the jury feels the heat, and so does the judge. My only hope is that the jury is more informed than the folks on Twitter.
Published in General
Biden “won” the election. He won an election he should have lost 10 times over due to those riots.
So don’t tell me they don’t work.
I wish Rittenhouse’s lawyers made that argument to the jury: Sure he had an AR-15, but he also had a fire extinguisher, and he intended to defend the property with the fire extinguisher (by throwing it at the rioters, I guess).
And another thing, conservatives should be 100% behind Kyle because we no longer live in a society of laws. Im not going to cherry pick where his dad was or why he didn’t know the difference between his choices of ammo. I would defend my workplace because that’s my community. Where does my livelihood go if my employers community burns down, or is no longer safe or can no longer afford insurance (which will absolutely go up after a riot).
And this is nothing more than a political hit. THE STATE allowed the riots to happen. And THE STATE is prosecuting him. You don’t see the conflict of interest here?
I hope he becomes a millionaire after a malicious prosecution settlement.
When Antifa comes to kill me like they came to kill people in Kenosha I will be sure to leave my family and all of my possessions for them. We poor peasants need to realize that it doesn’t matter if we live in a free country or not. Now that we aren’t allowed to stop it, rioting is a-ok with many of my fellow citizens. Maybe FL or TX is my only alternative.
I dunno. My own brother, a die hard Hillary supporter since 1992, claims that there were no riots.
Easy way to not be in his situation: Don’t violate curfew orders and go into a riot with a rifle.
I don’t see what’s so amazing about what he did. Rosenbaum was unarmed and charged him, and Kyle shot him. I think it was justified self-defense, but there’s nothing special about it. One attacker had a pistol and when he aimed at Kyle, Kyle shot him. OK, that’s justified self-defense, too. People are talking like he held off a squad of Viet Cong.
If you can’t say you wouldn’t perform as well as Kyle in that situation – which means only shooting people presenting an imminent bodily threat – then you shouldn’t be carrying a gun, especially in a riot. Not shooting people who shouldn’t be shot is the minimum requirement for carrying a gun, not a heroic extreme. Riots are by definition extreme situations of high stress and dynamic and unpredictable threats. That’s why people should avoid them. It’s also why introducing guns into them is extremely dangerous to do.
If the 2nd Amendments means we have to allow minors to carry guns into riots, then I’m against it. But then I don’t think it does.
That ain’t going to happen.
Nope. I’ll defend my home and my family if Antifa invades my home. That’s legal even here in Massachusetts, and I can use lethal force to do it. But I’m not going to go into the next town looking to confront Antifa with a shotgun if they start some dumpster fires.
Again, I am almost entirely in agreement with you. Where I’ll withhold judgment is that I’m not at all confident that Kenosha will be a win for the left. Whether or not Rittenhouse is acquitted (and I suspect he will be), I expect the left to handle it poorly, either in protest or in celebration. Either way, the Rittenhouse case makes it harder for the 2020 riots to be swept quietly under the rug. I expect the fringe left’s self-immolation to continue.
There are always people beyond reach. I doubt he represents a majority of Americans.
No one here has said that. If you are a victim of a riot you need to defend. But a kid running around like that is foolishness.
Rioters that start fires don’t like it when someone puts out their fire. Acting alone was idiotic. I wouldn’t wade into that chaos without twenty well trained men and a couple crew served weapons.
I may be wrong, but I thought it was a family friend’s property. I’m on mobile, and have not checked this.
Im proud of him regardless.
Yet it remains the equivalence you’re making in shorthand in your most recent comment, and difficult to square with the distinction you allow.
If you’re revising or clarifying, fair enough.
I admire the effort, but the third does not follow. The AR was for self defense.
Kyle’s mother sums it up pretty well:
“No one should have been there,” she said. “The protesters should not have been there, also. My son shouldn’t have been there either.”
Okay. I’ll keep this part of your stance in mind. I agree.
Right, he had the fire extinguisher to defend the property. Like I say, I would have liked to see the defense lawyers sell that to the jury.
Things really aren’t that bad.
There’s never been a time in US history when you couldn’t have pointed to something in the news – a riot, a politically tinged crazy trial that gets attention, an injustice, a screwup by public officials, a scandal, etc – and say it’s the end of the rule of law or society as we know it or whatever.
But the Rittenhouse trial is proof that the rule of law is pretty healthy here. He’s not getting railroaded, and he’s not getting special treatment either.
And that’s what’s going on in courtrooms across the country every day – the rule of law resolving disputes.
The sky is not falling. And that’s something people should hear on a variety of topics. Covid’s not going to wipe out humanity and BLM / Antifa are not going burn down all our town. The election system is adequate and fair for its purpose and Republicans are not secretly scheming to suppress the votes of minorities. These seem like shocking things to say these days, but they’re true. They don’t generate ratings, clicks, or donations, and they don’t gratify partisan prejudices, but they are true.
His presence was defending the property. The weapon was to defend himself.
At least now, any defensive user of hollow point will be able to say that he/she used it because Binger said to.
Spare me. The curfew is irrelevant because it wasn’t being enforced. Again, a failure of the state. Let the whole thing burn, right? Who cares? And the riot found Kyle.
Rosenbaum being unarmed is also irrelevant. A rampaging pedophile who is setting things on fire near GAS STATIONS and literally threatening murder is a threat, armed or not. That’s not exactly the kind of person I’m going to start small talk with if I run into them on the street. But he can’t be a threat because no gun, ammirite? I guess the other scumbag wasn’t armed either? Because swinging a skateboard at someone’s face in no way could cause fatal injuries. They all deserved to be shot armed or not. Two and a half less.
Also spare me your phony tough-guy crap about who should be allowed to use a gun by your BS standards. I have no experiences in my brain that could remotely relate to a situation like Kyle’s thank God. I’m not going to add my “well, actuallys…..” to the conversation. The vast majority of self defense cases are first-timers. That’s kind of the point of self-defense. Even the playing field so the weak have a chance.
It was falling this morning, though. The ground is still white.
Ha! If you look close enough you’ll see hen’s tracks, follow them and you’ll see them joined by a rooster, then a duck, then a fox…
I’ll say for the millionth time that I think Kyle was justified in his self-defense in the moment. I guess I’ll say it for the million and first time. I’ve also said many times that I have no sympathy for the guys who got shot. You go out into a riot and create mayhem, then you accept the consequences, including getting shot by a teenager.
But neither do I think Kyle was a hero. He had vastly more firepower than anyone attacking him. He was able to take out an unarmed guy, a guy with a skateboard, and a guy with a pistol with his AR-15. Well, I’d hope so. I’ll say for the millionth and second time: He was justified in doing so. Doesn’t make him a hero. Especially as I think he was simply lucky that no one else was hit by his bullets.
I’m still with Kyle’s mom: He shouldn’t have been there. Minors should stay indoors during riots. And I’ve never said “let it burn.” Property owners should defend their property.If the property owners in Kenosha choose to defend their property because the cops won’t, good for them. If they choose not to, that’s their choice. I’ll defend my property and family if necessary. Any high schoolers out there who want to be heroes and come defend my property without my invitation, tell them to stay home.
This ridiculous. Literally, “worthy of ridicule.” I’ll simply point out where you’re wrong.
By this statement, you seem to have an unfounded faith in the ultimate scorekeeper of politics. This is the same flaw which leads idiot Congressmen to avoid a fight, thinking that the loss thereby incurred will someday be appealed fairly by an omniscient scorekeeper, and that those Marxist victories will somehow be pulled back. That’s not how this works.
The mechanism which you rely upon is itself collapsing. That’s the issue.
And as far as people thinking that Biden would represent some return to normalcy because his side is engaged in violence just recommends violence to any political faction which wishes to have its views accepted and their candidates elected in order to avoid more violence. Why yes, that *is* how this works, now that the rule of law is rightly seen as fleeting. You should not credit this line of thought beyond its success — violence means more than anything else right now.
You have swallowed the leftist’s bait, and are now justifying it even as you twist on the hook. Who on Earth thinks that Biden has “suddenly” been discovered by the masses to be some sort of leftist? Anybody who might fit that description is not the electorate to target. Those people are few and ridiculously ignorant. What misgivings they may suddenly have developed will be just as swiftly wiped away by The View or CNN.
Then I guess we will never agree. History is littered with examples of horrific things happening because good people chose to do nothing.
You;re talking out of both sides of your head here. You admit that they need Antifa/BLM, but say they “don’t like” them. I beg to differ. Antifa and BLM are the expendable footsloggers of Biden and Pelosi. This is Obama’s OFA/Occupy army of domestic terrorists in the streets. I’m sure Nanny Pelosi doesn’t invite the proles for $50 ice cream, but she knows where her bread is buttered. And so do Biden’s handlers.
You don’t get to win politics by losing a lot and “being right” in a cosmic sense. We need pushback, and where the left engages in violence — armed pushback.
I’m glad that KR shot two lowlives and wounded a third. The place that generated those riots of course produced a loss in ballots, Kyle or no. It was all positives for us.
How’s this for irony?
From a legal point of view, Rittenhouse would have been better off with a two-point sling. With the rifle slung over his shoulder, he would not have had to manipulate it to prevent it from hitting the ground when he did other things. Those manipulations appear to be at least some of the events where he is accused of aiming at people.
In distinction, Mark McCloskey would have been better served with Rittenhouse’s one-point sling to allow carry at low ready without flagging the mob.
Goodbye America. It had a great run.