Which I think gets to the heart of the division over this whole affair. Many people believe that carrying a gun, especially openly and doubly so a rifle, is an inherently aggressive and threatening act. That since “unarmed” is the default state of humanity, therefore going armed is a willful departure from a neutral stance. Whereas many advocates of carry wish that going about armed were as unremarkable as wearing a hat, even though they acknowledge that in practice that’s not the case. By the former interpretation Rittenhouse was already the aggressor just by being there with a rifle; by the latter, that he was going about prepared to lawfully defend himself against violence in an unsure situation. So on this point I think the gulf in attitudes is going to be too wide to come to a consensus.
Not that it would have mattered in this particular case, but I do wish that if people felt the need to carry long guns in public that they carried them scabbarded, the way most people holster carried handguns. This would be a bit of deescalation showing that they are not ready to fire on a second’s notice.