If someone is threatening you by pointing a gun at you, you’re legally justified to defend yourself by trying to take their gun away.
Cite?
So… Let’s say Rittenhouse had missed Rosenbaum, been disarmed and beaten either to death or severeky injured, Would that make him a victim? Would the other people still be ‘heroes’ for beating a 17 year old?
Because that’s the likely outcome had Rittenhouse not been successful in his defense.
On the other hand, if those ‘heroes’ had simply disengaged and let him run away, no one would have been killed.
That kind of tells you who the aggressors were here.
I think you are confused as to what happened. Of the five named people that were against Rittenhouse it is established fact that 2 possessed firearms. A prosecution witness stated there were dozens of armed protestors. In open carry states the number of legally armed people at protests are not mainly right wing. It is incorrect to think you need to be a Republican to own a gun or believe in personal carry. Personally I hate open carry. Outlaw it everywhere. But it’s not true to say only one side is doing it.
Are you sure you can accurately assume Rosenbaum’s motivation? He was a convicted pedephile, a violent felon and had been released from a mental health facility earlier that day. None of which was allowed to be said in trial by the way. Someone like that I would not assume he didn’t act without provocation.
Sure, he raised a successful selfdefense defense, and I am not questioning that. But he is not the victim. He was arrested, arraigned and charged with multiple felonies. He had a legit defense.
No, I’m not sure. As I mentioned upthread, his behavior makes no sense at all, and it’s reasonable to conclude he was not in his right mind. I think a normal person would have perceived Rittenhouse as a threat, but that guy was not normal. (Well, if a bunch of people were open carrying, I don’t know what a normal reaction would be. I would have gotten the hell out of there!)
I do think the acquittal was the right call. And, getting back to the OP, am not convinced “crossing state lines” necessarily implies premeditation.
Oh please, unless you were hibernating during the summer and fall of 2020 you’d know quite well what I am saying is true. But as this trial and quite a few online discussions about rule consistency has proven no amount of evidence is sufficient to convince those whose ideological viewpoint won’t allow them to be convinced.
That’s a “No, now that you mention it, I don’t have a cite.”
Truthiness, I believe Colbert coined it.
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.
Don’t forget Jackson State. Lots of people do.
There’s definitely a very political divide in how different people view the event. I hate open carry laws, but I generally trust juries to do their jobs. Not that I view them as infallible, but I extend the benefit of the doubt to people who actually reviewed all of the evidence. The left wing media certainly did try to smear this kid as a premeditated white supremacist, and they did so successfully because that’s more or less how I’ve viewed him without really looking into the story. I didn’t really learn the facts until that Taibbi article prompted me to look it up on Wikipedia. It’s complicated. I don’t think the facts fit well into either narrative.
You hit it exactly, because that’s exactly how I feel. Anyone openly carrying a weapon like that is signalling their comfort with committing acts of violence, and should by default be considered a threat. I’m supposed to trust your judgment about when to use that thing? I don’t even know you, man.
And that has nothing to do with this case.
How is that different from someone who may have a concealed weapon? Which several of the rioters did. How is that different from an aggressive pack of people that can very rapidly inflict lethal damage?
Though of course it’s usually up to the state to prove charges, not the defense to disprove them. I’m not sure about Wisconsin law but in the notorious Martin/Zimmerman case it was a legal point that in Florida the act of pointing a gun at someone, pulling the trigger, and shooting them dead is not, in and of itself, a crime. Florida requires a prosecution to prove the positive elements of murder or manslaughter. Usually not a problem except in rare circumstances like a self-defense claim with no contradictory hard evidence.
If someone makes it a point to show me they have a weapon, obviously they have nefarious intent, even if that intent is aggressive posturing bullshit meant to intimidate. I don’t think these scenarios you describe really are substantively different, though. Concealed carry laws are also associated with an increase in gun violence. I have a dim view of people who commit acts of violence or tote around weapons looking to commit acts of violence, and would have noped the fuck out of there. Which is why, as baffling as I find Rosenbaum’s behavior, I view Rittenhouse as just as bizarre. I can’t even conceive of what is going through the head of someone who takes a semi-automatic weapon into an already violent situation. I can guess (as I have) that he thought he would be deterring car thieves, but still, it’s utter fuckery. How do you bring a fucking gun to a riot and not expect people to die? (And yeah, the same question goes for every single person carrying that night.)
There’s nothing odd about it, under our Constitution. There are of course exceptions, but most police powers reside with the states.
It usually determines whether you’re breaking menacing laws.
Yikes. It took me some mental gymnastics to parse the triple-negative in that sentence.
Yes, yes, definitely so. Your posts convincingly lead to the conclusion that this is true.