# The Rittenhouse trial **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 4, 2021, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798 "2021-11-04T14:56:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 69
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1363 "2021-11-21T17:32:44Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Kenosha is in an uproar. Not surprisingly, [there are anarchists in places like Portland](https://apnews.com/article/kyle-rittenhouse-george-floyd-riots-wisconsin-kenosha-a39905965d026e466e1288148a84b728) breaking windows, attacking the police and threatening to burn down government buildings. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1364 "2021-11-21T17:46:57Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > > [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > > > Rittenhouse’s reaction to _being attacked_ . > > The strategy, IIRC, is to decoy the unarmed protestors into attacking a decoy who is shooting (by Rittenhouse criteria) in self defense. Then the other vigilantes can shoot the unarmed protestors in support of the decoys’ self defense. > > If you have the mind set of a right wing nut case, the logic isn’t even a reach. If you are a normal human being, it’s batshit crazy. Your reaction indicates normalcy. This frankly sounds like nonsense, and the genesis of this idea was a kook on MSNBC “speculating” they were not reporting anything based on real evidence or journalism showing any groups or persons are doing the things you’re talking about. It is pure hypothetical mixed with hyperbole. Nothing in this ruling–which by the way, does not even have _precedential_ value, it was a local criminal trial in Wisconsin, has changed the State of the law. The reason bad guys don’t “lure” people they dislike into “attacking them” so they can then “execute them” via “self-defense” is it would be an incredibly difficult and convoluted process, with many failure points. Not least of which, if any evidence of this conspiracy or pre-planning got out, would almost certainly result in criminal convictions of multiple people involved. Also putting yourself in the position to where you have to first be the “victim” of an attack, exposes you to risk in and of itself–maybe the next Joseph Rosenbaum has a handgun he pulls out and kills you with. It’s just not a realistic plan, and certainly not some blueprint for mass-killings. Anyone who thinks so is ignorant of the law, the specifics involved, and the hilarity of trying to run such a scheme across the many jurisdictions that exist in our country all of which have slightly differing laws on gun possession, self-defense etc. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1365 "2021-11-21T17:47:13Z")
But even in full context he is wrong. An AR doesn’t have anywhere near the recoil of a shotgun, then we get to the idiocy of arguing that 5 rounds is better than 30. Or worse, 2 round in a double barrel shotgun that he mentions later. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1366 "2021-11-21T18:05:54Z")
MSNBC is a garbage network full of activists who have been agressively wrong or lying about almost everything during this trial, Their fever speculations about ‘copycat’ shootings are unhinged and stupid. They are racing against CNN to see who can swirl down the drain faster. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1367 "2021-11-21T19:39:52Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > A white kid shot three other white people. What does that have to do with racial injustice? I know that everyone directly involved in the Rittenhouse incident was in fact white, and I haven’t seen any evidence that Rittenhouse himself is a racist. The racial injustice, to me, comes from the fact that a whole movement of people in this country have made a folk hero out of Kyle Rittenhouse for involving himself in this protest/riot, as one of the “good guys”, where the bad guys (to them) is Black Lives Matter who they perceive as being directly responsible for the rioting, even if white people are also involved in the same rioting. The right wing has set up a narrative wherein BLM and the whole “left” is “setting our cities on fire and creating chaos”, and people like Rittenhouse are supposedly doing their patriotic duty by intervening like this. The proponents of this narrative also believe that the Capitol mayhem was an act of patriotism and that Ashley Babbit is a murder victim. You see where I’m going with this? ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1368 "2021-11-21T19:49:38Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > You see where I’m going with this? No. I see you grasping at straws in an attempt to make it about race when it’s not about race. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1369 "2021-11-21T19:49:58Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > > [@D\_Anconia](#): > > > > A white kid shot three other white people. What does that have to do with racial injustice? > > I know that everyone directly involved in the Rittenhouse incident was in fact white, and I haven’t seen any evidence that Rittenhouse himself is a racist. The racial injustice, to me, comes from the fact that a whole movement of people in this country have made a folk hero out of Kyle Rittenhouse for involving himself in this protest/riot, as one of the “good guys”, where the bad guys (to them) is Black Lives Matter who they perceive as being directly responsible for the rioting, even if white people are also involved in the same rioting. The right wing has set up a narrative wherein BLM and the whole “left” is “setting our cities on fire and creating chaos”, and people like Rittenhouse are supposedly doing their patriotic duty by intervening like this. The proponents of this narrative also believe that the Capitol mayhem was an act of patriotism and that Ashley Babbit is a murder victim. > > You see where I’m going with this? I don’t disagree, but part of the issue–and I do not put this entirely on the left, full stop–is that the left refuses to recognize problems when problems exist. Now, I fully believe even if the left handled these issues better, right wing pundits would still distort and would still lie. But time after time when challenged on it, public lefties refused to condemn or even acknowledge that BLM protests sometimes did result in rioting and other problems. Look, some of the rioting was caused by cops actually being over-enthusiastic and violent, some was caused by right wing provocateurs etc. But some was absolutely caused by lefties, it’s just the truth. You can denounce rioting **while** pointing out that most of the protests are peaceful and many of the riots were instigated by violent right wingers. In fact, Joe Biden did just that, repeatedly, during the 2020 campaign–he supported the protests but denounced rioters. But for some reason a large contingent of lefties refuses to do this. The reason? The same reason they always refuse to engage–they don’t like the field the right wing politicos have staged so they refuse to fight there. But the problem is oft-times when you refuse to fight you lose the narrative. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1370 "2021-11-21T20:01:15Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > \*This is pretty hard core I admit but the end justifies the means. It wasn’t his job to do it but Kyle did remove 2 horrible individuals from the gene pool. That sure sounds like a LEO endorsing vigilantism. > [@pkbites](#): > > \*Maybe it’s too early for this one, but where are all the white people rioting in Kenosha? Dead. Self-defensed to death. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1371 "2021-11-21T20:34:24Z")
> [@Chisquirrel](#): > > > [@pkbites](#): > > > > \*This is pretty hard core I admit but the end justifies the means. It wasn’t his job to do it but Kyle did remove 2 horrible individuals from the gene pool. > > That sure sounds like a LEO endorsing vigilantism. Not at all. What part of grain of salt don’t you get? In fact, I think those officers that told Kyle they were glad he was there are idiots. I would never tell an armed person at an area of civil unrest whom I knew nothing about and had no knowledge of their intent that I endorsed their presence. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1372 "2021-11-21T20:44:03Z")
> [@Chisquirrel](#): > > That sure sounds like a LEO endorsing vigilantism. It sounds like self defense. Rittenhouse didn’t attack them, they attacked him. The fact that one of the anarchists was a suicidal child rapist isn’t surprising. It’s the kind of scumbag who would participate in a mob attack. I have no sympathy for him and the world is probably a better place for his demise over such an attack. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1373 "2021-11-21T21:05:42Z")
Both of those responses totally sound like law and order. “The dead guy did bad things, so it’s ok he died. Hell, maybe the universe was using Rittenhouse in order to right that wrong. Nevermind that the dead people had served their time as stated by the court, bad should be dead.” ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1374 "2021-11-21T21:10:29Z")
Amanda Marcotte at Salon points out this: The unhinged far-right have been searching for an armed vigilante hero to justify their calls for further right-wing violent vigilantism. Some other recent right-wing hero wanna-bee didn’t quite pan out: The Charlottesville guy who plowed through a group of counter-protesters? He wasn’t widely accepted as a hero. They Jan. 6 protesters? They’ve been arrested in large numbers, and many convicted or pled guilty. Derek Chauvin camping on the guy’s neck? No traction there. > [@Amanda Marcotte in Salon Nov. 19](#): > > The authoritarian right had largely failed to create a violent hero to rally around — until the Kenosha shooter > > [. . .] > > For years now, the so-called “alt-right” — or what one would traditionally call the fascist right — has been casting around desperately for some hero to rally around, a figurehead to tempt more people to transition from just being generic right-wing trolls to people who are ready for open violence. Nothing has really taken. > > [. . .] > > The problem for fascists is that their recruitment and publicity strategy depends on being able to successfully portray themselves not as the aggressors, but as reactors. As I note in Friday’s Standing Room Only newsletter, authoritarian propaganda always relies on a narrative that casts the right as acting in “self-defense” or out of “chivalrous” intent, whether it’s Nazis portraying the Holocaust as a corrective to a supposed Jewish conspiracy or the KKK defending lynching as necessary to protect white womanhood. Even efforts to recast the January 6 insurrectionists as martyrs and “political prisoners” have largely fallen flat, due in no small part to the participants getting convicted on a conveyor belt. > > [. . .] > What the fascist movement needed was a situation where there’s some wiggle room to say the violence was defensible, and in Rittenhouse, it appears they have a live one. > > Rittenhouse’s case may be just what the far-right needed to convince the 8chan trolls hiding behind their Pepe the frog memes to pick up a gun and start making trouble in the offline world. > **[Kyle Rittenhouse verdict: Just what the right needs to create a thousand more...](https://www.salon.com/2021/11/19/kyle-rittenhouse-verdict-just-what-the-right-needs-to-create-a-thousand-more-like-him/)** > > The authoritarian right had largely failed to create a violent hero to rally around — until the Kenosha shooter Thus, the right-wing stampede to lionize and deify KR, along with the requisite efforts to smear his victims to justify KR (however scummy they were, but KR wouldn’t have known that at the time). This case may not be a legal precedent in the courts, but it is the precedent that the violent right-wing has been looking for. Expect more of this. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1375 "2021-11-21T21:11:54Z")
Oh boy… holocaust comparisons. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1376 "2021-11-21T21:16:00Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Oh boy… holocaust comparisons.   Maybe a bit over-the-top here (or maybe not). But a lot of these same people are the right-wing death cult who, in addition to espousing jumping into protests with their big guns, also denounce mask mandates as “tyranny” (where’s that massive roll-eyes emoji?) comparable to the Holocaust. Yeah, they keep saying stuff like that. Amazing, @octopus, that you made this response in barely a minute after I posted that. Like, you read the whole post (let alone the linked article) in that time? Or you just lighted upon the word “Holocaust” in the quote, thus setting off your knee-jerk response? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1377 "2021-11-21T21:19:40Z")
It wasn’t that long of a post. I didn’t read the article because what you snipped implied that the article would be a waste of time. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1378 "2021-11-21T21:21:09Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I didn’t read the article because what you snipped implied that the article would be a waste of time. To those whose minds are made up, it would indeed have been a waste of your time. To be sure, my mind’s made up too, but I went and read that article anyway. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1379 "2021-11-21T21:26:06Z")
Look, I believe in strong individual rights. I don’t believe in anarchists destroying a city to advance an ideological agenda. That article, at least what you quoted, appears, to be very sympathetic to leftwing political violence and very much opposed to folks protecting themselves or their property or their own civil rights. ETA. Finished the article and it was much worse than I expected. Not as bad as Yahoo! Sports writings but it’s close. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1380 "2021-11-21T21:28:23Z")
A couple of recent op-edders in Wisconsin agree that KR is not (or shouldn’t be) any kind of hero: (n.b.: The “wsj” in these URL’s is Wisconsin State Journal, not the Wall Street rag of the same initials.) This one published before the verdict, in anticipation of whatever that verdict may be: (Discobot kindly advises me that this link has already been posted earlier.) > **[Rex Huppke: Guilty or innocent, Kyle Rittenhouse should disgust us all](https://madison.com/wsj/opinion/column/rex-huppke-guilty-or-innocent-kyle-rittenhouse-should-disgust-us-all/article_34766ade-173a-5866-a0cb-64fafcb817d0.html)** > > Nobody should want untrained teen vigilantes patrolling with illegally obtained guns And this one, by their editorial board, published after the verdict: > **[Kyle Rittenhouse verdict sends a chilling message to Wisconsin and the rest...](https://madison.com/wsj/opinion/editorial/kyle-rittenhouse-verdict-sends-a-chilling-message-to-wisconsin-and-the-rest-of-the-country/article_7299e869-82f2-5a38-b7b2-2f078a57b0ab.html)** > > STATE JOURNAL VIEW: Vigilantes carrying rifles in the streets won't make our society safer. > [@](#): > > This wasn’t the message Wisconsin or our nation needed to hear, even if the jury correctly followed the law. > > [. . .] > > The disappointing verdict is sure to embolden militant people who seek to take the law into their own hands. It also could increase and complicate self-defense claims if more people carry — and use — firearms in the streets. That’s a scary prospect. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1381 "2021-11-21T21:30:17Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > That article, at least what you quoted, appears, to be very sympathetic to leftwing political violence and very much opposed to folks protecting themselves or their property or their own civil rights. To be sure, that was Amanda Marcotte writing at Salon, so it’s liberal/left-leaning fer sure. But wait . . . KR went there to protect himself and his property? I hadn’t heard that mentioned before. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798/1382 "2021-11-21T22:12:03Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Nothing in this ruling–which by the way, does not even have _ **precedential** _ value, Most of these guys would think you were talking about Trump It is speculation, but it does make sense. The actions of Joe Horn, Zimmerman and Rittenhouse were deliberate homicide. They purchased equipment, prepared it and placed themselves in a position to use it. And, where tried, the jury found it to be legal. So why not use it as a text book for legal murder. There are other people eager to do just that. Zimmerman had no reason to kill Martin. Even if Martin had been guilty of a crime Zimmerman had no authority to punish him. Joe Horn was a case of first degree murder. Rittenhouse involved himself in a riot. The other people with guns had the intelligence and prudence not to. I am concerned that the open carry gun nuts may begin parading around residential neighborhoods. If you are parading on a road, over which you cannot fire, that is bordered by private property, into which you cannot fire, then the presence of weapons is only to intimidate the residents. Abuse of a right will lead to loosing it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798.md?page=68) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rittenhouse-trial/953798.md?page=70)