Indeed. In my state, there is no codification of self defense. It all comes from common law.
But to clarify this idea of what Rittenhouse did in the past and what the shooting victims did in the past. It is all irrelevant. The jury was tasked to determine if a reasonable person in the situation would have believed he was in jeopardy of death or serious bodily injury. Note, not if Kyle Rittenhouse was in such fear, but a reasonable person.
So it doesn’t matter if Rittenhouse is a racist, if he believes that shooting arsonists without trial is proper, or if he is just a mean and nasty dude. The jury is not determining that in any way. What would a reasonable person do?
Likewise, facts about the shooting victims, unknown to a reasonable shooter, are irrelevant because they are not part of the calculus. One of the shooting victims could have been Ted Bundy, Jr., recently escaped from prison, but if the shooter didn’t know that, then that is not part of the determination of whether it was reasonable to shoot him.
So you agree with everyone else in the world that it is pretty much undisputed that the Supreme Court would find self defense to be an unenumerated right, and in fact is has done so in a case with which you disagree, but believe that it would certainly find it in another way? If so, why are you arguing with the proposition that there is a constitutional right to self defense?
That is where the reasonable person standard comes in. Nobody has suggested a blanket rule as contained in this statement. Nobody would say that someone sauntering over to you to ask for directions is a reason to shoot them.
When you have a situation like here where the undisputed facts show, at most, a verbal altercation, with Rittenhouse visibly carrying an AR-15 and someone angrily charges at him, he runs away, the other person continues to pursue and catch up…then as the jury did here, it is very reasonable to assume that if the person reaches you, you are in some real danger.
I’ve already offered my opinion on this and you let me know how much you thought of it, but since you’re asking a direct question expressing confusion on the matter: the reason I, a person on the left, has a problem with him is because I’d quite like fewer people to get killed on account of having been shot in the body with guns.
As far as I know, there is nobody–except those who are “vociferously” championing the lad as a hero–who denies that Kyle Rittenhouse did a stupid thing he shouldn’t have done, and which he really didn’t serve much purpose by doing, by inserting himself into a situation he really didn’t need to be in and where his presence significantly increased the chances of human beings dying on account of guns that other people shot them with. I think it’s bad when that happens.
It is my opinion that Rittenhouse not only was aware that he was significantly adding to the shot-in-the-body-by-guns factor, but that he didn’t think that was a bad thing. I think that he did a calculation and realized, hey, this is the sort of situation where I am much more likely to be confronted by circumstances where shooting another person is at least arguably a legally reasonable move, and he wanted to be in that situation. I think he, like many many people I’ve interacted with, had thought about it quite a lot, and thought it would be the kind of situation where you would be fucking awesome if you exercised your very important right to self defense and killed people. And then he found himself in one of those situations, and he shot a bunch of people and killed them.
I understand how the law works. There was never a time I believed he was going to be convicted of murder. I still think he’s a piece of shit and anyone who thinks he’s cool or did a cool thing is, you know, a person I have non-specific unfavorable opinions related to. As far as I know, Tucker Carlson never committed a murder beyond a reasonable doubt. I still find reason to not feel very favorably disposed to him.
How about not charging at people who are carrying guns? That decreases people being shot with guns.
Death or serious bodily injury. You don’t think that someone who sees you carrying a gun but charges at you in an aggressive manner anyways is a danger to you? That’s one crazy dude who will charge at you when he sees you carrying a rifle.
It’s been shown that he was indeed a crazy dude. But the instructions required a number of reasonable considerations.
Did Rittenhouse have options? Of course he did, he could have whacked the guy with the gun butt. He could have opened up on him with the fire extinguisher. He could have shouted a threat of violence and fired in the air.
Did Rittenhouse use force in proportion to the threat? No, Rosenbaum presented no threat equivalent to 3 direct hits from 30 caliber rounds.
Did Rittenhouse show concern for human life? No, he did not attempt to deflect or wound Rosenbaum.
Did Rittenhouse act as an intelligent and cautious person? An untrained child, loading a 30 round magazine into a semi-automatic rifle and carrying it into a riot where he wanted to play the role of an EMT is not the act of an intelligent and cautious person.
With all respect, you watch too many movies. Fired into the air?!?
When he fired at Rosenbaum, he was either touching his rifle or close enough to grab it. This was after Rosenbaum chased him. The law does not require him to fool around with a fire extinguisher or swing and miss with the gun butt and get into a hands-on fight where he might be on the receiving end of a gunshot. It is just not reasonable and not supported by case law. There is no requirement to exhaust “options” some of which are absurd, and all of them only gleaned in hindsight and not on the spur of the moment decision making, all caused by the aggressor.
Again, you are putting all of the responsibility on Rittenhouse. Why is the focus not on Rosenbaum and the very easy proposition put forward that if you don’t want to get shot, don’t charge at a guy holding a gun? That is a very easy thing.
This question is wholly irrelevant to anything in the legal aspect of the case. It is not “intelligent” nor “cautious” to walk in a bad area of town at night wearing expensive jewelry, but it is meaningless when it comes to whether I got robbed or defended myself.
Because he is responsible for the deadly weapon he is carrying; Rosenbaum is an unarmed nutcase.
Firing in the air was a factor in this trial. It was justification for Rittenhouse fear in the third incident.
You know more of legal matters than I do, but I am speaking directly from the instructions given to the jury in this case, not movies. Have you read the instructions? Have you read the specific terms used?
That’s probably true but the whole event was pretty much a gathering of Darwin award applicants. Reasonable people stayed home. Reasonable business owners bought insurance.
I would argue that the issue isn’t the killings and it isn’t racial injustice, it’s that the world hasn’t changed all that much since 1999 but somehow we’ve gone from being a country of normalcy to being a country where the idiot segment of the population feels the need to drive around the country to participate in partisan raves against the other sports team, because they’re getting bombarded with slanted news every day that paints all that as a tale of good versus evil.
We should solve the racism problem but we also need to stop the sports problem. You’re not going to solve the former before the latter. One team is always going to work to deny the work of the other, reason be damned and that means there is no progress before stopping necessitated obstructionism. It’s just reverse engineering.
There is no larger political issue and working on any other ones is a work of futility.
This is probably the best summary of the situation that I’ve read anywhere in the past 24 hours of chatter about this verdict. It is indeed a disturbing state of affairs and I fear it’s only going to get worse.
I should add though, that racial injustice is an undeniable part of the issue. Rittenhouse’s supporters (I don’t mean everyone who might believe that his acquittal was technically fair under the law, I mean the people - and there are a lot of them - on the right who have turned him into a folk hero) display quite a bit of cognitive dissonance when they condemn the rioting that erupted in Kenosha but have nothing to say about the insurrection at the Capitol.
For the most part the original constitution, barring the amendments known as the Bill of Rights, is a straightforward charter establishing the structure and enumerated powers of the federal government. It is not a thesis or manifesto on Enlightenment political philosophy, but rather the result of those doctrines being held to varying degrees by the Framers.
I still think Rittenhouse going to Kenosha was unethical, immoral, and stupid. But under the law the verdict was just.
Just some random thoughts rolling around in my head. Please take them with a grain of salt:
*The jury decision makes Kyle not guilty of doing anything illegal that night. Therefore he should sue the man who survived and the estates of the 2 men he killed. He won’t get squat but he should do it before they sue him.
*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. Maybe that’s what the universe wanted in the first place and couldn’t get anyone else to do it.
*The gun charge was dismissed. Does that mean the guy who supplied the rifle will get off as well? If it wasn’t illegal for Kyle to have that rifle why should the guy who provided it be punished?
*Maybe it’s too early for this one, but where are all the white people rioting in Kenosha?
I’ve lived in Wisconsin my entire life, 61 years. Some crazy shit sure does happen here, doesn’t it folks? Heh.
Mere curse words directed at someone isn’t enough to justify the initial assault. Even slurs, on their own, of any sort aren’t enough to justify an assault. I’ve been called all sorts of names in the pit and not once did I think I would have been justified in physically attacking the name caller if this ‘conversation’ occurred in meat space.
You do realize that law is a subset of human society and that the so-called law, especially in the US, isn’t a comprehensive list of what folks are permitted to do? The Constitution is explicit in this. Of course, the idea of natural law and governing by the consent of the governed is inconvenient for those who want to concurrently empower the state as the sole source of legitimate power and hijack the mechanisms and institutions of the state for their own purposes.
Apparently Tucker Carlson is making a documentary about Rittenhouse. It has behind the scenes footage and shows him reacting to the verdict. That was a tad fast.
Kids going to be fine, financially at least.