That seems pretty whacked to my Canadian sensibilities. And we have a LOT of hunters here.
I mean that’s 100%, factually not a personal attack. Seems like things have run their course here.
It’s an insult to another user, which is absolutely a type of personal attack and is not permitted outside of the Pit.
If you want to discuss the moderation, take it to ATMB.
Was it ever established what occurred that resulted in Rittenhouse being chased/engaged with Rosenbaum in the first place? Presumably a lot of people were open-carrying that day, so one wouldn’t know about Rittenhouse’s motives just by seeing that he was carrying a gun. Right? So how did this conflict start?
This what I have read happened: Rittenhouse and others were putting out fires. At least one of said fires was started by Rosenbaum and it made him angry that they put it out so he verbally threatened them, including Rittenhouse personally, something to the tune of ‘I’m going to fucking kill you’. Then about an hour later he saw Rittenhouse alone and attacked him.
Where did you read this?
I don’t remember. Now that i think about it, it actually might have been Rittenhouse’s own account on the Fox interview.
Don’t know where yarblek got their info, but a quick trip to Google found this.
Kyle Rittenhouse Fire Extinguisher Provoked Rosenbaum Anger: Witnesses
Two eyewitnesses interviewed by Wisconsin Right Now say Rosenbaum was enraged because Rittenhouse, and others, were using fire extinguishers to put out an arson fire in a dumpster that Rosenbaum, and others, were trying to push toward police squad cars.
They also believe that Rosenbaum may have been determined to rob Rittenhouse because the teenager seemed like the “weak” member of the herd and had walked off by himself. They think this because they say Rosenbaum, 36, “intricately” tied his shirt around his face, they believed to conceal his identity.
When the police, the prosecutors, and the elected municipal and state leaders fail to do their jobs calling said police and other officials to do their job obviously is not a viable option. Look at what happens to societies when police are corrupt or completely ineffective. You have what we see with the cartels in Mexico or the mobs of looters in California.
Furthermore, it’s never immoral or inappropriate to walk down a public street. Regardless of the wishes of the rioting mobs, their online sympathizers, or their political enablers.
Never? Never ever, or mostly never?
'Cause I can think of lots of circumstances where it would be completely inappropriate to walk down a public street.
I read the linked article. I’m not very impressed with Wisconsin Right Now! It identifies Rosenbaum as “a convicted sex offender” but fails to include the more relevant information that he suffered from bipolar disorder, had tried to kill himself, and had been discharged from a psych hospital only hours before, and had apparently wandered onto the scene. Why is Rosenbaum’s sex offender status worthy of mention but not the rest?
That article also claims there’s video footage showing Rittenhouse putting out fires. I can’t find any such videos.
And then there’s this:
She said Rosenbaum was angry at Rittenhouse and other armed men who were trying to put the fire out with fire extinguishers. “Rosenbaum was arguing. He said, ‘Why did you do that?'” she said. She said the people associated with BLM or Antifa “started throwing stuff at us. Bricks, metal.” They were using hammers to get chunks of the curbs to throw, she said (we observed chipped away curbs in Kenosha).
Well, there’s solid evidence: chipped curbs. And this witness, Justice Putnam, was apparently there with the militias if “BLM or Antifa” was throwing bricks at them. How unbiased is her account?
Meanwhile, I’m not finding any reliable news outlets verifying that Rittenhouse was putting out fires and that this angered Rosenbaum, who was clearly mentally ill. To wit
Among the crowd was an agitated bald guy in his mid-thirties, with a ginger goatee and an earring. He was wearing a maroon T-shirt, and had brought a plastic shopping bag containing socks, underwear, and deodorant. The man, who suffered from bipolar disorder, had recently been charged with domestic violence, and then had attempted suicide. Hours before the protest, he had been discharged from a psychiatric hospital. He apparently had wandered into the melee on the street, where it was difficult to perceive anything but his rage. At the Ultimate Convenience Center, he confronted the armed men, screaming both “Don’t point no motherfucking gun at me!” and “Shoot me! ”
A man yelled, “Somebody control him!”
During the chaos, Rittenhouse moved down the street toward Car Source’s second mechanic shop, where rioters had been smashing car windows. He crossed paths with the angry bald man, who chased him into the shop’s parking area. The man now wore his T-shirt as a head wrap and face mask, leaving his torso bare. Screaming “Fuck you!,” he threw his plastic bag at Rittenhouse’s back.
“Patrolling” in military dress and demeanor while carrying a loaded semi-automatic is more than just “being in a public place, legally.”. In this case an armed child was role playing to protect the communities dumpsters from having their trash burned. Harmless play until he killed 2 people.
The damage to the community was far more than a dumpster.
In what way are you (still) contending those things are legally different, to the extent that yours is a description of what this particular dumbass actually did?
In other words, what is illegal about patrolling with a military demeanor and a gun?
Based on the accounts here, assuming they are true, it sounds like Rittenhouse was a dumbass who put himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, naively thinking he could help the situation with more guns (a thought process I will never understand) but Rosenbaum was bonkers and the larger threat.
Although this also gets to my feeling that people who open carry need to accept that they are doing something inherently aggressive. There is an implicit threat in carrying a visible weapon around and I suspect it makes violent confrontation more likely, not less.
I have somewhat mixed feelings as I grew up in a gun owning household, have fired a weapon for hunter’s safety training, and did encounter people open carrying, sometimes my own stepdad. This was treated as normal. But one night my mother threatened to take the gun out and shoot me. It resulted in a call to social services and it’s a long story, but nobody did anything about it. So I am all too aware of how “responsible” gun ownership can turn deadly in a flash. This was in a household that placed a lot of emphasis on gun safety. So I don’t really take people at their word when they claim they will only use it for self defense.
From a legal perspective, wrt Wisconsin law, they are both the same. Just because it looks scary doesn’t mean it’s illegal.
Again, he can do this legally. Setting the dumpsters on fire, of course, is illegal, but the cops had more to worry about that night. Assuming the story of Rittenhouse going over to put the fire out is true, that’s legal as well…you don’t have a right to a dumpster fire, even if you set it and wanted it to…do stuff.
The problem is, this boils down, again, to self-defense and Wisconsin law. This isn’t about ‘was Rittenhouse an idiot to take a gun into a riot’…of course he was an idiot. But he was an idiot that was within the law of the state he was in. This isn’t about whether you or others thought he was scary looking or shouldn’t have been ‘patrolling’ or what his ‘demeanor’ was while carrying the gun. None of that stuff is illegal, and as to the scary part…well, lots of folks in that crowd on both sides would have scared the crap out of me. This isn’t about Rittenhouse’s lack of judgment for being there, about his clothing, even about the gun or his ‘demeanor while carrying a loaded semi-automatic’…it was about the case the prosecution made concerning whether Rittenhouse was or wasn’t justified in self-defense. And the prosecution failed to sway the jury…or many actual lawers who were following the case…to the viewpoint that this wasn’t self-defense in each encounter (all had to be judged separately).
You keep trying to bring in all this other, extraneous, and superfluous baggage that has zero impact on the legal aspects of the actual case.
If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table.
The table has been pounded into splinters and is well on its way to sawdust.
So, people keep agreeing that what Rittenhouse did was dumb. See, e.g.:
(My bold added).
But after agreeing, saying, this isn’t about that, because what he did was legal, or was within his rights.
Is the objection that it belongs in another thread, because this one is only about whether what he did was legal or illegal? Because if not, there’s no reason people can’t discuss what Rittenhouse did as dumb and aggressive and poor judgment and provocative (in the non-legal sense). And people can also discuss wanting his actions to be illegal. There’s nothing about the verdict in the trial that takes those discussions off the table.
It is a provocation. Rosenbaum had reasonable cause to view Rittenhouse as a mortal threat. Police have reacted to the mere presence of a weapon as justification to kill. Police have reacted to the suspicion of the presence of a weapon as justification to kill. Martin even sites an angry, unarmed road rager as justifiable provocation for an armed civilian to kill.
In that context Rittenhouse presented a lethal provocation to Rosenbaum.