Progressive Politics

All that money and all he amounted to is a booth babe at a Gun shop in Milton, Florida.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2025/02/08/northern-florida-gun-store-boasts-kyle-rittenhouse-as-new-cashier/78364033007/

Didn't he go back to his car to get the gun "because he felt scared"? I reasonable person would remove themselves from the situation

Look, I get why he got away with homicide. Watch the video, pretend you are a juror, be cynical as you like. He had a solid case for self-defense.

"Shouldn't have been there in the first place!", isn't a legal defense.

So, I do agree that, under our legal framework as it exists, his self defense case was solid. The first shooting was 100% self defense. He had an aggressive man larger than him charging and chasing him unprovoked for some distance. That man then grabbed the barrel of the gun, which could have been used against him, which is a lethal threat for which lethal defense is justifiable.

But where I think it gets less clear/reasonable is the second and third shoots. He ran from the scene where he shot someone rather than call the police and wait for them (this is the crux of my problem with the outcome of the judgement, which I'll come back to). Many bystanders understandably ran after him as it seemed he was evading the consequences of the shooting. Some physically assaulted him, including the second victim who who attacked him with a skateboard and tried to take his gun. The circumstances of this, from his perspective, are nearly identical to the first. But, notably, this assault and attempt to disarm is probably legal under Wisconsin law if there intent was to restrain him to deliver him to the police (i.e. citizen's arrest) as he had been witnessed committing what could have reasonably been viewed as a felony and reasonable force is allowed to execute and arrest. Nothing done to him would be illegal if a citizens arrest was deemed appropriate. Though that is inconsequential in determining self defense as it is about the mindset of the shooter that matters, and this attack would reasonably lead him to fear for his safety as he could not know if they were simply arresting him or indeed attacking him for retribution. So his shooting there was also self-defense under our current legal system.

Then, given his mindset and fear for his life, when he came face to face with someone weilding a gun, and that person made a move to raise their weapon, firing at them was likely justified as self defense given all of the facts that he was privy to at the time too. This was the ruling made, and I think that the law as is was probably on his side here.

But I don't think it should have been, entirely.

Two things to point out here. First, had the other guy with a gun shot him instead, it would have been equally justifiable for the same reasons. He could have claimed self defense for the exact same reasons Kyle did, and he should and would likely have been found not guilty for exactly the same reasons. This is interesting from a legal stand point because that means two people can be independently justified in shooting/killing the other at a given moment and have no legal consequences for it under the law as it is. But I think that that is wrong, at least in this case.

The reason I think this is wrong relates to my second point. The kid ran. Was it understandable that a kid was scared shitless after just being attacked and shooting someone? Absolutely. Was it reckless and negligent and the direct cause the outcomes any to happen? Yes!

There is room in the law to hold someone accountable to gross negligence, where you know full well that a dangerous or illegal outcome is very likely if you do something and yet you do it anyway. For example, leaving a child in a car on a hot day. It doesn't matter your intent in such cases, you're still responsible for the outcome, period. I don't necessarily think that, in this situation, it quite rises to the level of gross negligence. It could definitely be argued, but it's hard to say you should know that running from the scene like this would have likely led to two other shootings and one more death. Mainly because as that really depends on the unpredictable mental states and actions of others. However, I think there should still be room for accountability here.

If your actions are at all negligent (even if not grossly so), and through those actions you cause others to fear for their lives and this results in gross consequences like death or serious injuries, I think you still should bare some legal responsibility for this. That is even if the circumstances you find yourself in, outside of the context of how you got into those circumstances, justifies your actions therin.

Another such example being the murder of Treyvon Martin. George Zimmerman can argue all day that he was justified in killing that kid in defense, but the fact of the matter is that he died because he unreasonably created a circumstance where both parties feared for their safety and then someone died.

I don't know to what extent they need to be found responsible/guilty in those situations or what the degree of punishment should be. Generally negligent crimes are treated as somewhat lesser given no criminal intent. But I know that no responsibility and no punishment is not justice.