Kyle Rittenhouse abruptly departed the stage during an appearance at the University of Memphis on Wednesday, after he was confronted about comments made by Turning Point USA founder and president Charlie Kirk.
Rittenhouse was invited by the college’s Turning Point USA chapter to speak at the campus. However, the event was met with backlash from a number of students who objected to Rittenhouse’s presence.
The 21-year-old gained notoriety in August 2020 when, at the age of 17, he shot and killed two men—Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, as well as injuring 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz—at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
He said the three shootings, carried out with a semi-automatic AR-15-style firearm, were in self-defense. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest where the shootings took place was held after Jacob Blake, a Black man, was left paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot by a white police officer.
I almost feel sorry for how this kid is going to be forever type-cast as a stupid gun-nut culture warrior type. Before his brain has even fully developed. What a disaster. What he did was gawdawful but it’s likely he will NEVER learn from his mistake and become a whole human being. Not when being a total dumbass for the RW elitists willing to fund such things pays a lot better than the alternative, I bet.
And when people talk about how what he did was in “self defense”…I always ask, what fuck was he even doing there in the first place? He had zero reason to be there.
I agree what he did was self defence. I also agree that he absolutely should not have been there in the first place. But it seemed him being there wasn’t that serious of a crime in the first place? (I know there was some illegality about him moving the weapon across state lines, but still)
He’s a moron. Unfortunately it’s not illegal to be a moron.
@CharlesDarwin @Flax_vert I like how people argue about this as if US self defense law condoning people executing their neighbors and shit makes anything right lol
He put himself into harm’s way, intentionally, because of right-wing feels, and then claims “self defense”. Carrying around a brandished weapon. What was he even doing there?
It so happens that I do think self-defense is a valid defense. Under the right circumstances, of course. If, for instance, someone breaks into my house and I shoot them on the spot, I won’t exactly be jumping up and down that I was pushed to kill someone (the manly macho posturing on this kind of scenario is one I always find curious; the fact of the matter is that any normal human being would not - and should not - come away mentally unscathed from ending another human being’s life. If I were forced to end someone’s life because they broke into my house, I imagine that is something I’d wrestle with for the rest of my days), but I don’t think I should be charged with anything. However, if I go to a protest, waving around a firearm, and then feel “threatened” by someone throwing a plastic bag at me…
@CharlesDarwin Unfortunately the majority of marketing for small arms has gotten people jumping up and down at the thought of getting to kill a home intruder to the point that they were all cheering on a guy for shooting a pregnant woman and a guy running away.
There’s morality and legality. I agree what he did was morally wrong and was murder in the biblical sense, but not the legal sense under U.S. law.
When I boil down the very moment of his decision, I agree in the idea of self defense. But it’s also why I’m generally opposed to filling an environment with high-lethality machines (be they guns, OR cars). It’s naive to put confidence behind the minds in control of those objects. Highways, too, have a high rate of deaths; but they at least serve some useful purpose.
I agree
Ok I’ll bite. Why was he there?
You judge a man you never met, about an event you didn’t witness.
You judge him with such confidence. You clearly know something.
He says himself that he was there to protect businesses, but he had no relation to the business beyond that of a standard employee, and his help was never requested–he didn’t know the owners, his family didn’t own the business, and he wasn’t even a frequent customer IIRC.
The most charitable interpretation is that an untrained, underage civilian took a semiautomatic rifle across state lines, to a protest happening in a town he didn’t live in, to guard a business that he had no special relation to, and that never asked for his help.
The more probable interpretation, given posts on his social media before the shooting (that weren’t allowed to be shown in court), is that he wanted to play action hero and shoot some scumbags, and he got exactly what he hoped.
EDIT: Apparently he worked at the business he was guarding, but the point still stands–he never got permission to defend the business, nor was it ever offered.
What bullocks technicality kept his social media posts from being shown in court?!
What reason did he have for being there?
He won’t learn from his mistakes, because despite being found NOT GUILTY in a court of law, he’s still crucified by everyone, including social media like Lemmy. It’s like when that dude with a smirk who was being yelled at by the Indian…the only thing people wanted to do is punch that kid… without even knowing the context. And, even after finding out the truth (how the Indians were in his face intimidating him) people still talk shit to him for being a Trump supporter…