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.

  • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Do I think he’s an idiot for doing so? Absolutely. Do I think those actions you listed in and of themselves revoke any claim he has to self defense? Absolutely not.

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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      8 months ago

      He literally travelled there with a loaded murder-rifle to point it at people and kill them. That’s not defence. Nothing about that is defence. It’s literally offence, he went there from out of state just to do that.

      • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        He literally travelled there with a loaded murder-rifle to point it at people and kill them.

        He claims he was there to protect businesses and help injured people. To claim he went there to kill people is literally just fabricated.

    • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      walked the streets for hours pointing it at protestors

      If they had shot him first, would they be the ones defending themselves from him?

        • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          The context was already there for you:

          walked the streets for hours pointing [a rifle] at protestors

          • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            Rittenhouse fired at some who admitted on the stand to pointing the gun at him first. Unless you have evidence that he’s actually walking around pointing his gun at people without provocation, you are ironically actually defending him.