A few days ago I was in a discussion on Facebook about Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old who was recently found not guilty of killing two men and wounding a third. His defense was that he acted in self-defense and I watched enough of the trial (between 7 and 9 hours) to be convinced that the jury got it right.
But that’s not what I’m posting on here. I’m posting about a view I’ve heard many around me express, a view that I held and now don’t. The view is that Kyle Rittenhouse was a fool for putting himself in a volatile situation where he could be hurt. According to this view, he should have stayed home in Illinois, 15 miles away, where he would have been safe.
Here’s why I’ve changed my mind. What came out at the trial was that Rittenhouse really did go to Kenosha, Wisconsin to defend people’s property after seeing rioters inflict substantial damage on various businesses. His father lived in Kenosha. He had a job in Kenosha. Presumably he knew a number of people in Kenosha whom he cared about. I’ve thought about other young people who have put themselves in situations where their lives are at risk in order to defend people whom, and property which, they care about.
There are many such examples. The young person who swims out to save someone from drowning even though he might drown too. The young person who enters a burning building to save someone trapped inside.
Notice that those are both actions to save people’s lives whereas Rittenhouse’s goal was to protect people’s property. But property is pretty important too.
When I was a kid, my family went to see Audie Murphy play himself in the movie To Hell and Back. Based on his own life, the movie told of his heroism in World War II. He falsified documents to join the Army 10 days after he turned 17. He received many medals for his heroism as an infantryman.
It never occurred to me to call Audie Murphy a fool. He joined a cause that he believed in. The fact that he tried to join shortly after the Japanese government’s attack on Pearl Harbor strongly suggests that he saw himself as defending the United States.
But what is the United States? It’s a collection of people and property. Many of these people, but not all, share important values. So that’s what Murphy saw himself as defending.
You don’t have to think that Kyle Rittenhouse was as heroic as Audie Murphy to see that both put themselves in danger to work for something they believed in. Clearly Audie Murphy took more risks than Kyle Rittenhouse, but I don’t hear people saying that Kyle was a fool because he didn’t take enough risks.
Maybe Rittenhouse was a fool because he was too young to take those risks. But then we’re back to Audie Murphy. Murphy was only months older than Rittenhouse when he actually saw combat. Was Audie Murphy a fool for doing what he did while still so young? I don’t think so.
READER COMMENTS
KevinDC
Nov 27 2021 at 6:48pm
It’s also worth noting that what Rittenhouse did is not as uncommon as many people might think, nor is community-based riot control something only done by groups of far right wingers. Near where I live, in Minneapolis, there was quite a bit of mayhem in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. When it became clear that the police were not inclined to push back too hard against the riots, community based riot control groups sprung up in short order. Very commonly, you’d find members of the black community patrolling the neighborhoods with pistols and rifles trying to keep the riots and looting at bay. The presence of armed community activists attempting to ward off looters and riots was explicitly endorsed by the President of the Minneapolis NAACP, Leslie Redmond, saying of the armed civilian groups “The goal for being out here is to protect our businesses and our churches and just make sure we’re okay.” You can see some of what I’m describing here, if you are so inclined.
David Henderson
Nov 27 2021 at 8:00pm
Thanks, Kevin.
Now that you mention it, I do recall that.
KevinDC
Nov 28 2021 at 8:23am
It’s remarkable to me how many people don’t recall this, even here in Minnesota. Over the last few weeks of the Rittenhouse trial, I’ve heard several people say comments along the lines of “The fact that Rittenhouse was able to walk the streets at all with a rifle is a sign of his white privilege – if a black man ever walked down the streets holding a rifle he’d be immediately killed by the police, especially in the middle of a riot.” The people saying this are completely unaware that the situation they are confidently asserting could never possibly happen did in fact happen, only a short distance from where they live.
This whole discussion reminds me of how Julia Galef, in her recent (and generally excellent) book The Scout Mindset talks about how we can try to clarify our thoughts by checking how we’d evaluate situations where similar actions are performed by different people – which is what the community patrols in Minneapolis can let us do. Upon watching the video I posted, would you be willing to say that those groups of people, upon seeing the police were unable or unwilling to protect their neighborhoods, were all a bunch of fools for taking it upon themselves to protect their homes, their businesses, their churches, their property, their friends, and their community? And, by extension, was the NAACP President also a fool for giving her endorsement to these community patrols, given their own lack of police or military training?
Daniel B
Nov 29 2021 at 5:44pm
“Beware the people who moralize about great issues; moralizing is easier than facing hard facts.” John Corry
I think this quote is very relevant here. It’s easier to say “Rittenhouse only got away with this because he’s white” than to spend 7+ hours watching the trial, or to take time out of our day to look things up and test our hypotheses. Brings a new meaning to the phrase, “talk is cheap.”
Floccina
Nov 29 2021 at 12:34pm
Thanks for the link to that video.
Daniel Klein
Nov 27 2021 at 6:54pm
Thanks for this, David.
David Henderson
Nov 28 2021 at 12:14am
You’re welcome, Dan.
Gary Shaw
Nov 27 2021 at 8:15pm
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, and while I actually absolutely support Kyle’s right to what certainly appeared to be valid self defense, Audie Murphy was a trained infantryman. And he was fighting to save the world. I believe Kyle is a good kid who made a bad call going there but overperformed in a bad spot.
Mark Z
Nov 27 2021 at 8:37pm
I don’t think joining the military, where one is trained, supervised, part of an organized effort, and under adult leadership is really analogous. Rittenhouse is more akin to 17 year old who just takes his gun and gets on a plane to Japan to fight the the imperial army by himself (and I would say he’s more analogous to a 17 year old who takes his gun and gets on a plane to Iraq to fight Saddam Hussein, who was also a threat to many people’s property and lives).
Implicit in the position that he was foolish – which I think is right – is the belief that he was much more likely to have a negative effect on things by going there. Again, a 17 year old serving in a uniformed, trained unit strictly supervised by experienced adults is very different. The ‘uniformed’ part matters a lot too: if I see a soldier or police officer carrying a rifle down my street, I can reasonably assume he’s not going to harm me; some 17 year old civilian though? Even if he didn’t mean to intimidate strangers, a rational stranger probably would be intimidated by that sight. Even if he’d gone there with, say, the The Guardian Angels (a group I’m still not sure is a good idea), it would’ve been marginally less irresponsible than going there alone and unsupervised.
Andrew_FL
Nov 27 2021 at 9:22pm
By this logic every young man who volunteer to fight for home and country without “formal training” was foolish, which is most young men who did so throughout history and pre-history.
David Henderson
Nov 28 2021 at 12:13am
Good point, Andrew_FL. I think that Mark Z’s reasoning would lead one to the conclusion that many of the people in the various militias during the Revolutionary War were fools.
Matthias
Nov 28 2021 at 2:57am
Sounds like a point in favour of that argument?
Unlawful insurrection against legitimate authorities like the English Crown isn’t exactly a good idea.
Jon Murphy
Nov 28 2021 at 3:33am
Historically, thought, militias and citizen soldiers did have formal training.
robc
Nov 28 2021 at 11:10am
Washington brought in Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben to train troops at Valley Forge in 1778.
Even years into the war, the revolutionary soldiers had little to no formal training.
Mark Z
Nov 28 2021 at 11:42am
Most young men who went off to fight in wars “for their countries” probably were, IMO, foolish. Almost by definition, at least half of them weren’t fighting a just war. And I reiterate my contention: joining an organized unit led by an adult (which was the case even for most militias) is more responsible than going off as a lone wolf.
Mike
Nov 28 2021 at 8:30pm
By your reasoning, a mob rioting and looting is somehow “more responsible” than an individual looter. In fact, both the individual and the group are totally irresponsible. Joining a group – even one “led by adults” – is not acting more responsibly than acting alone. Often, it simply demonstrates cowardice. Nazi prison camp guards demonstrate that groups often act in ways (negatively) that lone individuals do not.
Mark Z
Nov 29 2021 at 2:26pm
‘Numerous studies.’ Well I guess that proves it. I hope you’re not referring to the the discredited Stanford prison experiment or Milgram experiment. There are obviously many situations where it’s better for people to do things in groups. Police don’t drive around solo; they have partners, and they make sure they have backup if a confrontation seems likely, which is better for everyone because a criminal is less likely to resist or attack a several police than just one. Would you ever advise your kids, “when walking home late at night, make sure do so alone, rather than with someone else, lest groupthink lead you and your friends to do something terrible.” Social pressure likely deters bad behavior at least as often as it encourages it.
Daniel Kuehn
Nov 27 2021 at 9:43pm
Precisely right. Even if we accept that the verdict was decided correctly, which I don’t think is obvious at all, the Rittenhouse was reckless and all of this happened because of his recklessness which certainly involves moral responsibility even if not legal responsibility. But we don’t rely on law for moral evaluation.
Andy
Nov 28 2021 at 10:37am
Could you elaborate on the reasons, why this trial could have resulted in something when tried by an impartial jury (it could have ended differently as a political proces)? I literally saw only self defense and zero examples of recklessness both during the incident and before it, so I wonder what did you see?
I don’t think it is a particularly good idea to attend such riot, however blaming Kyle seems to me akin to blaming a hot girl attacked on a dark street who successfully defended herself.
Was it a good idea to go there? Proabbly not. Moral blame? Recklessness? I don’t see that.
You are in general not responsible for choices of other people.
BS
Nov 28 2021 at 1:34pm
Why Rittenhouse’s recklessness? Why not Rosenbaum’s?
Don Boudreaux
Nov 28 2021 at 2:10pm
The five not-guilty verdicts for Rittenhouse are clearly correct given the specific charges that the prosecutor chose to level at the young man. Each charge was one of “first degree.” Yet Rittenhouse had no premeditation to kill anyone, and the shootings were not done wantonly or with with malice or aforethought. Nor did the evidence show that Rittenhouse had “utter disregard” for human life.
I’m pretty sure that the prosecutor could have charged Rittenhouse with lesser criminal offenses and, thereby, have increased the likelihood of conviction. But the prosecutor chose instead to charge the young man with first-degree felony charges (including first-degree intentional homicide). No jury doing its job would have convicted Rittenhouse of these charges.
DeservingPorcupine
Nov 28 2021 at 3:36pm
I don’t see how this is correct. There were lots of people openly carrying guns during the riot. Rittenhouse’s armed presence wasn’t an outlier, so I don’t see how he would have the proposed effect on a rational citizen.
Lawrence
Nov 29 2021 at 9:01am
Your war analogy doesn’t hold water. You were claiming that Kyle was untrained (Was he? His deft reactions don’t support that claim, even if he didn’t have pieces of paper) and that it was as if he were going to war against a trained enemy. Were the rioters trained in rioting? Did they have training certificates stamped and approved by an adult? I’d even say that Kyle was the only one who exhibited any kind of restraint or training. And he spent most of the day helping people and cleaning graffiti. I would love to have more neighbors just like Kyle.
C Connors
Nov 27 2021 at 9:30pm
I call BS. We have a trained police force. I haven’t read anything claiming Kyle was trained in riot control. Why wasn’t he on private property trying to protect it if that was his story? Even if his intentions were pure, which I can actually imagine a 17 yr old might be naive enough to believe he was there to protect something. But thanks to his foolishness, people are dead. What did he expect flaunting that gun on a public street? People to give him a lolly pop? A round of applause? Let the police do their jobs. Vigilantes stay home.
Lawrence
Nov 29 2021 at 9:03am
The “trained” and “paid” (tax-subsidized) officers were standing down for the most part or were overwhelmed. Have you been paying attention to how that pattern was in evidence all of last year?
Mark Bahner
Nov 29 2021 at 10:57am
Here’s an example of what police officers trained in riot control do:
Important note: The blood pouring from Martin Gugino’s ear has been blurred out
Jon Murphy
Nov 27 2021 at 10:05pm
I think Mark Z hits the nail on the head. There’s quite a difference between a person who is trained to deal with dangerous situations (like war) and one who is not. The foolishness of Rittenhouse is not that he put himself in danger. The foolishness is that he put himself in a situation where even the trained professionals (police) were unwilling to go.
Philo
Nov 28 2021 at 12:09am
Rittenhouse was braver than the trained professionals.
Matthias
Nov 28 2021 at 3:08am
Bravery and foolishness are not necessarily opposites.
Mike
Nov 28 2021 at 8:41pm
Jon – Please enlighten us regarding Rittenhouse’s training. If you have no idea about his training, you should refrain from simply assuming.
If someone attacks your family as you are exiting a restaurant, should you wait for a trained LEO to arrive or do you do the best you can given the time and circumstances?
Mark Z opines that it’s more responsible to act as a group than as an individual. Numerous studies on groupthink indicate otherwise.
David Henderson
Nov 28 2021 at 12:19am
You wrote:
So your principle is that if trained professionals (who also, by the way, are government employees) are unwilling to put themselves in certain risky situations, other people are foolish to do so? That seems like a strange principle.
matthias
Nov 28 2021 at 3:14am
Why?
He might have been a fool, but also might have done the morally right thing at the same time. Those things are not mutually exclusive.
I don’t know enough about the case in question to render a verdict, just commenting on the logic here.
Similarly, someone might give the the shirt on their back to charity. That seems a bit foolish to me, but might also be the right thing in some moralities.
Or think of willing martyrs who fight and die for what they think is right.
Or people who vote in political elections. They sacrifice some personal convenience for what they think is right. And most onlookers think going to vote is The Right Thing to do. No matter whether it makes a difference or not, even.
Jon Murphy
Nov 28 2021 at 3:40am
I don’t think it’s a strange principle (especially given I said it). Rather, I think it’s an informational issue. One of the advantages of specialized training is being able to recognize when a situation is unfavorable and thus not engage. In a situation where the trained people do not engage, the first question should be “why? What do they know that I do not?”
john hare
Nov 28 2021 at 4:24am
If part of my information is that the “trained” people are not going to do their job, the proper thing is to let the hoodlums have free reign?
At some point a line is crossed that you must be prepared to protect your own. The discussion here is how far out does “your own” go. Inside my house, malicious strangers are likely to have a 12 gauge answer.
Mark Z
Nov 28 2021 at 12:05pm
The police being derelict in their responsibilities doesn’t necessarily make it such that anyone purporting to step in to fill the void is optimal, or even better than no one doing anything. There is a world of difference between shooting someone who’s breaking into your house and walking the streets playing amateur riot control. Crowd control for protests or riots is one of the most difficult aspects of policing. It is nowhere near as simple as defending your house, or, as David and others are suggesting, being an infantrymen in a war. It’s one thing to point your gun and shoot at an enemy soldier. It’s quite another to deal with crowds of angry civilians in a public street, which compose of a mixture of law-abiding citizens, some people committing misdemeanors, and some committing serious crimes, and judge how much is the appropriate amount of force to use. It’s not something any random kid can just do. Even professional police struggle at it and often end up using disproportionate force, and they have the advantage of having tools for intermediate levels of force like: rubber bullets, tear gas, nightsticks, and handcuffs. In some circumstances, amateur policing can be worse than no policing.
Mike
Nov 28 2021 at 8:47pm
Jon – I recall a news report from CA a few years ago where a trained rescue squad stood by while someone drowned because of their protocol. Should I assume that if it had been your child, you would have followed suit and watched your child drown? I doubt it. If it was your best friend, would you sit and watch? An acquaintance? At what point would the drowning person be insignificant enough to you to watch instead of act?
Joseph C Ramunni
Nov 27 2021 at 10:26pm
Anyone who doesn’t see the foolishness in what he did is looking at the situation with heavily biased glasses. Obviously there was nothing positive that came out of what transpired, only death and injury. I believe someday Kyle Rittenhouse will have to deal with the weight of what happened, he took the lives of two people.
Patrick
Nov 27 2021 at 11:39pm
I think we ought to strive to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. Rittenhouse was found to be not guilty. Between my reading of the laws from Wisconsin and the available footage I’d say that was probably the correct outcome in a society governed by the rule of law. We should also recognize that despite that, having random people with semi-automatic weapons inserting themselves into volatile situations is also not great and maybe we ought to consider the legality of that. As someone who was 18 and enlisted, I’m not sure I’m comfortable drawing a parallel between Rittenhouse and my service regardless of the circumstances.
mike
Nov 28 2021 at 8:58pm
The weapon is irrelevant. He could have had a knife or a skateboard or his bare hands.
The question is not even “should” he have been there. That was his choice. While it’s easy to retrospectively opine about the wisdom of his choice – in terms of our subjective values – we ( as people who support free markets and liberty) make a mistake when we try to impose our hierarchy of values on Rittenhouse.
PS: The notion that we should make it illegal for people to show up to a gun fight (anyone with half a brain knew that the rioters had guns) with no gun is the real foolish idea.
Daniel B
Nov 28 2021 at 12:32am
I personally wouldn’t have crossed state lines like Rittenhouse did, but I understand why he did it (and I agree with the not guilty verdict). But I think the question “was Kyle Rittenhouse a fool?” misses the underlying problem.
When policing isn’t doing an adequate job (however defined) at protecting people and their property, don’t be surprised if Rittenhouses come out as substitutes to the police. The failure of the police to stop rioting means psychic profit opportunities – such as a feeling of doing the right thing – for people like him. Had the police never let the riot get out of control, Rittenhouse wouldn’t have had anything (or as much) to do in the riot area, which would make it “pay” less for him to be there.
If you don’t want Rittenhouses, then change the incentive structure. The easiest way to do this that I can see is stop the riots.
Daniel B
Nov 28 2021 at 12:37am
Quick clarification: by the “you” in “if you don’t want Rittenhouses” I don’t mean “David” (the OP). It’s not referring to anyone in particular but is meant more generally
mike
Nov 28 2021 at 9:05pm
BINGO!
If we define property as a person and his stuff, the reasons we form government center on property rights – protecting me and my stuff from foreign and domestic threats and making people keep their word (honor contracts). Throw in the idea of solving the free rider problem and everything else is an overreach on the part of government.
Jerry Brown
Nov 28 2021 at 1:01am
It is a huge stretch to compare what Audi Murphy did in joining the army after Japan had attacked the US and Germany had declared war on the United States to whatever Rittenhouse might have thought he was trying to do showing up there with an assault rifle. I am sure you recognize the disparities in deaths between WW2 and the riots or protests or whatever you prefer to call them of 2020-21. It is orders of magnitude of difference.
I agree with Mark Z.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Nov 28 2021 at 6:28am
He was worse than a fool for thinking he could effectively assist police in restoring order and bringing criminals to justice.
The better analogy is a person who swims out to a struggling person and by ineptitude drowns them or the unvaccinated person who infects another.
As for the jury result, that was inevitable. Presumably anyone who thinks Rittenhouse’s kind of assistance was absurd and that no one should do what he did was stricken from the jury. If the question was at the last moment before pulling the trigger was he acting in self defense, statistically at least 1 in 12 would say yes.
Michael
Nov 28 2021 at 7:59am
Rittenhouse had no law enforcement training, limited firearms training, no sanction or oversight.
He placed himself in a situation with massive potential for uninintended consequences. Rittenhouse could have been shot and killed. A unarmed bystander not trying to kill anyone could have been shot and killed – by Rittenhouse himself or by someone shooting at Rittenhouse.
One of the pivotal moments of the trial was the testimony of one of the people shot by Rittenhouse who survived. On direct examination, he delivered testimony that appeared to be very good for the prosecution. On cross-examination, though, Rittenhouse’s lawyer brought out several key facts that undermined the case against Rittenhouse – the most notable of these is that this witness was himself armed and Rittenhouse did not shoot at him until after he pointed his own gun at Rittenhouse. (Aside: This was staggeringly bad lawyering by the prosecution – prosecutors are taught to address ‘bad facts’ by getting them on the record during their own questioning so that they can try to contextualize them.)
Anyway, there was a confrontation between two armed people and one died. It could have been Rittenhouse who died and the other guy pleading self-defense.
A fool is someone who acts unwisely or imprudently. Rittenhouse acted unwilsely and improdently. Thus…
mike
Nov 28 2021 at 11:26pm
“A fool is someone who acts unwisely or imprudently. Rittenhouse acted unwilsely and improdently. Thus…”
No comment needed…
Ken Costello
Nov 28 2021 at 8:25am
I didn’t have hours to listen to the trial but from my perspective it seems absurd to even think that Rittenhouse can be considered a heroic figure. My God, he (an underaged, untrained individual) brought a high-powered weapon in a highly volatile situation; that was destined to end in catastrophe. Like George Zimmerman, he comes across as a wannabe: he should have stayed home to do his homework.
Mark Barbieri
Nov 28 2021 at 9:43am
It seems to me that people that want to reduce this sort of vigilantism should be advocating for law enforcement to do more to protect people and property during these “mostly peaceful protests.” If you have a policy of allow riots to destroy parts of cities, you shouldn’t be surprised if people arm themselves to protect their towns.
Michael
Nov 28 2021 at 12:51pm
Why the quotation marks around “mostly peaceful protests?” Are you suggesting that most people who marched in the protests engaged in violence and/or property crimes?
Mark Barbieri
Nov 28 2021 at 1:12pm
No. I believe the protests/riots are often referred to as “mostly peaceful” to avoid reporting on the unpleasant truth that a significant number of people are their to commit acts of violence and destruction. It would be like describing an army as a group of “mostly non-combatants”.
Roger McKinney
Nov 28 2021 at 10:45am
I think people see it as foolish because few people respect property rights. The opinion on the left seems to be that rioters should be allowed to destroy property as much as they want and no one should stop them. Anyone who does is evil.
AMT
Nov 28 2021 at 12:16pm
A whole lot of this narrative seems to be classic victim blaming. Funny how liberals don’t hesitate to blame a white male, but don’t for a second expect that to be applied to anyone else.
“He shouldn’t have been there!” Just like the woman who got raped “shouldn’t have been walking down an alley in that part of town?”
“He shouldn’t have had a gun!” “She shouldn’t have been wearing provocative clothing? She shouldn’t have had so much to drink?”
Would we really hear these arguments from the left if a woman was raped, or shot an attempted rapist under these kinds of circumstances? Of course not!
I’m not saying there isn’t some logic to victim blaming just as a matter of analyzing how wise someone’s decisions are (they could undertake an unwise amount of risk), but remember it has no bearing on the legality of self-defense, or the fact that someone else committed a crime against them in the rape analogy. However, the analysis everyone else makes regarding Rittenhouse’s foolishness is wrong. I would say he was a fool, but for completely different reasons.
Reasons he was a fool:
A self-interested homo economicus would not engage in protests or anti-rioting defense, or volunteer for war. Like voting, it just doesn’t pass the cost-benefit analysis.
He should have known that even if he was justified in using his gun in self-defense, there was still a high probability that he ends up going through an extremely expensive, stressful, time consuming and potentially dangerous trial (possible serious prison time), in addition to pretrial incarceration, and reputational harm.
Reasons he was not a fool:
Crossing state lines: LOL, just shut up. This is obviously a dog whistle to show you support the left when this factor clearly has no bearing at all. Helping protect property in a community very close to him is fine…if that is his preference (I assume he has very different preferences from me and perhaps saw great social benefit to joining the others also defending property in the community). I cross state lines every single work day traveling to work and back, so everyone knows this is a trash invective to imply he went way out of his way, so it must have been motivated to bring violence because he didn’t belong there. Talk about the distance he traveled if you think that matters…oh right, you don’t use that metric because it’s so small it is completely unpersuasive. Now we see why you rely on a necessarily less specific term that can only imply significant distance, since there wasn’t any.
Having a gun: If you want to protect yourself and/or other people or their property, a gun is very useful, and arguably necessary if opposing larger numbers. Going without a gun would be foolish! He would be either ineffectual or in greater danger from violence himself! Further, saying he incited the violence against himself simply by having a gun in the situation is false. The prosecution argued, (paraphrasing) “there were a lot of people with guns there and nobody else shot anyone else!” The difference here was that Rittenhouse was chased down and attacked by numerous people, thereby forced to defend himself.
Training: Guns are not that complicated to use safely. The argument he would need some significant amount of training “to not be foolish” is terrible. Everyone knows guns are lethal. Just like the argument that police who shoot people they don’t need to “just need better training” is laughable. It’s all about incentives, and the approximately zero downside they face for emptying an entire clip into someone who they can always later claim “looked like he was reaching for something.”
Entering where police didn’t: Just because police were not engaging protestors doesn’t necessarily mean it was especially dangerous, when you can easily imagine that they were simply ordered to hold back for political reasons.
Conclusion: I don’t think Rittenhouse was wise because the personal benefit was lacking. Just like voting, I wouldn’t have done it even if I thought there was zero risk, simply because I’d consider it a waste of time.
Addendum: The evidence from the videos at trial made it clear that Rittenhouse only shot Grosskreutz when he started aiming his gun at Rittenhouse. There is no more obvious, textbook example of self-defense than shooting someone pointing a gun at you. Bringing charges for this shooting to trial is prosecutorial misconduct. The prosecution obviously had the video evidence well ahead of trial and could see this. It was not “revealed” during Grosskreutz’ trial testimony, which people erroneously seem to think was very important…the jurors could see him pointing his gun on the videos, regardless of what he said.
Alan Goldhammer
Nov 28 2021 at 1:07pm
Those quick to support Kyle Rittenhouse are drawn from the same cloth as those who opposed The Black Panthers armed defense of their community back in the late 1960s. I was living in California at the time and there was a big push for gun control on the part of the Republican Party and Governor Reagan because of concern that armed Black Panthers posed a risk to societal order. Maybe the end result of gutting gun controls will be the arming of all Americans.
David Henderson
Nov 28 2021 at 1:20pm
You wrote:
I don’t know if you’re referring to me. If so, you’re wrong on one particular. I don’t call watching 7 to 9 hours of courtroom testimony “quick.”
And whomever you’re addressing re the Black Panthers, you’re wrong also. When you say “those,” you admit of no exceptions. I’m someone who, when I read about it about 10 to 15 years ago, opposed Ronald Reagan’s push for tough gun control. I know a number of people who also, when they heard it, opposed Reagan’s measures. I haven’t polled them about Rittenhouse, but I suspect that they do support his right to self-defense.
I posted about it here.
Alan Goldhammer
Nov 28 2021 at 4:20pm
Hi David,
I was not referring to you. I was highlighting a historical fact that has been well documented over the years regarding gun possession by The Black Panthers and the calls for more gun control legislation. Even the NRA was supportive of the Mulford Act. I’ll leave it at that as the political ramifications around gun possession have already been well discussed elsewhere.
My perspective on Rittenhouse is not that he was foolish but that he ‘perhaps’ forgot the cardinal rule of gun carrying (or ownership for that matter). If you have one on your person you need to be prepared to use it, recognizing as a user you can kill or maim another individual. Why carry one, concealed or not, if this is not the case.
The one fact that cannot be denied is that three men are dead because Rittenhouse traveled up to a city that was in racial turmoil with a loaded semi-automatic rifle. Do the commenters to this thread not think this is a tragedy?
robc
Nov 29 2021 at 9:18am
Three?
Who was the third?
andy
Nov 29 2021 at 9:26am
If Kyle wasn’t born, these TWO people would have been alive. It would be strange to interpret it as ‘they are dead becuse Kyle’s parents decided to have a child’, wouldn’t it? But that’s a fact that also cannot be denied, can it?
What is the point of such claim?
KevinDC
Nov 28 2021 at 1:25pm
From the comments, I see that one issue many people highlight as especially important is training, or the lack thereof.
First, to put my cards on the table – it’s come up here before that I’m a former Marine. I was in for a total of nine years. During my last two years, I worked as a combat marksmanship trainer. For the second half of that stretch, I was the Staff Noncommissioned Officer in Charge (SNCOIC) and Range Safety Officer for the rifle range at my base. Across the entire Marine Corps, there are only about a dozen Marksmanship Training Units, which handle annual rifle training as well as pre-deployment combat training for all Marines, and I was selected to run the rifle range for one of those units. False modesty aside, I didn’t just stumble into that position due to pure luck – I was also very good at the skills required for the job.
Speaking from that perspective and with that background experience, I believe most of the people here are heavily overrating the training element. Training can be useful, of course, but it’s merely one margin among many, and it’s far from being as decisive as many people here seem to think. There are people who can receive the most extensive training from the most skilled instructors who nonetheless, at the proverbial moment of truth, perform at a level that would be below par for an 8th grader playing laser tag. There are other people who have had just barely enough training to reliably tell which end of the rifle makes the loud noise, who end up carrying themselves at an almost superhuman level. I even happen to know people who fit both descriptions.
Again, to be clear, I’m not saying training is useless! But a lot of people seem to be treating it as a matter of categorical importance, where “formally trained” is therefore “good” and “not formally trained” is therefore “bad.” Like most things in life, the value of training is marginal, not categorical, and in my experience the margin is much smaller than most people here seem to suppose. Pointing out that Murphy had more training that Rittenhouse does count for something, but it’s far from being the mic drop that many people seem to think it is.
David Henderson
Nov 28 2021 at 2:19pm
Well said. And although I knew you were a Marine, I hadn’t known (or had forgotten) about the marksmanship angle.
KevinDC
Nov 28 2021 at 5:29pm
You didn’t forget – I just hadn’t mentioned it before. One of my charming quirks (or, in my wife’s judgment, annoying bugs) is that I tend to be very minimalist when talking about myself or my past experiences.
David Henderson
Nov 29 2021 at 6:46pm
Hmmm. I would bet that my wife’s view of me is the opposite of your wife’s view of you. 🙂
DeservingPorcupine
Nov 28 2021 at 3:41pm
Not to mention, it’s not clear to me that Rittenhouse didn’t have training. I’m by no means an expert, but I have handled firearms my whole life, have participated in IDPA and USPSA shooting competitions, and can reliably hit the 9-ring on a B8 target at 25 yards with my carry weapon.
In terms of marksmanship and target discretion, I think Rittenhouse did better than 80% of LEOs would have done in that situation.
David Henderson
Nov 28 2021 at 4:17pm
What’s LEO? Law enforcement officer?
DeservingPorcupine
Nov 28 2021 at 4:59pm
Yes.
I was particularly impressed at how he refrained from shooting the other people who were rushing him when Grosskreutz did, giving them a chance to retreat. Though I think he would have been justified in shooting them as well.
David Henderson
Nov 28 2021 at 10:31pm
I agree. It was the Grosskreutz cross-examination, by the way, that got me hooked on watching big parts of the rest of the trial.
Mark Z
Nov 29 2021 at 2:33pm
I’d say the most relevant kind of training for effective policing isn’t about how to use a gun. It’s not Rittenhouse’s marksmanship that concerns me.
BS
Nov 28 2021 at 1:52pm
Rittenhouse evidently had enough presence of mind to first attempt to retreat, and to not pull a trigger twice when he might have – the first time he spun around to face Rosenbaum, and Grosskreutz’s initial “hands up” approach. Not much of a fool, that. Certainly no instinct or desire to shoot.
I watched parts of the trial. The prosecution’s attempts to pick through episodes that lasted a few seconds or even fractions of seconds, implying that some kind of thoughtful processes should have occurred on a half-second by half-second basis, were absurd.
Considering the numbers of firearms at such events, it’s equally absurd to argue that something bad was likely to happen.
Hypothesis: bullies like to pick weak targets, and Kyle – out of all those wandering around with weapons and web gear – looked weakest. Every one of the 5 guys who directly tried to make trouble for him had a history of trouble-making. I don’t buy the “active shooter” excuse: active shooters shoot, not run.
David Henderson
Nov 28 2021 at 2:19pm
Good reasoning. Thanks.
Michael
Nov 30 2021 at 7:12am
Less absurd that you think. The reason the prosecution went here is because they essentially had to, given what Wisconson law says about self-defense. They could maybe have presented a more credible-seeming case had they focused more big picture, but to get a conviction against a credible claim of self-defense they needed to go into small detail.
Monte
Nov 28 2021 at 3:29pm
This was a fool’s journey to becoming a hero, of sorts. He certainly had legitimate reasons to be there. Rittenhouse’s intentions, if we’re to believe him, were good. Even so, “The road to hell…” and all that. And fate has had it’s way with everyone involved, for better or worse. But I’m curious what those who unequivocally condemn his actions as criminal would have done in his place. Nothing?
David Henderson
Nov 28 2021 at 4:16pm
Thanks, Monte. I had always thought that that was Edmund Burke.
Monte
Nov 28 2021 at 4:47pm
Me, too. It’s routinely attributed it to Edmund Burke. But that was only part of the quote Mill delivered in his 1867 inaugural address to the University of St. Andrews. In it’s entirety, it is even more compelling.
Mark Z
Nov 29 2021 at 2:13pm
One needn’t regard his actions as criminal (I don’t) to think it would’ve been better if he’d done nothing (obviously, in retrospect, it would’ve been better for him and a bunch of others if he’d stayed home). The idea that ‘doing something,’ anything, is always (or even usually) better than nothing isn’t true.
Monte
Nov 29 2021 at 11:54pm
Mark Z,
If my family, friends , or personal property are at risk of being harmed or destroyed because the authorities are abdicating their responsibility to protect and serve, don’t judge me for stepping up, and I won’t judge you for stepping aside.
Richard Wallace
Nov 28 2021 at 6:53pm
Four of our past five Presidents decided that it was foolish to put themselves in a volatile situation where they might be hurt. Cowardice is bipartisan. Who are we to respect more – Kyle Rittenhouse or our Draft-Dedgers in Chief?
David Henderson
Nov 28 2021 at 7:23pm
Although, to be fair, the cause they exempted themselves from was not exactly just. I would have tried to dodge too.
Richard Wallace
Nov 28 2021 at 8:56pm
But having dodged would you presume to send others into harms way?
Richard Wallace
Nov 28 2021 at 9:52pm
I was drafted. I thought the Viet Nam war was unjust and unwise (I marched in anti-war protests before and after my servitude). When called I felt the only honorable course was to go. If I had declined then some other young man would have been called in my place.
David Henderson
Nov 28 2021 at 10:29pm
Only if they volunteered and only if I thought the cause was worth it. That would exclude every armed conflict the U.S. has been in since 1945.
steve
Nov 28 2021 at 10:09pm
I joined the military at 17. Training is important in the kind of situation Rittenhouse entered as you need to know what to do and how to do it, other than just shoot someone. If your only option is to shoot people since you dont know how to restrain a person or de-escalate a situation by talking to them, which is a skill, then you are relying too much upon your gun.
Just as important as training is the maturity and judgment to make the correct decision. Some 17 y/o’s might have that but most wont. Note that in Wisconsin you need to be 18 to be security guard and need formal training to be an armed guard. You need to be 21 to be a police officer in Chicago. Too many people worrying about his skill when he had to shoot and not enough about his judgment. Just exactly what was his plan for intervening anywhere all by himself remembering that he was pretty small, size does matter, and no training on how to intervene without shooting?
Since he was so young and had no experience and no training his most important task was to stay with his group. He could rely upon the experience and judgment of those older. He couldn’t even do that. Add in his crying during the trial and it was clear this was not some combat hardened grunt. To be clear, I think the trial was decided correctly. He did act in self defense. However, he should not have been there by himself. He was an accident waiting to happen. Also to clarify and anticipate counterarguments I have no qualms with him using a gun on his own property, defending himself if attacked coming out of a store, etc. No problems with him using a rifle to hunt at age 17, I did.
Query- Just among all of the vets here. How many think that your sergeant/chief/officer would send you out armed and alone into a crowd on the first day of boot camp ie with no training and no idea about your level of judgment or maturity?
Steve
Monte
Nov 29 2021 at 11:13am
Questions regarding military training or chain-of-command in this case simply don’t apply. Rittenhouse and others showed up as armed volunteers (vigilantes, if you prefer). A lot of history here (Anthony Imperiale and the North Ward First Aid Squad, Guardian Angels, Ranch Rescue, Minute Man Project, etc). Unfortunately, Kenosha was a collosal failure in judgement on every level (politicians, the police, rioters, Rittenhouse). As others on this thread have pointed out, situations where imperfect substitutes (untrained volunteers) replace superior goods (police), the result is going to be sub-optimal (a tragedy).
David Henderson
Nov 29 2021 at 1:08pm
What do you see as Rittenhouse’s failure in judgment?
Michael
Nov 30 2021 at 7:06am
Rittenhouse’s failure in judgment was putting himself in a position he was untrained and ill-prepared to handle, in a way that put his own life at risk and forced him (according to the jury verdict) to have to injure and kill people.
One can believe property is valuable and worth defending, but also that life is even more valuable and that Rittenhouse’s poor judgment led him to risk too much compared with what he could have realistically expected to preserve.
Tom Means
Nov 29 2021 at 3:36pm
Part of this trial reminded me of the Trayvon Martin trial where the prosecution presented witnesses that supported the defendants case. The prosecution in this case, seems to know that had a weak case and made some of the lamest arguments Ive ever heard of. Perhaps hoping for a mistrial.
It’s also amazing that most of the media and even the Dean of Law at UCB law school, just blindly repeat the same misinformation that has clearly been rebutted by the trial. Most of these people have no clue about owning a gun and whether the benefits outweigh the costs.
As for gun safety, I’m a city boy who used to go out to the deserts in Nevada with my cousins and target practice. The first thing they told me before I put a 22 rifle in my hands was to never point the rifle at a person (loaded or unloaded). I wonder why the DA didn’t know this when he pointed the rifle at the jury.
David Henderson
Nov 29 2021 at 6:44pm
In 1982, a Marine non-com who taught marksmanship to Marines and FBI agents at Quantico taught me how to shoot. It was a great day. By the end of about 5 hours, I could shoot a human torso 50 feet away with a pistol.
He didn’t teach me not to aim a gun at people. He taught me not to aim a gun at someone I didn’t intend to shoot.
By the way, I checked and I believe that Binger didn’t aim a gun at the jury. He wasn’t that dense. He aimed it at people in the audience.
robc
Dec 1 2021 at 5:55pm
IIRC, Binger also had his finger on the trigger. Someone should have tackled him…hopefully a bailiff, but anyone would be reasonable in that situation.
David Henderson
Dec 1 2021 at 11:40pm
You wrote:
Yes, that’s what I recall also.
You wrote:
Wouldn’t that have been something!
Monte
Nov 30 2021 at 1:01am
Prof. Henderson,
IMO, I think any armed civilian (especially armed teenage civilians) intentionally putting themselves in harm’s way is exercising poor judgement. We encouraged our own son (in his 20s and unarmed) to avoid President Trump’s rally here in Albuquerque, NM, last year (relatively peaceful, thankfully), concerned that something bad might happen. Now, if Rittenhouse had shown up in the company of adults and was being properly supervised while protecting private property, we can argue that he was acting more or less responsibly. But my understanding is that he was patrolling the streets with rifle at the ready, which turned out to be an invitation to disaster
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