Is there any evidence he was waving the gun at people or screaming at people?
I just assumed that anyone his age that takes the lives of 2 people is going to be mentally affected.
Beats me. I do not have the mental energy reserves to follow this stuff that closely. I am making assumptions based on the general fact pattern. Again, not legally but morally, I am trying to understand the mindset of a person who has internalized narratives about black people looting businesses and is bringing and assault rifle with some poorly reasoned concept of “defending a business”. I mean, how was he intending to “defend” the business with a rifle without intimidating people with it?
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I agree with all of this sans the part about making that assumption.
The fact that the prosecution didn’t find one witness to testify to your assumption is pretty strong evidence.
Again, though, legal vs. moral. Legally probably an important distinction. Morally, bringing an assault weapon to an emotionally charged public setting with protestors and counter protestors is not that distinguishable from pointing a gun at someone in terms of creating panic. It is a morally bad act because you are creating with your presence and action the conditions where you might, oh, I don’t know, accidentally kill two people and wound another one.
This is why I hate the legal arguments and don’t really care. When you start getting into “oh, well technically he didn’t point his gun at anyone until a point where I guess we could plausibly consider that he was scared for his life so legally maybe he’s ok” I just don’t care. He created the risk with his own decisions and actions. The US will punish someone who takes their hands of the wheel and closes their eyes on the Interstate if they subsequently smash into someone and kill them, but they won’t punish an idiot that consciously thinks “I should go confront that mob with an assault weapon”. It’s stupid.
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The fear for your life get out clause is so crazy. The human body is pretty fragile. Any person could pretty easily kill you at any time. So if Jeffery dahmer was a more anxious person he shouldn’t be in jail? All of his victims could potentially have killed him easily. Any one of them could have hit him with a tyre iron or something at any moment and he’d be dead. It’s a real scary world out there.
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Among the many things troubling about this trial is Rittenhouse’s claim that he didn’t do anything wrong. Like nothing? Even after having this much time to think about it, he still doesn’t seem to understand that society runs better when 17 year olds don’t go to demonstrations armed with assault rifles. It’s not his job to determine whether the police and fire departments are “doing their jobs” based on the strategies they’re using. He really needs to be convicted of something and punished as harshly as possible.
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You wanna strap up and LARP being a commando and travel from out of town into a volatile environment looking for trouble and find it, you get no sympathy from me. Full stop. Whether or nor the law is silly enough to let you parade around with a gun and bait people so you can kill them for funsies is a different story. The kid is a murderer, he’s a psychopath, and he should be put in a rocket and fired into the sun. Hot takes, I know.
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I think I have 1/1000th of an iota of sympathy just because no 17 year old becomes this way on their own. I don’t think he’s a torture kittens / wet the bed psychopath. I think he’s a product of a broken society and corrupted by family/community.
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I’m probably right there with you. Obv his deplorable upbringing shaped him into the murderer he became, but man it is super bad if these people see you can just dress up in your cammo outfits and LARP up whenever the brown people are around and go hunting with impunity.
If I went to an anti abortion rally wearing a pro choice t shirt I think I’d be legitimately pretty afraid for my life. Can I just start blasting and get off scot free? Could any black person go to their nearest Klan rally,
fear for their life, and merc the whole crowd? Because if so then maybe I’m coming around on this idea.
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I mean, I knew at like age 12 that right wing assholes were complete pieces of shit, and I was raised by and around mostly Republicans. The light bulb started going off in like 6th grade. A fraction of a percent of sympathy, maybe. But that goes out the window when he gets away with this and becomes a right wing hero for life.
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I saw a Twitter/tv lawyer (can’t remember which) that says if 1 is not self defense, then he doesn’t get the benefit of self defense on 2 and 3.
Basically I shoot your spouse without a reasonable threat against me. You fire back at me. I shoot you. I don’t get to claim self defense just because you shot at me.
I started it. I own the whole chain of events after that.
And lol they will find the first one SD. Though supposedly that’s a much more difficult standard in Wisconsin than some other states.
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Only one way to find out.
Yeah I mean, you started blasting faces and then are surprised when people around you are trying to stop the fleeing gunman? This is the exact fantasy that you’re putting on your face paint and playing dress up for.
I also enjoyed the spot where little blubbery mccrybaby said that the first guy was going to use it to shoot other people if he “got the gun away from him”. Lawyer responds asking if that means anyone who has that gun automatically is a threat to start blasting away. ldo.
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The only evidence that exists indicates that Rosenbaum aggressively pursued Rittenhouse.
I only interjected in this conversation when factually incorrect statements were being made. If you’re on the side of reasonable people, this only weakens your argument.
Not if the jury is all racists that think that a mob of white KKK Real Americans are justified in being terrified of a single black man, where “man” means a boy at least 9 years old.
Every black person could kill every cop during a traffic stop if fearing for your life was legit
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Would you feel differently about it if there was? Is that the tipping point?
He’s walking around the street with an AR15. Is that threatening? How different is it if he has it on his back, as opposed to holding it in his hands? Or does it only get to the point of threatening enough if he points it at somebody?
Personally, I think his being there with that weapon is plenty threatening. I think it is reasonable for someone who sees him coming to be moved to respond. If I was there I would have been terrified. If I knew he had already shot somebody, or two people, I could very well conclude that if I didn’t get the weapon away from him he was going to shoot me.
But as has been said over and over, I don’t think the lolaw accounts for this. Perhaps if somebody had shot him, they too could walk free because they showed they legitimately feared for their life. I mean, if they were white, obviously.
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From a purely legal standpoint, it’s not threatening to walk around the street with an AR-15. I think there’s a legal concept of “brandishing” that crosses the line between simply having a weapon and threatening someone with the weapon, but it’s not clear that applies here. Obv Rittenhouse was behaving like a lunatic, but that’s not something the law handles well. Basically the idea that it’s legal and cool to parade around with a gun is an absurdity that most 1st-world countries wouldn’t allow for obvious reasons.