If Kyle Rittenhouse Is Not Guilty It Is Time to Redefine Self-Defense

I wasn’t on the jury; I wasn’t even in the courtroom. Regardless, I have a lot to say about today’s not guilty verdict from the jury in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Kyle Rittenhouse drove from his home in Antioch, Illinois, armed with a military assault rifle to join a white supremacist militia who were counter-protesting a Black Lives Matter movement after yet another Black man was murdered by a cop. After a heated argument, Rittenhouse killed two men and wounded another; two of them were unarmed. However, his defense attorney claimed self-defense, and the jury agreed.

This jury apparently believed that Second Amendment rights trump First Amendment rights.

I have many reservations about the Second Amendment based on historical facts, which I previously posted. However, what this does confirm is that the right to own a gun supersedes the safety and welfare of human beings. We are the only legally “gun crazy” nation in the world, with more mass shootings than days on the calendar.

I believe that many gun owners are cowards. I remember listening to a psychiatrist once, several years ago. He said that it is very easy to stand several feet away from another human and shoot them with a gun. It is much more difficult to kill someone with whom you are physically involved during an altercation. Guns are impersonal.

However, I would like you to speak to a good law enforcement officer or a member of our military who was in a war zone. If they killed another person with a gun, they continue to feel some guilt. That person had a mother, a father, possibly brothers and sisters, and maybe had a wife or husband and children of their own. They had lives, and in a few seconds, everything changed forever for many others. Only sadists and insurrectionists feel no guilt for the harm they caused others.

It is a crime that Rittenhouse was cleared on all charges. Two men are dead, and many lives are affected by the decision of one, young, white man who traveled hundreds of miles to engage in a conflict based on racism and bigotry. He should have been forced to pay for his crimes. No one should be above the law, unless you are Donald Trump or a Republican politician.

It is only fair that I admit to being a pacifist. I believe that violence, committed against another human being is very wrong, and an attack on the importance and sanctity of human life. No country, no religion has ever won a war. The losers far outnumber those who claim victory.

Domestic violence is a growing problem in America, and every time we see a violent person go unpunished for their crimes, it offers normalcy to men and women who physically assault their spouses and their children.

There is another question to be asked: When the jury found Rittenhouse ‘not guilty,’ they did not announce his innocence. Is this an indicator that the definition of self-defense must be reinvented? It makes no sense that one young racist, armed with a weapon of mass destruction was allowed to kill two unarmed men. Something is radically wrong with our judicial system.

Op-ed by James Turnage

Sources:

Politico: Rittenhouse not guilty in Kenosha fatal shootings; by Nick Niedzwiadek
Wisconsin State Journal: Analysis: Here’s why Kyle Rittenhouse is likely to be acquitted — and why the law on self-defense must change; by John Gross

Featured and Top Image Courtesy of Partick Feller’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Inset Image Courtesy of mr.smashy’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License