Kyle Rittenhouse Trial

[Dill]

(11-23-2021, 07:34 PM)Nately120 Wrote: And again, it's the hijacking and constant invoking of the concept of Jesus by the neo-cons that makes me double-down on my skepticism of the morality of armed counter-protesters.  That and adding the morality part on there is a nice way for him to cover his ass in case all this "fight fight fight gun gun gun" rhetoric convinces people to get themselves into some morally gray areas.   

--and likely why the news article left "moral" out of the headline, while including it in the body. It doesn't sound like that's the real message.

Vigilante motivation--the desire to arm up and insert oneself into a riot or make a "citizens arrest"--may involve a deep moral conviction that one's actions are "right," sometimes even beyond legal. "Constitutional"! No doubt a lot of the peaceful protestors addressing what they deem police overraeach feel the same way. The Constitution provides for exercise of that right to peaceful protest. 

I'm not sure it does provide for open-carry-to-riots crap in the name of 2A "rights." Or a right to insurrection. 

[*Nately120*]

(11-24-2021, 10:34 AM)michaelsean Wrote: It's not really a ruling, and I get your point, but you were always allowed to open carry at protests so this really changed nothing except that maybe more people know you can.  I was down on Main St here in Cincinnati when people were gathering for a scheduled protest back in 2020 and I saw several people wearing holstered weapons.  I don't know that it's that rare.

I'd have less concern about the weapons if politicians and the media weren't constantly lying and exaggerating in order to make Americans hate each other as much as possible.  We can all agree it is morally acceptable to implement violence in certain situations, but the one-two punch of the matter is how much effort is spent convincing people that people of "the other side" are supportive and/or committing heinous acts deserving of violence.

Morality-bolstered violence is action invoked by a state of mind.  The capitol rioters were doing the wrong thing by law, but they "knew" they were doing the right thing by stopping the stealing of their country by any means necessary.  The guy who walked into that pizza place with firearm because he "knew" he was there to save sex-trafficked children was armed, dangerous, and acting morally.

It is amazingly reckless to encourage people to be as armed and dangerous as possible while you fill their heads with "sort of reasons, but not really reasons because violence is wrong" reasons to attack and kill people.  But hey, some people believe it.  My wife's family knows I didn't vote for Trump so in their eyes I only accidentally and inadvertently promote sex trafficking, pedophilia, and treason.  Everything is fine, everything is peaceful.  I'm lucky because they just pray that I'll find the wisdom to stop listening to the mainstream media and realize that the huge cargo ship that got stuck in the canal was actually full of thousands of sex-trafficked children, not a bunch of commercial products.

So yes, be peaceful and don't use violence on anyone who doesn't deserve it.  And to follow-up I'd like to read a list of heinous acts committed and supported by people who are your enemies that you should hate.  It's up to you to decide if killing them is moral or not...I'm not telling!


EDIT - Oh, and to be fair and balanced you can even say people who burn and loot random stores are doing the moral thing by fighting back against a society that has wrong them.  Everyone is right and everyone is angry...play nice kids.

[*michaelsean*]

(11-23-2021, 04:15 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I definitely wouldn't want that guy "protecting" me.  He's got a long range scope on his rifle and no ability to use iron sights.

You know the article didn’t come from MSNBC or CNN because there is no mention of “military style weapons”.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(11-24-2021, 02:48 PM)michaelsean Wrote: You know the article didn’t come from MSNBC or CNN because there is no mention of “military style weapons”.

Indeed.  But we all are painfully aware by now of the blatant and intentional double standard of the main stream media.  Within a day of the Rittenhouse shooting we had numerous reports about his social media posts.  Hell, one of our esteemed posters put up a photo of Kyle in a Police Explorer uniform as evidence he's a bad guy.  Now we have the Waukesha murderer, whose social media postings are actually indicative of a racist person who is comfortable using violence, and I have not seen a single story about his social media outside of right leaning sources like the NY Post and the Daily Mail.

I said it a long time ago, during the 2016 election, that Trump's attacks on the media resonated so much because there's a lot of truth to them.  They were overstated in typical Trump fashion, but since 2016 they've only gotten worse.  The clearly have an agenda and that agenda is not to inform or report the truth. 

[*Nately120*]

(11-24-2021, 02:59 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Indeed.  But we all are painfully aware by now of the blatant and intentional double standard of the main stream media.  Within a day of the Rittenhouse shooting we had numerous reports about his social media posts.  Hell, one of our esteemed posters put up a photo of Kyle in a Police Explorer uniform as evidence he's a bad guy.  Now we have the Waukesha murderer, whose social media postings are actually indicative of a racist person who is comfortable using violence, and I have not seen a single story about his social media outside of right leaning sources like the NY Post and the Daily Mail.

I said it a long time ago, during the 2016 election, that Trump's attacks on the media resonated so much because there's a lot of truth to them.  They were overstated in typical Trump fashion, but since 2016 they've only gotten worse.  The clearly have an agenda and that agenda is not to inform or report the truth. 

Was the Fairness Doctrine discontinued in the 80s?  Under the current climate I don't see any responsibility for the media to be informative in the least.  It's up to consumers to hold them to any standards but we love our bullshit.  A situation where the government and private consumers joined forces to blow it.  Nice. 

[masonbengals fan]

Worse isn't a strong enough term for what they are doing. Downright enemies of the truth. Stirring racial hatred at every chance that a story can be twisted. I would like to believe that the us population can see thru it but I don't believe people actually want to see thru it. Fox gets a bad rap on here and sometimes deservedly so but some of these others are even worse. Even what I once considered main-stream have went down that path now.

[CJD]

(11-24-2021, 10:34 AM)michaelsean Wrote: It's not really a ruling, and I get your point, but you were always allowed to open carry at protests so this really changed nothing except that maybe more people know you can.  I was down on Main St here in Cincinnati when people were gathering for a scheduled protest back in 2020 and I saw several people wearing holstered weapons.  I don't know that it's that rare.

This is just my personal opinion, but I view wearing a holstered weapon on your hip as fundamentally different from having a rifle strapped to your chest. Not only do I think the layman would consider the latter more threatening, but I also think it conveys a different message entirely. With a holstered weapon, the person is at least a holster button (or some other kind of strap), a drawing of the gun, a pointing of the gun and a trigger away from threatening someone's life, whereas with a rifle, you are pretty much just a short point and trigger away from threatening someone's life, as both of your hands are on the rifle and its grips basically the entire time. There's just an increased sense of danger in the latter case for all the people in the area and I think it would be more appropriately categorized as brandishing than open carrying.

Under our current laws, what Rittenhouse did was not illegal and it was the correct decision in this case, but that doesn't mean the laws are perfect as they are. There is definitely room in there to tweak or interpret the laws to prevent a similar situation to occur. The interesting thing about our laws and constitution is that so much of what is and is not legal depends on interpretation of the laws, which is more of an art than a science. Both the right for citizens to own weapons and the right to women having abortions were determined to be constitutional based on the Supreme Court Justices of those times interpreting the relevant amendments in such a way to make those two rights constitutional. With different justices, we could have very easily seen the 2nd amendment be interpreted as only relevant when forming militias and the personal privacy of abortion not being enough to counteract that it can be considered "murder." 

If the interpretation of open carry was changed such that carrying rifles on your person with your hands on the grips was classified as brandishing rather than open carry, Rittenhouse would probably be in a prison cell right now. So, while I agree that this court decision does not fundamentally change the laws, it does change the people's perception and understanding of those laws. Now that we have precedent that the way that Kyle handled his gun is not brandishing and is, in fact, considered open carry, I think a lot more people are going to be willing to "open carry" at protests now, which may result in more deaths and/or suppressed willingness to protest out of fear for safety. And I don't like that.

[Sled21]

IMO after 40 years in LE, anyone who open carries is an idiot. Anyone who doesn't concealed carry is crazy.

[jj22]

Those hero's who rush an active shooter who has already killed multiple people to save lives with sometimes nothing more than a skateboard are back to being called hero's. Scary to think the shooter could claim self defense for killing this brave classmate. If he got millions from gofundme to hire the right attorney, and get the rights favorite judge.

https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/3396120/a-high-school-football-player-rushed-a-school-shooter-and-sacrificed-his-own-life-to-save-his-classmates

[Belsnickel]

(12-01-2021, 05:46 PM)jj22 Wrote: Those hero's who rush an active shooter who has already killed multiple people to save lives with sometimes nothing more than a skateboard are back to being called hero's. Scary to think the shooter could claim self defense for killing this brave classmate. If he got millions from gofundme to hire the right attorney, and get the rights favorite judge.

https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/3396120/a-high-school-football-player-rushed-a-school-shooter-and-sacrificed-his-own-life-to-save-his-classmates

So now you're comparing Rittenhouse to a school shooter. I don’t have the words for how disgusted I am with this. Your post is fallacious and illogical. If this isn't a bad faith argument, then you do not have enough understanding of this issue to have an intelligent conversation about the topic.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(12-01-2021, 05:46 PM)jj22 Wrote: Those hero's who rush an active shooter who has already killed multiple people to save lives with sometimes nothing more than a skateboard are back to being called hero's. Scary to think the shooter could claim self defense for killing this brave classmate. If he got millions from gofundme to hire the right attorney, and get the rights favorite judge.

https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/3396120/a-high-school-football-player-rushed-a-school-shooter-and-sacrificed-his-own-life-to-save-his-classmates

(12-01-2021, 07:21 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: So now you're comparing Rittenhouse to a school shooter. I don’t have the words for how disgusted I am with this. Your post is fallacious and illogical. If this isn't a bad faith argument, then you do not have enough understanding of this issue to have an intelligent conversation about the topic.

I could not agree more with Bel.  JJ, your conduct in this thread has been borderline reprehensible, at best, but this comment was way over the line.  You should be ashamed for making it, but you should be more ashamed for clearly not being ashamed about it.

Bel, I want to thank you for being a voice of reason on the, perceived, other side of the spectrum.  Thankfully, I think we are starting to see a shift to gun rights being a universal issue instead of a right leaning one.  The government should not have a monopoly on the means of self defense.

[BengalYankee]

(11-24-2021, 04:51 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Under our current laws, what Rittenhouse did was not illegal and it was the correct decision in this case, but that doesn't mean the laws are perfect as they are. There is definitely room in there to tweak or interpret the laws to prevent a similar situation to occur. The interesting thing about our laws and constitution is that so much of what is and is not legal depends on interpretation of the laws, which is more of an art than a science. Both the right for citizens to own weapons and the right to women having abortions were determined to be constitutional based on the Supreme Court Justices of those times interpreting the relevant amendments in such a way to make those two rights constitutional. With different justices, we could have very easily seen the 2nd amendment be interpreted as only relevant when forming militias and the personal privacy of abortion not being enough to counteract that it can be considered "murder." 

If the interpretation of open carry was changed such that carrying rifles on your person with your hands on the grips was classified as brandishing rather than open carry, Rittenhouse would probably be in a prison cell right now. So, while I agree that this court decision does not fundamentally change the laws, it does change the people's perception and understanding of those laws. Now that we have precedent that the way that Kyle handled his gun is not brandishing and is, in fact, considered open carry, I think a lot more people are going to be willing to "open carry" at protests now, which may result in more deaths and/or suppressed willingness to protest out of fear for safety. And I don't like that.

Would you prefer Kyle spend the rest of his life in jail????

I can't wait for him to sue the pants off the mass media and I am not Republican, nor do I wanted Trump to win in 2016, 2020 or in 2024.
I am a former Democrat now an Independent. 

In the case involving Kyle, he was 100% innocent legally/morally/ethically. But if I was his parent I would have spanked him for being an idiot.

In this country...

1. If you are a female you don't go jogging at night. Your enemies will say "you were asking for it" if you are attacked and raped.
2. You don't walk dressed well off with jewerly at night or even in the day time in the ghetto or any place with the wrong crowd involved. 
3. You don't have stores in cerrtain cities otherwise your store will become a victim of "Smash and Grab".
4. You don't go to a riot with a fire extinguisher and a gun/rifle protecting a store/car dealer, you let the rioters loot/burn down the establishment.