The Jury Is Out

I have watched the Kyle Rittenhouse trial like an avid fan watches their favorite sports team all season. I have watched a young man break down as he is forced to relive what I imagine is the worst night of his life. I have watched the epitomized version of the state distort and manipulate the rule of law to fit his politicized agenda. I have watched the media be an accomplice to the state, in real time, and watched them create a narrative with the sole intent of creating further divide and leaving an uninformed populace bewildered and pissed because of their defamation and negligence. As a mother, I would never have allowed my someday teenage son to put himself in that situation. Do I believe that Kyle SHOULD have been in Kenosha? Of course not. Do I believe that he had just as much right to be there as any other person who was there (rioter or resident)? Yes; this is still a free country in spite of those who wish otherwise. The first amendment includes the right of the people to peaceably assemble and that is exactly what Kyle and others did on that night to protect “CarSource3.” The series of unfortunate events that led to 4 altercations is not up for debate. There is frame by frame footage of the entire evening thanks to brave independent journalists and photographers. Looking through the lens of my own bias, Kyle’s responses that evening are nothing short of punctilious and heroic. He had the opportunity to be irresponsible but he wasn’t. He was in legitimate and genuine fear for his life and acted accordingly. Putting myself in the objective lens of an unbiased (or biased on the opposite spectrum) jury member, though, I could see where they struggle with the fact that two people died and another got his bicep blown off and believe there should be consequences for that. The potential reverberations from the results of this case cannot be understated. The current political climate surrounding gun ownership and the conversations being floated about treating guns as a “public health crisis” coinciding with this trial are not an accident. This administration and domestic terrorist organizations like Moms Demand Action will use a guilty verdict, for any charge, in this case as an excuse to remove the right for individuals to defend themselves with lethal force. The ADA James Kraus made that very clear in his closing argument. He indicated that you must exhaust every means of defending yourself including hitting someone with your gun before you are allowed to defend yourself against them by shooting them. This is not true, but it will be if they get their way. People like James Kraus live in gorgeous ivory towers so high that they’re unable to see anyone living in the real world. They’ve never been in a situation where they have had genuine fear for their life; if they had, they wouldn’t say things like this. Imagine being a woman who is being choked/raped and being told by some guy in a courtroom that you should have punched/kicked/hit the person who raped you and that you didn’t have a right to defend your life by any means necessary. Imagine coming home every day to someone who hits you, throws you against the wall, puts bruises where the rest of the world doesn’t see and when you believe this time he’s going to kill you and you take your life into your own hands by protecting yourself and THE STATE tells you that you should have taken it and died or tried harder to run away. I could go through a litany of reasons why self defense is justifiable. The question remains, will this jury side with the state or with the boy who would be dead had he not acted in the manner in which he did? I have hope and we shall see.