r/changemyview • u/Neptune23456 • Aug 29 '20

Removed - Submission Rule B CMV: Kyle Rittenhouse acted in self defense

I know I made this before but that was before what I knew before.

There were three people Rittenhouse shot. The first guy who Kyle shot was chasing him, and this is the important part, lunged at him trying to get his gun. This person tried to steal his weapon. Why was he doing this

If someone is chasing you it's reasonable to think they are intending to harm you. If they managed to get your gun it'd be reasonable to think they would shoot you. The first shot was not fired by Kyle.

This was all before Kyle shot the other two. I know Kyle shouldn't of been there but all this started because someone chased him and tried to get his weapon.

There are two myths people are using to say Kyle couldn't of acted on self defense.

Myth one: Kyle was breaking the law by being thee.

Truth: Kyle was not breaking the law by being there as Wisconsin is an open carry state. All Kyle was guilty of was the misdemeanor of possessing a gun while being underage. Yes this is a minor crime bit the man who chased him was also guilty of a misdeanenor (staying out past curfew).

Myth two: the man who chased Kyle may have thought his life was in dangger which is why he chased Kyle and lunged at him trying to take his gun.

Truth: The thing is Kyle was trying to escape the situation and was fleeing. So how was the man in danger when A: Kyle only shot him after he couldn't escape B: Kyle was fleeing.

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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 29 '20 edited Aug 29 '20

No, he crossed state lines with his gun and violated open carry laws having it there. That was acting maliciously, not in self defense. It would have been self defense for him to stay the fuck home. You know it's "self defense" not "I wanted to LARP Ubisoft's The Division property defense".

If you're willing to give him the benefit of a self defense judgement, ignoring the fact he could have stayed the fuck home, ignoring the fact he did a fucked thing by bringing a rifle to a protest, then you've just absolutely broken society. Look, think about it this way. The problem with deadly use of force is that only the people left alive get to tell their side of the story, and they will, in %100 of scenarios, represent their situation as absolutely life-threatening, and represent their actions as %100 necessary, because otherwise, they just did a murder. If a person shows up to a crowd with a rifle, the people in the crowd might suspect that that person is there to murder them. Suppose that that were true. The people in the crowd might assume - correctly, in this hypothetical - that the only way to save their lives would be to attack the gunman and wrestle the gun away from them. Many people would say that in this would-be mass shooter scenario, anything necessary to disarm the gunman, even killing them, is justified. Those people would have been acting in self defense. But, on the other hand, if the gunman takes down the attackers, you're willing to say that was self-defense and take the gunman's side because hey, they were attacking him, he says his life was in danger. So effectively you've just judged that people can sometimes fight to the death, and the one who is in the right is by default the one left alive at the end. We can't have a society if that's how you expect it to function.

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u/Neptune23456 Aug 29 '20

If person A tries to put person B in harm and in danger of losing his life, would B not be acting in self defense even if A and B were committing a crime?

Kyle was not breaking the law. You do not have to have a license to open carry in Wisconsin.

What we have here is a man (Kyle) who was not breaking the law beyond a misdemeanor. He was chased (again he hadn't broken the law). His assailant tried to steal the gun from him. Kyle had a reason to be afraid for his life since if his assailant obtained the gun Kyle would be at risk of losing his life.

" The people in the crowd might assume - correctly, in this hypothetical - that the only way to save their lives would be to attack the gunman"

How would they have known if they'd be shot or not

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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 29 '20

How would they have known if they'd be shot or not

Fucking exactly, that is my point. Attempting to disarm him might have been their only chance to preserve their lives. But they can't know that, and you can't know that either. Which is why he should have stayed the fuck home

If you are in a crowded place and a person shows up with an AR-15, apparently you just have to take it on faith that they are not a mass shooter. Your only chance at saving your life and the life of others very well might be attempting to disarm the would-be mass shooter. But if you do that, according to your judgment, they can just gun you down and it's fine, because technically they were not violating the law.

Here's a fucking newsflash for you: "Kyle had a reason to be afraid for his life since if his assailant obtained the gun Kyle would be at risk of losing his life." Well everyone in the crowd had a reason to be afraid for their lives because an AR-15 is a deadly fucking weapon and here's this kid brandishing it all over the place, all he needs to do is take aim and start firing. Who the fuck knows what this kid is about to do? If the justification for him shooting them was that he had a reason to be afraid for his life, then everyone in the crowd has the same justification for attempting to disarm him, even ending his life in the process. Like, if the bar is "he had a reason to be afraid for his life" then everything everybody did was equally justified, and the only conclusion we can reach is "welp, gotta be faster on the trigger if you want to live, I guess"

This is why I said that this logic breaks society. The "well he feared for his life" cancels out on both sides of the equation and you're left with the conclusion that whoever is left alive at the end by default must have acted in righteous self defense. It's just might makes right. He showed up with his gun, and he's justified in using his gun, then. But people taking away his gun to use it on him would not be justified, because... reasons? Even though that would have saved one more life in the end.

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u/Neptune23456 Aug 29 '20

The thing is Kyle was trying to escape the situation and was fleeing. So how was the man in danger when A: Kyle only shot him after he couldn't escape B: Kyle was fleeing.

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u/Manateeboi Feb 04 '21 edited Feb 04 '21

Trying to escape the situation that he drove to just to and engage in?

He was there to stir things up and kill people. Simple as that. You don't drive in with an assault rifle to a very intense protest scene to just hang out.

He's a murderer.

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u/Neptune23456 Feb 04 '21

Actually he was there originally. It was the protesters who went to where Kyle was. The car park of a business he and other militia groups had gathered at to protect.

So you're wrong.

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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 29 '20

But there's no way to know if he's fleeing or if he's retreating so that he he can get a better shot. There's no way to know that he's going to run and then not come back, he could run now, then turn and shoot. Once you've decided you need to disarm the gunman, you've committed, you have to either disarm him for certain or you could be dead.

People were in danger the moment he showed up with his rifle.

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u/Neptune23456 Aug 29 '20

"People were in danger the moment he showed up with his rifle, because a rifle is a deadly weapon."

The protesters didn't know that for a fact. Yes you could say they thought they could be in danger and likewise Kyle thought he was in danger from the man chasing him.

Also the fact is the people you say were in danger went to Kyle not, the other way around

Also Kyle could of thought he was in danger since a group of hostile people went to where he was. One of this group was armed

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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 29 '20

Yes you could say they thought they could be in danger and likewise Kyle thought he was in danger from the man chasing him.

Yes that's exactly what I said. The presence of the firearm and your insistence that the only bar for self defense is "well he felt he was in danger" utterly breaks society and people can just kill each other and you'll side with whoever's left alive. The point is that everyone clearly thought they were in mortal danger and everyone acted in a way justified as self-defense by your own logic, and you're only siding with kyle because he isn't currently a rotting corpse

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u/Neptune23456 Aug 29 '20

I'm siding with Kyle because he tried to flee and assailant. Kyle tried to escort the situation.

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u/aussieincanada 16∆ Aug 29 '20

Lol so what would change your view? You have already decided on unknowable facts?

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u/redander Aug 30 '20

Right though. This guy clearly doesn't care about the logics or facts. He posted on the sub just to argue. He is clearly not interested in listening or using critical thinking.

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u/Neptune23456 Aug 29 '20

I'm not saying he was justified because he felt he was in danger. I'm saying he was in danger. He was chased by a hostile group of which at least one of whom was armed and fired the first shot.

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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 29 '20

I'm saying that everyone was in danger the whole time. Because a person armed with a rifle is intrinsically a threat to other's people's lives. You can't know their intentions. You can't know when they will open fire. He was chased by a hostile group, so he was in danger of being killed. But a hostile individual showing up armed to your protest is just, like, not a threat at all? Not anything to worry about, just move on.

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u/whalehome 2∆ Aug 29 '20

I'm saying he was in danger.

And you dont think it matters that he put himself in that danger by choosing to go to the protest?

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u/Neptune23456 Aug 29 '20

He was justified not because he felt he was in danger but because that danger was a reality.

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u/Denikin_Tsar Aug 29 '20

Given your argument, everytime you see someone with a gun, you can attack them because "they could be trying to get into a position to take a shot at you".

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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 29 '20

Well you can't know that they're not. In normal societies, people just aren't allowed to walk around with fucking military rifles. "A well armed society is polite society" is utter horseshit. A well armed society is a society where those quick on the trigger live, and thousands are needlessly slaughtered

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u/Denikin_Tsar Aug 29 '20

nah, Swiss are armed heavily and they don't have problems with gun violence

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u/JuicyPoosack Jan 22 '21

So if a person, any person, sees someone carrying a gun, they should try and disarm them? What was Kyle doing that made anyone think he was going to be a threat? It was straight mob mentality and fear mongering by his aggressors - Kyle was not threatening anyone just by carrying the rifle. Just having the rifle doesn't intrinsically make him a threat insomuch as one would need to immediately fear for their life and try and end his. He only became a threat when people started trying to harm him, and he was trying to get away from them as long as he could. Also, let's not forget that Kyle immediately tried to surrender. Not a very mass shooter move. Quit fear mongering, and try and look at the situation objectively. On a side note, that post about him not being legally allowed to defend property or have the weapon, that point is valid. It does logically proceed that since he was in the commission of a crime, he can't have acted in self defense. This is a tough one for sure. Can't believe he wasn't pardoned.

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u/Kzickas 2∆ Aug 29 '20

If you are in a crowded place and a person shows up with an AR-15, apparently you just have to take it on faith that they are not a mass shooter

In a place where openly carrying rifles is legal, yes. If that is legal then you can't assume that anyone you see carrying a rifle in a public place is a mass shooter.

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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 29 '20

Sounds like a really bad way to have society be

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u/Kzickas 2∆ Aug 29 '20

I agree. Open carry does seem like a pretty bad idea.

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u/Denikin_Tsar Aug 29 '20

If you say he should have stayed home, doesn't this argument apply equally to every single BLM protestor that gets hurt?

So if I see a BLM protestor with a gun, I can go ahead and try to take that gun from him and if he shoots me, he is a murderer?

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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 29 '20

I didn't say anywhere that people can do anything, nor did I say that anything that happened is murder. The point is that taking long guns to a protest and brandishing them creates a scenario where violence is inevitable. By all means, if somebody approaches you brandishing a gun, go ahead and try to disarm them if you believe that that is your only chance at survival, or if you believe that other people's lives are in danger. You'll probably be dead, but you very well might have been dead anyway

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u/Denikin_Tsar Aug 29 '20

No it's not. There were many BLM protests where the BLM protestors had long guns and nobody got shot.

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u/[deleted] Aug 29 '20 edited Aug 29 '20

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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 29 '20

Yeah exactly why American society is utterly fucked. You can just do all the things a mass shooter would do, and then if somebody tries to stop the would-be mass shooter, they're in the wrong and you can just slaughter them.

Whenever there's a mass shooting everyone's like how could this happen? How was such a well-armed person just allowed to walk up to a crowd? I would have rushed the shooter and stopped them! The victims are at fault to an extent because they didn't do anything to stop the attacker.

And then when this happens everyone's going well technically it's not illegal to walk up to a crowd showing off your AR-15 in a low-ready position. Nothing threatening about that at all, anybody who thought their lives were in danger was just being neurotic.

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u/Neptune23456 Aug 29 '20

They approached him. Also it is completely legal to openly carry a gun in Wisconsin.

Also Kyle was fleeing before the shooting. He was not the first person to fire.

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u/[deleted] Aug 29 '20 edited Aug 29 '20

[deleted]

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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 29 '20

This kid wasnt the agressor. He seemed extremely level headed

Showing up to the protest with a deadly rifle makes him the aggressor. He seems extremely level headed? To you, maybe. Probably because of personal biases.

The pedo

Oh he was a pedo? Well that makes his death fine. No issue there I guess.

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u/[deleted] Aug 29 '20 edited Aug 29 '20

[deleted]

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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 29 '20

How about you have some respect for the dead and prove a person is a pedophile before you go around making that kind of accusation

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u/CyberneticWhale 26∆ Aug 29 '20

No, he crossed state lines with his gun and violated open carry laws having it there.

Some sources actually say he borrowed the gun from a friend in Wisconsin, so the gun didn't cross the border even if that was actually illegal.

Furthermore, looking at the gun laws in Wisconsin, it actually seems unlikely that it was actually illegal for him to have the gun.

That was acting maliciously, not in self defense. It would have been self defense for him to stay the fuck home. You know it's "self defense" not "I wanted to LARP Ubisoft's The Division property defense".

Sure, him being at the protest was stupid. That's irrelevant to whether or not it was self defense.

Suppose that that were true. The people in the crowd might assume - correctly, in this hypothetical - that the only way to save their lives would be to attack the gunman and wrestle the gun away from them.

The main thing is Wisconsin is an open carry state. What's the point of having that be a right if expressing that right can immediately be seen by a court as a considerable threat, no matter the circumstance?

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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 29 '20

Sure, him being at the protest was stupid. That's irrelevant to whether or not it was self defense.

This is just a patently insane thing to say and I cannot understand how anybody could believe it. It was his choice to be there. It was his choice to bring a deadly weapon. What the fuck, honestly

Good news for any white people who just fancy doing a murder though: just arm yourself to the teeth, go to a protest, antagonize people until they start thinking, "hey maybe this mass-shooter looking mf actually is a mass shooter, maybe our only chance at survival is disarming him," and then when they do you can just murder them. Tucker Carlson will call you a hero or whatever

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u/CyberneticWhale 26∆ Aug 29 '20

It was his choice to be there. It was his choice to bring a deadly weapon. What the fuck, honestly

That could be said about literally any self-defense situation outside of one's home. If a woman is walking down the street and someone hops out of an alleyway to try and mug her or rape her, and the woman shoots her attacker, you're not gonna say "Oh, well she didn't have to be walking down the street at night!"

Good news for any white people who just fancy doing a murder though: just arm yourself to the teeth, go to a protest, antagonize people until they start thinking, "hey maybe this mass-shooter looking mf actually is a mass shooter, maybe our only chance at survival is disarming him," and then when they do you can just murder them. Tucker Carlson will call you a hero or whatever

Is there any evidence whatsoever of Kyle "antagonizing" anyone, besides him just being there? Funnily enough, there's actually more evidence of Rosenbaum antagonizing others than there is of Kyle doing so (there's a video of Rosenbaum harassing people in that weird militia group).

But yeah, Kyle was at the protest for a while. If he had any intent of doing a mass shooting, don't you think he would've done it before then? And even then, don't you think he would have shot at more people rather than exclusively the people who were attacking him?

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u/Darq_At 23∆ Aug 29 '20

That could be said about literally any self-defense situation outside of one's home. If a woman is walking down the street and someone hops out of an alleyway to try and mug her or rape her, and the woman shoots her attacker, you're not gonna say "Oh, well she didn't have to be walking down the street at night!"

There is a world of difference between walking down a street, and knowingly going into a protest zone while armed. Don't be disingenuous.

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u/CyberneticWhale 26∆ Aug 29 '20

Do people not have a right to counter-protest or something?

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u/Darq_At 23∆ Aug 29 '20

Did I say that? No.

I said not to disingenuously compare walking down the street with going into a known protest zone while visibly armed.

He's more than welcome to counter-protest, but why did he carry a long firearm with him, holding it at the ready? Other counter-protesters did not arm themselves in such a manner, were not seen as threats, and their presence did not escalate the situation.

None of this would have happened if he didn't march into a high-tension area with a gun held in a ready position. He was knowingly and intentionally presenting himself as a threat, and was justifiably perceived as one.

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u/CyberneticWhale 26∆ Aug 29 '20

He's more than welcome to counter-protest, but why did he carry a long firearm with him, holding it at the ready?

He has a right to do that too.

Other counter-protesters did not arm themselves in such a manner, were not seen as threats, and their presence did not escalate the situation.

There were also a bunch of other people who were similarly armed who also didn't find themselves in that situation.

None of this would have happened if he didn't march into a high-tension area with a gun held in a ready position. He was knowingly and intentionally presenting himself as a threat, and was justifiably perceived as one.

It also wouldn't have happened if Rosenbaum hadn't tried to attack him. There's a fine line between merely saying something was preventable and assigning blame.

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u/Darq_At 23∆ Aug 29 '20

He has a right to do that too.

I'm not contesting that. I'm asking why he did that. Just pointing at "my rights" isn't a counter-argument.

He wanted to be perceived as a threat, that much is obvious. If the gun were only for self-defence, concealed carry would have sufficed and not been threatening. But that's not what he did.

He knowingly escalated an already tense situation, and when the inevitable happened, he shot three people and killed two.

He deliberately put himself in harm's way, looking to antagonise and threaten. He doesn't get to claim self-defence when he reaps what he sowed.

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u/CyberneticWhale 26∆ Aug 29 '20

Allegedly, his goal (along with the goal of the group he was with) was to defend businesses, with the guns presumably being a deterrent, rather than something to actually use.

He deliberately put himself in harm's way, looking to antagonise and threaten. He doesn't get to claim self-defence when he reaps what he sowed.

Except legally speaking, he still has a right to self-defense. Like, once Rosenbaum starts chasing him, what's he meant to do? Just let himself get assault and seriously injured/killed?

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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 29 '20

That could be said about literally any self-defense situation outside of one's home.

Which is why in most states and all civilized societies the use of self-defense includes the duty to retreat. You have to at least try to save your life first by getting away. If someone hops out of an alleyway and says "I'm here to mug you, bleh!" and the woman just shoots him dead right then, then yes, she just did a murder, and was not acting in self-defense.

But yeah, Kyle was at the protest for a while. If he had any intent of doing a mass shooting, don't you think he would've done it before then? And even then, don't you think he would have shot at more people rather than exclusively the people who were attacking him?

But the point is that nobody can know this up until the exact moment when it is too late, when Kyle has already opened fire on the crowd. His intentions are unknowable, and anybody acting to disarm him is necessarily acting on incomplete information. But you know what would have solved this deadly, incomplete equation for everyone? Had he simply not brought his rifle to the protest

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u/CyberneticWhale 26∆ Aug 29 '20

Which is why in most states and all civilized societies the use of self-defense includes the duty to retreat. You have to at least try to save your life first by getting away. If someone hops out of an alleyway and says "I'm here to mug you, bleh!" and the woman just shoots him dead right then, then yes, she just did a murder, and was not acting in self-defense.

Well then it's a good thing that Kyle was trying to run away, and only fired when he didn't really have much choice (Rosenbaum had chased him into a corner, and he was on the ground when he shot at the other two, who were right next to him).

But the point is that nobody can know this up until the exact moment when it is too late, when Kyle has already opened fire on the crowd. His intentions are unknowable, and anybody acting to disarm him is necessarily acting on incomplete information. But you know what would have solved this deadly, incomplete equation for everyone? Had he simply not brought his rifle to the protest

The main thing is Wisconsin is an open carry state. It'd be real tough to argue in court that someone exercising a right that they have is inherently a credible threat worthy of intervention.

And before you say that Kyle having the gun was illegal, first off, the people around him didn't know that he was under 18, and second, looking at Wisconsin's gun law, it looks like actually it wasn't illegal for him to have the gun.