17 Year-old Blue Lives Matter Activist with AR 15 Charged With Murder After Two Killed at Protest

[Eric]

Yes, 100%. I am not sure why the Rittenhouse trial had more coverage than Arbery. Arbery is the real decision here that might define a legal precedent for self defense.

I admit I haven’t followed it as much as I should (my brain has limited capacity!), but a self defense claim seems very unreasonable in Arbery.

Trying to spot how it's any different, in both cases the victims were unarmed and sought out by their killers. It's not until the victims start getting an upper hand that they start crying foul and shooting, the same happened in the Zimmerman case.

In a nutshell, you can arm yourself, start a fight and as soon as they start kicking your ass, murder them. As long as the law allows for it and instructs the jury as such, what choice do they have?

 

[yaxomoxay]

Trying to spot how it's any different, in both cases the victims were unarmed and sought out by their killers. It's not until the victims start getting an upper hand that they start crying foul and shooting, the same happened in the Zimmerman case.

In a nutshell, you can arm yourself, start a fight and as soon as they start kicking your ass, murder them. As long as the law allows for it and instructs the jury as such, what choice do they have?

Not talking about Zimmerman (aka the POS) because I don’t know much about his trial other than the few things I read.

The main difference between Arbery and Rittenhouse is provocation. For the law, the mere presence of a weapon is not enough to be a threat. This is a fact; we might agree with it or we might disagree with it (I do, I do think that my friends on the left have some valid points here), but that’s a simple, basic element of the law as of today.

The Rittenhouse prosecutor was totally unable to prove provocation and intent. They tried with the blurry pic but their case was way too weak (and don’t think that it makes me happy).

In Arbery we have a different situation. A dude jogging, minding his own business. Again, presence of a weapon isn’t enough so had he simply attacked the two minding their own business they’d be innocent; but from the video it is clear to me that the accused didn’t mind their business, had intent to provoke him (or at least stop him forcefully), and they provoked him to the point he had to react. Again, this is my impression based on what I saw of the trial which is admittedly not much.

 

[ouimetnick]

My question to Kyle Slaughterhouse (and those worshipping him like he’s their god) is why did you go? He claimed to be looking to provide medical aid. You don’t need a gun for that. Do firefighters and EMT carry guns when providing medical aid?

I really want to know why he went. I believe he was LOOKING for trouble. I live near a high school. If riots or protestors happened there, I’m leaving. I’m not protesting or defending my home.. I have home owner’s insurance for that. Why would I join a protest? Do politicians base their decisions and laws off of protestors? I don’t really care about the reason or situation, I’m not going to take the chance of putting my life in danger. Buildings can be rebuilt, lives can’t be reborn. If someone torches my local Mazda dealership, great, they have insurance, I’m not defending it with my life.

 

[SuperMatt]

My question to Kyle Slaughterhouse (and those worshipping him like he’s their god) is why did you go? He claimed to be looking to provide medical aid. You don’t need a gun for that. Do firefighters and EMT carry guns when providing medical aid?

I really want to know why he went. I believe he was LOOKING for trouble. I live near a high school. If riots or protestors happened there, I’m leaving. I’m not protesting or defending my home.. I have home owner’s insurance for that. Why would I join a protest? Do politicians base their decisions and laws off of protestors? I don’t really care about the reason or situation, I’m not going to take the chance of putting my life in danger. Buildings can be rebuilt, lives can’t be reborn. If someone torches my local Mazda dealership, great, they have insurance, I’m not defending it with my life.

He was recorded saying he wanted to kill shoplifters with his “AR” but the judge disallowed that evidence. I thought there was a time when prosecutors were allowed to use evidence to indicate MOTIVE. I guess this judge never heard of it or learned it so long ago that he forgot.

 

[ouimetnick]

He was recorded saying he wanted to kill shoplifters with his “AR” but the judge disallowed that evidence. I thought there was a time when prosecutors were allowed to use evidence to indicate MOTIVE. I guess this judge never heard of it or learned it so long ago that he forgot.

It's not Mr. Slaughterhouse's responsibility to kill shoplifters. Businesses are responsible for securing their own merchandise. Businesses have their own internal loss & theft teams for this reason. Unless Slaughterhouse was properly trained and on payroll, he had no business being there. In fact, I've never heard of loss & theft teams shooting shoplifters either. Thats why I believe he was itching to use his gun. He just needed a good excuse to do so.

As far as my previous statement goes about being at a protest, Rosebaum, Huber, and Grosskreutz shouldn't have been there either... I certainly wouldn't have been, and any one with an ounce of intelligence wouldn't have either.

 

[JayMysteri0]

I forgot about him posing with that hand gesture. Didn’t even know about him assaulting a girl.

Interesting observation, that “white power” gesture is also used as a gesture to mean no problem, or 0. Steve Jobs even used it when describing how thin a new apple product was. Musicians and conductors use it when ending a song. Obviously context and intent are important here, but I thought I’d point that out.

Yes we know about the far right's endless appropriation of things that seem innocent, then smirk as they use them. Whether it's the intellectual property of a cartoonist, Hawaiian shirts, or flashing the 'OK' symbol at odd times. They think it's clever & cute, and everyone still thinks they are assholes. We covered this in the other place when people would suddenly throw it up in class pictures, military class pictures, or in court proceedings. These brain surgeons imagined they were signaling "Hail Hydra" in a Marvel movie, but all it did when spotted was draw attention to themselves & out them.

Strangely, they didn't care for the far left's appropriation of Jack Kirby's Captain America punching nazis meme.

Pretty much the same feeling I had. This tells us that gun laws are so lax in this country that you can take a gun to a volatile situation and use it with the barest justification.

By implication, since the same laws apply to everyone, this tells us that protesters should also take guns to their activities. Yes, I know at least one of the victims had one, but the take away lesson I'm getting here is that perhaps to protect themselves from being shot, run over or whatever, civil rights protesters should arrange to have a ring of AR-15 equipped citizens on the perimeter of their events.

And if a shooting war breaks out, well...that's the culture the right has touted. C'est la vie.

It's the inevitable race to the bottom that the extreme right's elite is rushing towards. The elite know they aren't going to be on the ground when the shooting starts. Think 'the left' are too weak or rational to go nutters like their own base, and depend on law enforcement that they suck up to, to protect them. Which means open up the grounds to local vigilante warfare. If only the right keep responding violently they are either a 'mental health' issue that someone else needs to address, or if they shoot 'the left' they are some version of patriots.

Now if 'the left' should follow them down this road, it's a gift from heaven. How long has it been since we actually saw anything from ANTIFA, despite how desperately old out of touch White men in congress keep screaming they are around causing trouble? If 'the left' should take up arms in 'self defense', it will be a sign of the 'extreme far leftists' that so many have cried existed, and you will see law enforcement mobilized like it's a BLM protest, and NOT a Jan 6th insurrection. There won't be any cops waving to armed children, there will be so much "fear for my life" in the air you'd think it was an Axe body spray convention.

The far right nutters have been begging for a 'race war' that they don't fully grasp the consequences of, because they've been buying guns so long they have to win.

It isn't a race war, it's a race to the bottom, and the fodder are willing to help the elites get their wishes.


https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1462217432504971272/

It begins.

Somebody is going to be found responsible & the CITY is going to pay for the environment that let the kid run around playing cop & kill 2 people, and get away with it. As usual with these situations especially involving police, the killer will NOT be the one held ultimately responsible, but the city & citizens will be the ones to pay the costs. I've never been a fan of telling people to sue the pants off of someone, but in this case I am rooting for the families of the kid's VICTIMS to get EVERY fundraised penny this kid will EVER see and MORE in a civil suit.

 

[User.45]

I believe some certain special people will assume it does, but will find out very quickly that it does not the moment they attempt it.

What is “very quickly “ and how many people WILL die in the process? For KR it took more than a year and 2 people. That’s enough time for this to happen multiple times before finding out.

 

[Renzatic]

What is “very quickly “ and how many people WILL die in the process? For KR it took more than a year and 2 people. That’s enough time for this to happen multiple times before finding out.

We've been seeing a slow escalation towards something absolutely godawful for about 5 years now. We'll see the occasional isolated incident here and there, a few more Kyle Rittenhouse wannabes who think they can get away with shooting they don't like. In the end, some of them will, some of them won't. We won't see any real attempts at change until this reaches the boiling point, and we have no other choice but to acknowledge the sickness we've allowed to fester in this country for so long.

At some point in the not too distant future, we will see a mass killing during a protest. It's an inevitability. Prepare yourself for it now.

 

[User.45]

Well. Let’s define terms first.

Man, you have this love/hate relationship with semantics.

prec·e·dent noun | an earlier event or action that is regarded as an example or guide to be considered in subsequent similar circumstances: there are substantial precedents for using interactive media in training | breaking with all precedent.
• Law a previous case or legal decision that may be or (binding precedent) must be followed in subsequent similar cases: the decision set a precedent for others to be sent to trial in the US. adjective (precedent | priˈsēd(ə)nt | ) preceding in time, order, or importance: a precedent case.

As a legal precedent, this doesn’t create any precedent at all.

Binding, definitely not. An example to be considered in subsequent similar circumstances? Definitely yes.

As a precedent as in “weapons at a protest/rally” this doesn’t create a precedent either, both for concealed and unconcealed weapons.

A guide that gun nuts will consider when deciding on which weapon to take to a protest. Absolutely YES it's a precedent.

As a political and practical precedent, yes it does create a sort of precedent, especially given the (deserved) attention to this case. Is it a “precedent” that worries me? Yes it does and it worries me especially in this age of echo chambers thru social media.

We agree about this one.

On Instagram, Cawthorn said in a video: “Kyle Rittenhouse is not guilty, my friends. You have a right to defend yourselves. Be armed, be dangerous and be moral.”

Does the “precedent” theory bear any weight on the trial? No, obviously.

This sentence is not clear to me and it is based on some assumptions I can't easily pinpoint, I'll try though.
Do you think that a hypothesis (if we are nitpicking terms) that the awareness of this trial changing how people and the law will approach self-defense should not influence the outcome of the trial. Well, it should have influenced the quality it was conducted at.

Hope I answered your question.

Yes I see your opinion better now, which to me impresses as an intellectualized way of minimization and again when it comes to the legal stuff, I'm left in doubt about the substance.


Now that we established you as our resident law expert, please point out to me the precedent(s) that set the impliedly very clear principles that allows people with recorded evidence of explicit intent to engage in activities that are actually illegal in WI (open carry in WI under age 18). Wikipedia:

Open carry is legal anywhere concealed carry is legal. It is legal for all adults unless they are prohibited from possession of firearms. Wisconsin state law 948.60(2)(a) states: "Any person under 18 years of age who possesses or goes armed with a dangerous weapon is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor." However, the exceptions are: “when a person under 18 possesses a rifle or shotgun” or "when the dangerous weapon is being used in target practice under the supervision of an adult or in a course of instruction in the traditional and proper use of the dangerous weapon under the supervision of an adult."[8] Wisconsin statute 948.60(3)(c) states: "This section applies only to a person under 18 years of age who possesses or is armed with a rifle or a shotgun if the person is in violation of s. 941.28 or is not in compliance with ss. 29.304 and 29.593."[9]

 

[SuperMatt]

I heard a story on NPR’s Morning Edition today that civil rights protesters are worried about violence against them from vigilantes because of this verdict.

I believe that was the desired result.

By the way, thanks @JayMysteri0 for your posts on this topic. This is bigger than the arguments about this specific trial.

One other thing I was thinking about was: how did they end up with a juror so biased that he was making offensive jokes about Jacob Blake’s shooting? Don’t they want to screen out people with bias? Then I saw that even the jury selection in this trial was a joke:

From a NY Times article:

Judge Schroeder, known for his loquacious and occasionally cranky courtroom manner, talked to the jury pool about their responsibility as jurors, offering commentary on judicial bias, the history of democracy and the fall of Rome.
He pushed back against comments from potential jurors who said they had read and talked too much about the trial, which has been an all-consuming topic of conversation in Kenosha for weeks. When one man began explaining that his support for the Second Amendment was so fervent that he did not believe he could serve as an impartial juror, Judge Schroeder stopped him.

“I want this case to reflect the greatness of Kenosha and the fairness of Kenosha, and I don’t want it to get sidetracked into other issues,” Judge Schroeder said. “I don’t care about your opinions on the Second Amendment.”

Yeah so jurors told him they were biased in favor of the defendant and he let them on the jury anyway.


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/01/...0YLjXoyhpN6454GU&referringSource=articleShare

 

[Thomas Veil]

Can you believe this guy?

Trump boasts that he had 'helped save Kenosha,' calls Rittenhouse not-guilty verdict 'a great decision'​

• Former President Donald Trump praised himself after a jury found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all charges.

"I helped save Kenosha," Trump said, later on in the interview with Ingraham, specifying that when he was president, he sent in "a lot of people" to deal with the protests following the Blake shooting.

"You had a governor that, he didn't want to call in anybody," Trump said. "He wanted to just let it burn."

"We saved it and we saved Kenosha — very early," Trump told Ingraham. “This is supposed to be handled by governors or mayors — they're mostly Democrats."

Yeah. Except…

Trump last year said he had deployed the National Guard to Wisconsin in the wake of the Blake shooting.

The AP fact-checked that it was Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, who had activated the National Guard's deployment. The National Guard from Arizona, Michigan, and Alabama came into Wisconsin at the direction of Evers, "not in a federal status," the governor said.

I am so sick of that son of a bitch and his self-inflating lies.

Trump boasts that he had 'helped save Kenosha,' calls Rittenhouse not-guilty verdict 'a great decision'

Trump falsely claimed he called in the National Guard to handle the protests in Wisconsin following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[GermanSuplex]

A

I think this is partially due to badly-written laws, but also the judge, prosecution, and jury are to blame. If you sit back for 5 minutes and ask the question: “Was it REASONABLE for Rittenhouse to fear for his life?” The answer is no. Nobody else died at the protest. He was bigger than the person who threw a plastic bag at him. Running around after killing somebody with his gun on display made everybody else think he was a dangerous active shooter, so people trying to take the gun from him were NOT trying to kill him - just disarm him to stop the carnage.

A complete failure of the system led to this acquittal. But really… from the point of view of those who created the system, this is a success. “Social Justice Warriors” will think twice before protesting in the streets of Kenosha now, right?

Yep. I don’t blame the jury either, they were given shit and you can’t convict someone on a flimsy prosecution.

I blame the judge and prosecution, and that pesky systemic racism that people claim doesn’t exist. As was mentioned by someone else earlier, prosecutors and judges are very good at convicting when they want to. Here, they clearly did not want to. Not even a slap on the wrist for this kid.

The right isn’t even promoting this as justice, they’re cracking jokes about this kid being a protector, and the psychos in congress are dead-serious when they say they want to hire him. He’s not a hero, he’s a coward and misguided young man who’s being rewarded by the right for his misdeeds. It’s one thing to believe he shouldn’t have been convicted, it’s another entirely to pretend he did no wrong whatsoever, or was even doing a good deed.

Between this case, the lies being spread about elections and the general vitriol being spewed by the right, the next couple of years are going to be pretty interesting, and NOT in a good way. When conservatives start using their guns on each other, they won’t be able to blame the left. It’s going to take an ugly catastrophe to rope them back into reality.

 

[User.45]

I know you didn’t ask me but I’m worried that it will.

Your input is always welcome and appreciated.

There are a *lot* of people out there with guns. There are a lot of people who think the police are being prevented from doing their jobs (and I believe there is some truth to this but that’s another topic) - so they take matters into their own hands. This is only going to encourage more of this type of behavior - untrained people (kids?) with guns out in the streets especially during very stressful situations is the last thing we need right now.

IMHO it all boils down to the 400,000,000 firearms Americans bought, own, lose, find, use to feel safer. In reality they actually make society more dangerous, provides US cops with the "reasonable perceptions of imminent and grave harm" and essentially a license to kill (they have a 99.8% chance of not being criminally held acccountable).

Annual fatal police shootings per million residents.
By contrast, national standards in most European countries conform to the European Convention on Human Rights, which impels its 47 signatories to permit only deadly force that is “absolutely necessary” to achieve a lawful purpose. Killings excused under America’s “reasonable belief” standards often violate Europe’s “absolute necessity” standards.

Why American Cops Kill So Many More Than European Cops

Why American Cops Kill So Many More Than European Cops

www.huffpost.com

I know how to use guns (I do not own one) and I’ve been to shooting ranges with law enforcement officers before. I’d still freak out if I saw a guy walking around with a rifle like that, especially if he/she wasn’t a law enforcement officer.

Exactly. If I see someone carrying a gun, I first look for insignia suggesting they do it for work. And if I don't see it, I nope the fuck out of there.

My wife and I had the misfortune to live next to a drug house (our first house we rented) and every month it seemed like the swat team would raid the house. Police asked us if they could use our backyard to hop the fence, we said yes so from that point forward, it wasn’t an uncommon sight to see a group of fully armed swat officers enter our back yard every few months. We eventually moved but - my point is: I always figured, we should probably lay on the ground till they clear the house just in case any shooting happened. It’s unnerving even with fully trained police. A kid? Lol.

The narc house story sounds really absurd. The stuff people experience while in college trying to cut corners on cost of living...or the experiences of people who have no other choice.

 

[yaxomoxay]

This sentence is not clear to me and it is based on some assumptions I can't easily pinpoint, I'll try though.
Do you think that a hypothesis (if we are nitpicking terms) that the awareness of this trial changing how people and the law will approach self-defense should not influence the outcome of the trial. Well, it should have influenced the quality it was conducted at.

Simpler than that. A jury should not be affected by the verdict of the trial might cause.

Yes I see your opinion better now, which to me impresses as an intellectualized way of minimization and again when it comes to the legal stuff, I'm left in doubt about the substance.

Ok.

Now that we established you as our resident law expert,

Again, we ain’t going far with this useless sarcasm. I never claimed to be such, and I actually stated the opposite and that I am simply providing my somewhat uninformed opinion as non expert of the subject in question (criminal law); same as you as far as I know. I hope that the rest of the conversations won’t need this useless, obvious disclaimer because after a while it gets boringly repetitive.

As of now, I have said all I had to say about Mr Rittenhouse’s trial. I don’t have any further comment to add.

 

[GermanSuplex]

Good point by Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe this morning; Rittenhouse is literally the caricature 2A advocates fight against. Yet, here they are celebrating him. I mean, he even admitted on the stand he just wanted the gun because it “looked cool”.

The 2A folks have dropped the pretense of carrying about safe and legal gun ownership - which was always a ruse anyways - and are now just in favor “let whoever has the gun be the last person standing”. They don’t care about gun safety or education, they don’t care about responsible ownership.

There was a time in this country when everyone would have seen Rittenhouse as a menace, guilty of being criminally irresponsible at the very least.

But ever since this country elected a black man as president, senseless killings of people of color are warranted, and if you’re there supporting people of color, you are just as disposable as well.

*Seems he already sat down for an interview with Tucker Carlson . He professes to back the BLM… yeah right. I don’t blame him for doing an interview or trying to repair his image, but time will tell how this plays out. I don’t wish him ill will. He’s a misguided youth. But if you’re trying to gain sympathy, you’re not going to do it by sitting with someone who preaches replacement theory.

 

[Huntn]

I’ve had guns for years. Besides the 357, I’ve got a little one that fits nicely in my pocket. Maybe I’ll starting carrying it to defend myself from 2A ASSHOLES. I gave my shotgun to my son a decade ago cause I gave up hunting. Maybe it’s time to get another and a couple of 9mils, a pretty one for the missus,

Regarding the Kyle Case outcome, There is the quick and the not so quick Dead. Good luck legal system with your legal nightmare. Actually 2 white guys might actually be a harder decision, but when it comes to 2A logic the fastest draw should get skill points and the benefit of the doubt for being dedicated to My Precious! Unfortunately a duel between a black and a white citizen, the black will still be at a serious disadvantage in most places. Whites don’t like giving up their perceived social privilege armed or unarmed.


The New Standard:
You know: “this unsettled 2A white vigilante type pointed his gun in my direction and I felt threatened, it was him or me, better be proactive or find myself dead. My self defense out trumped his…cause I’m still around to tell you how I feared for my life”. <- vigilante law.

 

[User.45]

Simpler than that. A jury should not be affected by the verdict of the trial might cause.

The trial is more than the jury. This is "obvious."

Again, we ain’t going far with this useless sarcasm. I never claimed to be such, and I actually stated the opposite and that I am simply providing my somewhat uninformed opinion as non expert of the subject in question (criminal law); same as you as far as I know. I hope that the rest of the conversations won’t need this useless, obvious disclaimer because after a while it gets boringly repetitive.

Well, sarcasm did get the point across about how irritating explicit modesty is when followed up by implicit sense of expertise.

As of now, I have said all I had to say about Mr Rittenhouse’s trial.

Agree, we ran out of content.

 

[User.45]

Not. A. Precedent.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Yes first time people show up at rally’s with rifles and such. Never happened before 2020 and before this trial. Never. Finally the precedent is in.

But you know, I ain’t no expert.

 

[User.45]

Yes first time people show up at rally’s with rifles and such. Never happened before 2020 and before this trial. Never. Finally the precedent is in.

But you know, I ain’t no expert.

I appreciate the useless sarcasm. Bear in mind, she's 16...

Thanks BTW, you couldn’t provide a more efficient example what I was pointing out: a condescending delivery of erroneous semantics to trivialize real-world issues. Bonus point for abandoning your principles on avoiding sarcasm.

Cheers.