In the news

People get beaten to death with skateboards.

Graph of deaths by shooting vs deaths by beaten to death with skateboards please.

I'd be quite interested to hear more about this case. Knife crime has been treated very seriously in the UK and especially London, even when it comes to carrying without using.

Just as relevant as pointing out the fact one man in a crowd was unarmed.

I had a page turn so I’ll plug that NY Times report again (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-shooting-video.html).

Executive summary: the night was a clusterfuck, shtf when someone else fired a first shot as rittenhouse was running away from a mob, at least 16 shots were fired by other than Rittenhouse, probably everyone (except first shooter) thought they were acting in self-defence.

it's a bit odd that people draw the "unacceptable action" line at the point where he was defending himself. (It's literally on camera, not sure how people can't see that as being self-defence)

If the courts look at each act of the play as separate incidents then this might hold up as some sort of defence.

Look at the big picture and ask why was he in a self defence situation at this point though? Oh yeah, he'd just shot someone.

America is a weird country.

Very much so.

Why do you need a graph? Huber wasn't shot for riding it, or threatening someone with it. He got shot after hitting someone on the floor with it.
Sounds like I'm being aggressive, but I'm really not.

There seems to be more complexity to this case than some would like to acknowledge, but surely a society that puts a 17 year old civilian on the streets in a volatile environment with a semi automatic assault rifle has a few problems?

surely a society that puts a 17 year old civilian on the streets in a volatile environment with a semi automatic assault rifle has a few problems?

Not the least of which is a huge % of the population thinking that the above is commendable.

Minor point, but Remembrance Day, and America's obsession with gun ownership are not the same thing, or even similar.

https://www.essexlive.news/news/grays-kevin-malthouse-murder-trial-1627617.amp
@skinny
A somewhat breathless account but it’s got all names if you want to dig deeper.

Rittenhouse would (in my view) have a valid self-defence argument if he found himself in an active conflict zone by accident, and was on his way back from the firing range so had the rifle with him. And hadn't shouted racist abuse at people.

He put himself, heavily armed, in harms way - he sought out the situation. He cannot, legitimately, then absolve himself of his actions prior to the conflict in which he killed the others.

Minor point, but Remembrance Day, and America's obsession with gun ownership are not the same thing, or even similar.

Because?

in praise of the glory of war that literally a handful of citizens experienced

Millions of citizens across Europe died in those two wars, Poppies and Remembrance day at least partly has the intention of keeping it everyone's minds so nothing like that happens again.

I don't think anyone would ever consider WW1 glorious.

Strong parallels with the case I posted, when put like that.

How about a police force that invites said 17 year old to a bar to celebrate and buy them drinks? Shit's fucked.

Actually I was wrong. Rosembaum was armed. With a carrier bag containing underwear and a deodorant that he threw at Rittenhouse. No wonder Rittenhouse shot him in the groin, hand, thigh, head, and back.

You wrote

People get beaten to death with skateboards.

I'm just looking to get a feel for the scale of the skateboard problem facing the world right now versus that presented by firearms.

Some of my friends have Skateboards. I might need to be more careful who I mix with.

He got shot after hitting someone on the floor with it.

Had he beaten them to death though? Was shooting him a reasonable response to his level of aggression?

I don't like coming across as defending Rittenhouse, who I think is morally culpable, but legally likely to get off the hook (not helped by US gun/self-defense laws and prosecution over-charging) but there's a few things in here that I also thought were true but have come to find aren't at all, or at least lack context. Long sentence, sorry..!
Also reckon that if/when he's acquitted these assumptions are going to be the reason a lot of people will absolutely kick off by way of seeing someone they believe to be a cold-blooded murderer absolved of wrong-doing.

Rittenhouse put himself in an active conflict zone

Arguably hyperbole, but there are videos of him at least performing the 'concerned citizen' stuff in the hours before shooting people - and at least within the confines of the trial, that's evidence enough he's not gone in 'looking for a fight' - whether or not he had ulterior motives.

drive him across state to another state

It was about a 15-20 mins drive, and he both works and his dad lives in Kenosha

With his rifle.

Not true - he picked that up from a friend after he'd got there, I think the day/evening before - not sure if that friend will be charged with anything RE: supplying a kid with a rifle, can only hope so.

suggests that he intended on finding and joining conflict

Open-carry state + US gun culture, so as much a we want to read into his intentions, they're essentially moot point legally (again, not saying that the legal side of things ignoring context/bigger picture is right - just how it is)

Might be preaching to the choir here with some of that especially around what's legally defensible and what's morally so, apologies if I've talked over you in that respect.

edit: just to be clear - I think Rittenhouse is a racist shithead who at best made some fucking stupid decisions, and I dread the elevation of the folk-hero status he already has on the right once this trial ends, whichever way it goes.

A long but fascinating read, thanks. If anyone hasn't read it and is interested, they should.

She (mother) seemed unwilling to grasp that if a bunch of civilians hadn’t been carrying rifles that night, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Which makes my point, whatever the legal situation is in the USA (I don't know), maybe he will get off. But from an outsiders perspective it's fucking lunacy (my opinion) that these are the laws.

Because?

Because the are just two social phenomena that happen to exist in two coterminous societies. You might as well say America's obsession with gun ownership is similar to the Swedish obsession with herring.

Thanks!

Millions of citizens across Europe died in those two wars, Poppies and Remembrance day at least partly has the intention of keeping it everyone's minds so nothing like that happens again.

Yeah, that's nonsense - it's not had anything to do with WWI/II for a long time - though that gives a bit of cover. Every poppy bought raises money for the cunts who volunteered to go and kill brown people for the economic and strategic interests of a morally bankrupt country trying to live off supposed past 'glories'. The whole thing is just a nationalistic ruse to bully people into being 'proper British' by worshipping their flags and hired killers.

Very different huh. I do find the not guilty on manslaughter odd though. But I am sure there is more to it that that poor article.

Interesting read. I don't know if it's covered elsewhere but there doesn't seem to be any question about why he had a bag with a knife in the boot or why he grabbed that as he was running away.

Because the are just two social phenomena that happen to exist in two coterminous societies. You might as well say America's obsession with gun ownership is similar to the Swedish obsession with herring.

I don't know about the position of Herring in Swedish society - this sounds interesting.

Does Sweden have a month long festival of Herring where every village puts up silhouettes of Herring on the village green, they knit Herring shaped covers for post boxes, and Swedish Gammon take en-masse to the comments sections of far-right media to froth about Swedish newsreaders having their Herring broach on the wrong lapel?

Has Herring become, essentially, a proxy for a far-right vision of being Swedish/another part of the Culture War?