[esyir]

>But there is a scale. ...

Agreed. You're in luck here, as I've actually just rewatched the Fox clip of Grosskreutz's court appearance just before I saw this, and cross referenced it with the NYT visual investigation just to account for selective clipping.

In this case, I would argue that the scale is proportionate. As to why I believe so, lets go over what happened post Rosenbaum.

In the initial confrontation, Rittenhouse retreats, trips and falls to the ground. Huber hits Rittenhouse with a skateboard and gets shot in the chest. Grosskreutz then advances with his gun, then gets shot as well.

Why do I consider this proportionate? First: Rittenhouse made an attempt to retreat. Only after the first physical attack (skateboard) and an attempted disarming, did Rittenhouse fire. After which, as per Grosskreutz's own admission, Rittenhouse did not fire when he backed off with his arms raised. Only after he ~returned to a firing position~ lowered his firearm and advanced did Rittenhouse fire on him as well. As he was armed and advancing with a firearm, I'd consider that a proportional response.

>Out of interest, with regards to Huber and Grosskreutz, do you believe that they were also justified in trying to defend against what seemed at the time to be an active shooter?

Apologies, I'm not too sure of the context before that as I've only personally seen the bit where Rosenbaum was chasing Rittenhouse. However, if Huber and Grosskreutz did believe that they had an active shooter, they might ALSO be justified. Both sides here may have a sufficient justification in this case.

However, in my opinion, and this is contingent on the accuracy of the NYT's report and the above assumption of "active shooter", the only ones who weren't justified, and are thus the root cause, are Rosenbaum, who unilaterally attacked Rittenhouse, and whoever that idiot shooting a pistol into the sky while Rosenbaum was chasing Rittenhouse was.

There's of course more to this, but I'll leave it open for response.

Also, thanks for keeping it civil, it's much appreciated when discussing this sort of controversial topic.

[d1sxeyes]

> thanks for keeping it civil

Same!

Just briefly on this:

> Rosenbaum, who unilaterally attacked Rittenhouse

I don't think it's been clearly established why Rosenbaum attacked Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse's testimony on this sounds hollow and unlikely, and the narrative that Rosenbaum was unhinged after getting out of hospital doesn't quite tally with the fact that there were people with him - he wasn't a lone actor here.

It seems incredibly unlikely that there wasn't some sort of verbal provocation from Rittenhouse's side. As I mentioned in another comment, the drone footage shows Rittenhouse pointing his gun at Rosenbaum while Rosenbaum is still 20 feet away from him. To my mind, it's far from certain that this was the first time Rittenhouse pointed his gun at Rosenbaum, but we'll never know.

Now to my main point:

> In this case, I would argue that the scale is proportionate.

If I think to how I personally would have acted in Rittenhouse's position from the moment Rosenbaum threw the bag at him, I think I would probably also have been in a state of adrenaline-fueled panic, and I would have probably made very similar choices.

I don't really have any arguments that Rittenhouse only fired his gun at people he (reasonably, whether rightly or wrongly) believed were attacking him. I do think it's a stretch to think that they were all trying to kill him, particularly Huber (is this further evidence to support my hypothesis above that maybe Rittenhouse escalated the lesser threats of being disarmed or of being detained to threats of deadly force? Hard to say).

To be honest, I think things started to go wrong a lot earlier than that though. He chose to go to a location where he was expecting people to get injured, brought a gun with him, and associated himself with a band of people who believed that they were some kind of private security force.

No-one died that night (or any other night of the unrest) apart from the people Rittenhouse killed, there were no other reported injuries from gunshots, no mob attacks[0], which makes it seem relatively unlikely that anyone would have died if Rittenhouse had not been there, or had not brought his AR-15.

Whatever the ins and outs and the specifics of the case might be, I still think that Facebook were right to err on the side of caution here - technically he may not have committed a crime, but he still killed people, and although the doctrine of 'innocent until proven guilty' holds, his 'innocence' hung on an affirmative defence, which sort of swings it the other way to a certain extent.

[0]: I gather there were some minor injuries to a firefighter and a police officer, but couldn't find details on the circumstances.

[esyir]

>It seems incredibly unlikely that there wasn't some sort of verbal provocation from Rittenhouse's side.

At that time tempers were already flaring nationwide and I find both the above, as well as it's inverse, plausible. Most likely, both sides were clashing, as is oft the case in situations as volatile as this.

Returning to the NYT's video of Rosenbaum, there's a few things to note. One, that he was potentially mentally ill (relevant?), and two, he was directly antagonizing the "militia", sufficiently so that the other protestors felt it necessary to stop him [1].

In the later part, of the same video (note that there's a cut though), Rosenbaum seemingly suddenly pursues[2] and continues chasing. Only after he gets quite close (in my opinion; 18:04 or so), do we hear the first shots. There could be a hypothetical in between to fill in the gap, but given the available evidence that I'd observed, I gave more credence to Rosenbaum ultimately initiating.

>To be honest, I think things started to go wrong a lot earlier than that though. ...

So, I think that while I'd agree with you that yes, the problem started long before the first shot, I would think that it's better to evaluate it at point of firing. Otherwise we'd be chasing this rabbit hole till the end of time.

The protestors and rioters shouldn't have been there earlier as curfews were in place, and the police should have been enforcing law. The side arguments of open carry vs gun ownership and the inherent lethality increase a gun brings to any conflict, all the way to "gun rights". These arguments however are all applicable to the situation but are far more general, and I feel, a too tempting distraction.

I thus divide these into two different questions (or more, if necessary) so they can be addressed piecemeal. 1: At the time of firing, was Rittenhouse justified. 2: All the other bits and bobs about the context of the situation and who should have been there.

For the first, I've continued to make my case above, while for the second (rest?), this comment is long enough as it is, and I'll leave it open for now if you want to pick that one up.

><On facebook's topic ban> This one is a bit more dear an issue to me, being a question of speech rights. But it's also one of those which I haven't come to anything solid. However, picturing myself in that situation, I'd be aghast to have a whole pile of media flaming me and having whatever scant opposition to that narrative literally blocked.

EDIT:

Oops, I missed your line on Rittenhouse's belief in his immediate danger. I think we've already come to the same conclusion in a different thread in which the government, and it's dereliction of it's duty to maintain order is probably the one who should be most at fault (correct me if I've misplaced your position).

[1] https://youtu.be/VpTW2AJE9MQ?t=846 [2] https://youtu.be/VpTW2AJE9MQ?t=1056

[d1sxeyes]

> Most likely, both sides were clashing

Agreed.

> two, he was directly antagonizing the "militia"

Again, we see a part of the story here which definitely supports that interpretation. There's also a part of the video you linked to which (I believe) shows the police asking the 'militia' not to point their guns at people[0], which to me suggests that they had been doing this prior to the request from the police. I think it's impossible to know whether Rosenbaum's behaviour was in response to some (perceived?) aggression against him in the first place.

> I gave more credence to Rosenbaum ultimately initiating.

Potentially. However, Rittenhouse is running, with his gun, towards a location where Rosenbaum's 'side' are up to something. Maybe Rosenbaum believes Rittenhouse is going to go and shoot some of the other protestors (or vandals, whatever), and that's why he starts chasing. As you say, it's a long chain back to where the first 'provocation' may have happened. It's clear that the situation developed over the course of the whole day, rather than in the 15 seconds leading up to the killings.

> I'd be aghast to have a whole pile of media flaming me and having whatever scant opposition to that narrative literally blocked

Yes, but at the end of the day, you shot and killed not just one person, but two. The president of the USA was publicly in his corner[1]. I'm not sure I'd say that the opposition to the narrative was blocked, it was just against Facebook's policies. They get slammed when they don't react quickly enough[2], strongly enough[3], etc., and then they get slammed when they do take stronger action, so frankly it's hard to see how they could get it right. I get the free speech implications, but if your only forum for free speech is through Facebook, we have much worse problems in society than whether they allow you to post 'Rittenhouse is a hero' or not.

> the government [...] should be most at fault

That's a pretty accurate summary of my position. Failing to properly maintain order led to the formation of vigilante groups (and it seems these were even encouraged by law enforcement), which ultimately led to the clashes which resulted in Rosenbaum and Huber's deaths.

[0]: https://youtu.be/VpTW2AJE9MQ?t=980 [1]: https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racia... [2]: https://www.politico.eu/article/facebook-content-moderation-... [3]: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-01-15/facebook-tw...