| > 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. |
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