Just a scared teenager with a military-style assault rifle, a boy who came to Kenosha to do the right thing. That is all, at least if you buy what Kyle Rittenhouse's defense lawyers are selling. Nope, there's not much more to see at his ongoing murder trial He came, he saw, he pulled the trigger He's all-American. He’s even Florence Nightingale.
Before Rittenhouse took the stand to defend his actions in the killing of two men and wounding a third, an attorney on his rather lavishly funded defense team, Robert Barnes, claimed the youth who traveled from Antioch, Illinois, to be at the protests was a "Florence Nightingale type guy."
Meanwhile, Rittenhouse himself claimed he came to Kenosha to "provide first aid." [ Oh, and also maybe to use and not just wave around his wicked-cool rifle, which he couldn't legally own so a friend bought it for him. But pay no attention, as that was all off-stage.]
Back on point: The prosecutor in the trial questioned Rittenhouse’s claims that he had medical or public service training. He cited video showing Rittenhouse at the scene on the night of the shootings, telling people inaccurately that he was an emergency medical technician. Attaining such licensed status would be quite the feat for a 17-year-old.
But okay, let's consider that maybe Rittenhouse did hope to "help" people on the streets in Kenosha. You know, people like Gaige Grosskreutz, not only an actual adult but an actual, licensed paramedic from Milwaukee. Instead, Rittenhouse shot and wounded Grosskreutz, and then quickly left the scene without offering him .... first aid. Grosskreutz had to treat his own gunshot wound. Thank goodness he knew how to do it, actual paramedic and all.
And the defense pushed some more: Grosskreutz carried a ... handgun! Yes he did. It was in a concealed holster when he encountered Rittenhouse, who of course couldn't holster his scary-looking AR-15, since it's nearly three feet long.
Gosskreutz testified he took out the handgun after running toward the sounds of gunfire and encountering Rittenhouse with his AR-15. Grosskreutz heard others shouting that Rittenhouse “just shot a guy!” Gosskreutz said at that point he began to regard Rittenhouse ”as an active shooter.” The thought made Gosskreutz nervous and fearful for his own life.
See how the increasingly common presence in civilian hands of openly carried, military-style guns only serves to iterate the fear and lead to more and more shootings? Lax gun laws are not the way to dial down street heat. Also unhelpful are cops amenable to civilian strangers roaming troubled night streets with assault weapons. So amenable as to thank Rittenhouse for his armed vigilante presence, as one Kenosha police officer did before the shootings.
Gosskreutz never fired at Rittenhouse because, he told the court, he didn't in good conscience think he could. He waved his gun toward Rittenhouse in a passive but ultimately useless defense. Does anyone imagine Gosskreutz might have been charged if he had shot Rittenhouse because Rittenhouse was carrying a rifle? Even if he feared for his life? Anyway, Rittenhouse shot him, instead.
All the above is where the defense goes a little off the rails. Because the implication is that if an adult carrying a legally obtained handgun at a street protest runs into a teenager carrying a military-style semi-automatic rifle, the kid with the rifle has every right to shoot the guy with the pistol, because the pistol is scary And because he's a kid! And gun rights! And Florence Nightingale!
But the wounded adult with the unfired handgun? Well, the man’s concealed-carry license had expired a day earlier, so we'd best have the authorities look into that. Can't have citizens being so irresponsible and reckless in the streets, now, can we.