THE KENOSHA TRAGEDY

On August 25, 2020, a seventeen-year-old left his home in Antioch, Illinois, drove fifteen miles north to Kenosha, Wisconsin, and returned home later that night.  While in Kenosha, and armed with a military assault rifle, he killed two people and injured a third.  Today, a jury found that seventeen-year-old not guilty of both intentional and reckless homicide.  Earlier in the week, the judge had dismissed a misdemeanor gun possession charge. 

On the criminal charges, the jury verdict is defensible.  

At the trial, the teen argued that he acted in self-defense.  

Under Wisconsin law, a defendant claiming self-defense has the initial burden of production. This  means he must present facts which, if proved, could support a finding that his use of force was valid. If a defendant satisfies that initial burden, the state must disprove some element of the defense, either that the defendant was reasonable in believing he was in imminent danger or that the force used was reasonable under the circumstances.  To do so, the state must disprove one of these elements beyond a reasonable doubt. 

In this case, the defense easily met its initial burden and the jury decided that the state had not disproven any element of self-defense.  Both conclusions are defensible.   There was evidence that the first victim tried to grab the teen's gun just before the teen shot him; that the second was hitting him over the head with a skateboard and struggling to grab the gun before he was shot; and that the third pointed his own handgun at the teen before he was shot in the arm.  

As to the misdemeanor charge, the teen's possession of the  military assault rifle was not illegal because, though the applicable statute makes it illegal for minors to possess dangerous weapons, those under 18 can be found guilty if, but only if, they are 16 or the length of the barrel is less than 16 inches. In this case, the teen was 17 and the gun barrell was 16 inches long.  So the statutory crime had not been committed.

In the run-up to the trial and its immediate aftermath, all the usual suspects showed up with all their usual bromides.  On the extreme right, the teen was turned into an avatar of the Second Amendment who voluntarily put himself in harm's way to protect property from unhinged BLM protestors. On the left, his out on bail "Free as Fuck" tee-shirt while posing for pictures with men singing Proud Boy anthems made him a white supremacist.

Both pictures are wrong.

And before any more teenage boys  decide to answer any more self-induced calls to action armed with AR-15s . . .

And more people wind up dead who did not have to be . . .

It behooves us as a country to get the picture right.

So here goes.

Kyle Rittenhouse was and remains an immature, male adolescent.  

I have a wealth of experience with immature, male adolescents.  

I was once one myself.   

Like many immature, male adolescents, I could convince myself that my view of  the world  was all that mattered, that the uninformed and unwilling simply did not get it, that what adults called prudence or patience was really cowardice.  While talking myself into this excited state of euphoric certainty,  I could play the role of superhero, get in the face of authority, tell them off, courageously accept the challenges lesser men avoided.  

Unfortunately, however,  excited immature male adolescents usually forget to take a deep breath.  They lose any sense of perspective.  They unravel.

When I was 17 and unraveled, I was first threatened with expulsion and then given a stern talking to by a Jesuit who cared.  

And then . . .

I started to grow up.

When Kyle Rittenhouse unraveled, he drove to Kenosha.  Instead of  talking him down, we allowed him to grab a gun. 

A military assault rifle.

Something no immature boy wound up in his own sense of self-righteousness should ever get his hands on, no matter the length of the barrel.  

There are no heroes here.  

Not  the cops who talked to him that night while he stood outside a Kenosha vehicle dealership armed to the teeth.  Not the businesses who supposedly encouraged the presence of  self-appointed and untrained  pseudo-cops to "guard" their properties.  Not the immature male adolescents sitting in Congress -- Florida's Matt Gaetz and North Carolina's Madison Crawthorn -- offering him interships. Not the gun nuts who have no problem mixing assault weapons with unhinged levels of testosterone.  Not even the lefties blaming the trial judge and ignoring the evidence.

On August 25, the adults were AWOL.

So, instead of growing up . . . 

The unraveled Kyle Rittenhouse blew up.

None of us should be surprised.