Let’s begin by asking a question.

If you found yourself in a situation where there was no question you acted in self-defense, no questions at all, not arrested, police cleared the matter already, you had no choice in the matter. Yet you killed two people and one was seriously injured and faces a lifetime of problems because an AR-15 bullet tore through him.

Would you feel just fine about the matter, happy with life, moved on, feeling optimistic about the future? Or would you feel like something had gone very wrong, and even though you were out of choices, you still took two lives, ruined a third, and have that weighing heavily upon you?

It is not an easy question because there are all too many who would be proud to get in your face and answer that they’d be laughing and celebrating it. But we’d like to think that there are more, at least slightly more, that would feel the weight of killing two people on their shoulders and be sad, sad for oneself, sad for the families, and most of all, sad that two lives had to be wiped off the earth, under any circumstances. You would still feel that you did the only thing that you could do, but that doesn’t make it a happy time – at least for most people.

Here is a picture of a guy from category one. We call him a “guy” when we should call him a kid. He isn’t even close to being old enough to drink, nor was he old enough to enter the army and have a gun issued to him properly, where he’d learn when and when not to pull the trigger. He couldn’t even legally own or carry that damned gun.

Also, for those of you not familiar with guns, that’s not just any gun. That’s a military weapon designed to kill. If someone shot you in the thigh with a 9 mm pistol, you’d likely survive. If someone shot you with that gun you’d likely die on the street because the bullet moves so much faster, the impact is harder, the destruction greater, the bullet heavier, you would bleed so much more, so fast all because it is designed to kill that person because it’s a weapon of war … and its on the streets of America.

Kyle Rittenhouse will be found guilty for even having that weapon in his hands, unsupervised.

And Kyle Rittenhouse doesn’t seem to appreciate what he did. Maybe someone can look at it as a case where youth prevents him from really thinking about it. Except mom is standing beside him, just as oblivious, just as happy.

You know, if I'd killed a few people – even if I thought it was in self-defense – it would haunt me for the rest of my life. I'm not sure I'd be smiling like I'm at Disney World after a washed up actor and the My Pillow guy bailed me out. https://t.co/QVFxXHf3Aw

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) November 24, 2020

Life is good. For those who are alive and healthy.

Kyle and his mom are from category one. You can see it in their eyes. Proud with pride.

And it is NOT obvious that he acted in self-defense. Indeed, the evidence looks a lot like he drove all that way because he wanted to pull that trigger. So he did.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak