'He Left A Trail of Bodies On The Ground': David French Bashes Kyle Rittenhouse And Pushes For An End to Open Carry

The movement to make a hero out of Kyle Rittenhouse is both ridiculous and dangerous. He was a foolish kid wielding a deadly weapon.

But even foolish kids have a right of self-defense. Based on the evidence, acquittal is reasonable. Validation is not: https://t.co/mUz8aJHp75

— David French (@DavidAFrench) November 16, 2021

Open carry is materially different from concealed carry. It’s often designed to be menacing, to intimidate the public and public officials. And after the debates around Rittenhouse, it’s time to rethink open carry, as a matter of ethics and law. https://t.co/2daiagOyJI

— David French (@DavidAFrench) November 16, 2021

David French prefers his minors unarmed and in the arms of drag queens while he celebrates the sexualized spectacle as a blessing of liberty https://t.co/TDj5r0H8bO

— Pedro L. Gonzalez (@emeriticus) November 16, 2021

David French will push for American young men to carry rifles to every shithole on the planet that hates us to “spread democracy”, but will admonish them for picking up a rifle to protect their own communities https://t.co/F5RfD3eMrR

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) November 16, 2021

As the Kyle Rittenhouse trial comes to a close, two things are becoming clear at once. First, absolutely no one should be surprised if Rittenhouse is acquitted on the most serious charges against him. And second, regardless of the outcome of the trial, the Trumpist right is wrongly creating a folk hero out of Rittenhouse. For millions he's become a positive symbol, a young man of action who stepped up when the police (allegedly) stepped aside.

The trial itself has not gone well for the prosecution, for reasons that relate to the nature of self-defense claims. Such claims are not assessed by means of sweeping inquiries into the wisdom of the actions that put the shooter into a dangerous place in a dangerous time. Instead, they produce a narrow inquiry into the events immediately preceding the shooting. The law allows even a foolish man to defend himself, even if his own foolishness put him in harm's way.

[...] When you turn a foolish young man into a hero, you'll see more foolish young men try to emulate his example. And although the state should not permit rioters to run rampant in America's streets, random groups of armed Americans are utterly incapable of imposing order themselves, and any effort to do so can lead to greater death and carnage.

In fact, that's exactly what happened in Rittenhouse's case. He didn't impose order. He didn't stop a riot. He left a trail of bodies on the ground, and two of the people he shot were acting on the belief that Rittenhouse himself was an active shooter. He had, after all, just killed a man.