The Real Reason the Left Hates Kyle Rittenhouse

Scott Hounsel reporting for RedState

There have been some very bad takes regarding the ongoing trial involving Kyle Rittenhouse.  The then-17-year-old who now-famously shot and killed two and injured a third has been a lightning rod of controversy ever since the shocking video of the shootings made their way online that night of the Kenosha riots, over a year ago.  If you’ve been living under a rock, Rittenhouse was in Kenosha that night looking to help administer first aid to anyone who may be injured by the rioting that later did over 50 million dollars in damage.  He also happened to be carrying an AR-15, loaned to him by another person there to help patrol the streets.  After several threats from one person, Rittenhouse was chased by that person until Rittenhouse felt that the man posed a threat to him and his firearm, causing Rittenhouse to shoot the man, killing him.  As Rittenhouse fled, attempting to reach the police line a few blocks away, he was pursued by several others, including one man who attempted to hit Rittenhouse with a skateboard and then attempting to grab Rittenhouse’s gun which caused Rittenhouse to shoot that man, killing him instantly.  When another man approached Rittenhouse with a gun in his hand, Rittenhouse fired at him, hitting him in the arm.  Rittenhouse later made it to the police line and then to home.  He later turned himself in to the police.

In the following weeks and months, Rittenhouse was vilified by the left as some white supremacist who showed up at the protests that night, looking for people to kill.  They believe, absent a shred of evidence to support that belief, that Rittenhouse hunted people that night, dead set on murdering those people he killed.  Nevermind the multiple videos from several different angles, including those that showed that Rittenhouse only shot as many shots as were necessary to eliminate the threat;  This kid was the personification of everything wrong with America… guns, whiteness, masculinity, and of course, anything that opposes the left’s violence.

Imagine the night in Charlottesville, with the idiot white supremacists there clashing with counter-protesters, except in the crowd is a young black man, offering his first aid help, to anyone who might need it.  This young man is carrying a Glock 43.  Now while gun laws are different in Virginia, open carry is still legal in certain circumstances if the carrier is over 18.  For our exercise, our young man is 18 and licensed to carry that firearm.  During the night, one white supremacist attacks the kid, earning him an immediate deadly response.  As this kid flees another white supremacist attempts to hit the kid with his tiki torch and then grab his gun, causing the young black man to shoot and kill him.  When another white supremacist attempts to pull a gun on him, again the young black man shoots, disarming the threat which allows for the young man to flee the scene.

Now tell me the left wouldn’t be emphatically supporting him.  And in reality, so should conservatives.  The point is if we are honest with ourselves, do we think conservatives would support this kid and with as much gusto as we do Rittenhouse?  Look what happened when one white supremacist ran down several people with his car killing and injuring many of them. Were we conservatives united in rejecting that?  Hardly.

So we can clearly understand that the left would see a way of uniting behind an issue involving a gun.  After all, whenever it comes to the left, principles come second to scoring political points or winning against the right.  When gun crime in liberal cities is brought up in the gun law debate, they ignore it or deflect from it, not because they aren’t opposed to those killings, but because they have no answer to the fact that gun laws failed to stop any of those shootings.  Yet, despite these issues, we can still see a place where the left would defend a young black kid taking deadly action with a gun.

So why is it the left hates Rittenhouse so much?   Set aside all of the wacky hyperbole of white supremacy and whatnot, why do they want to convict him of murder, despite the case being extremely clear about the fact that it was self-defense?  I can tell you exactly why.  It wasn’t the fact that Rittenhouse was white.  It wasn’t the fact that he was there, presumably in opposition to the riots.

It was the type of gun, Rittenhouse was carrying, and the fact that it put on a clinic of answers to the question the left always wants to ask:

Why does anyone need an AR-15?

In a few short minutes, Rittenhouse dispatched three threats without killing anyone else around him.  He was a 17-year-old kid, using what they would like to label as an indiscriminate weapon of war, which, by their very understanding of the firearm, should have seen Rittenhouse shooting everywhere and hitting nothing except innocent bystanders who happened to find themselves in the line of fire.  But that wasn’t the case.  The majority of Rittenhouse’s shots hit their intended targets.  He wasn’t being thrown all over the place by the kick of the gun and he was calm and precise using the weapon.  There weren’t coke-can-sized holes in people and mass casualties.  What they thought would have left a trail of decimation was actually much, much less than that.

But beyond the imagery, there was the meaning.  What does someone need an AR-15 for?  This exact situation.  When the world and society meltdown around you, as it did in this sleepy little Wisconsin burg, you may need that type of weapon to protect yourself and/or your family.  Certainly, the choice of firearm will be your own, but the use of an AR-15 and other types of tactical/sport rifles in these situations proves to be a valid option.

That’s what the left absolutely hates about this.  They wanted carnage.  They wanted to be able to point at this and say, this is exactly why no one ever needs an AR-15.  They didn’t get that though.  They wanted a talking point.  They wanted a Sandy Hook or a Pulse nightclub.  They expected a chain saw.  What we saw was a scalpel.  And not the scalpel in the hands of some skilled surgeon.  He was a 17-year-old boy, and the gun wasn’t even his.  That… That right there is why they hate Kyle. They hate Kyle, because he showed the world, exactly why someone might need an AR-15.