He's a juvenile, so no death sentence, but he murdered 2 people. If this were truly "self defense", we'd all have a license to shoot anyone, anytime, anywhere when we feel "threatened".
He didn't "murder" anyone, and you do "have a license" to defend yourself with a weapon against anyone attacking you if you feel your life is in danger, which his clearly was by the violent felons assaulting him and chasing him.
And, oh btw, Rittenhouse came to the "defense" of an auto dealership. Not a person, rather an inanimate thing. When does defending a thing necessitate shooting someone?
He didn't shoot someone because of the auto dealership, he shot them because a violent sex offender felon who earlier threatened to hurt him, chased him and threw things at him and knocked him to the ground as he was trying to leave the area, then two more people attempted to kill him.
So he shoots at the first protester 4 times and killed him. Was this self defense? If it was, why did he run away? If it were self defense, Rittenhouse would have stayed at the scene and actually helped attend medically to the man he just shot. Instead, he ran away, got on his cell phone and professed "I just killed someone".
Yes he was running away AS this felon was assaulting him and knocked him to the ground. He ran to get out of the area, and there is no responsibility for a citizen to help a criminal he just shot, grab a law book.
These are not the actions of someone behaving in self defense.
Lastly, given that he signed up to defend cars from protesters with his "deadly force only" AR15, he thereby *knew* in advance exactly what he was getting into: A scenario where he was defending cars from potentially violent protesters. So when violent protests occurred, was not Rittenhouse precisely in the milieu for which he prepared - lock, stock and barrel? Yep. And instead of resolving the situation without a gun, he first shot at a man 4 times. Then, when confronted by other protesters that attempted to detain the shooter (violently or not), he killed one more and badly wounded another.
I agree he shouldn't have been there, just like the three violent criminal rioters shouldn't have been there....people on both sides here are stupid. but you are completely wrong legally of how you are framing it....but then again you are wrong a lot in these threads
These are the actions of an out-of-control 17 year old armed with an AR15 running down the street during widespread violent protests. Should have never been there in the first place.