“You have a right to defend yourself, be armed, be dangerous and be moral.”
Madison Cawthorn, Representative for NC
In the context of Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial, a friend asked me ‘which right takes precedence?’
A ‘right’ can be understood in two ways.
As something granted to somebody by somebody else.
Or as a consequence of modus vivendi. A consequence of how people interact among themselves.
People who see it in the first way, will ‘fight’ to establish that ‘precedence’.
Those who understand rights as being a consequence of social evolution will negotiate among themselves about the order in which rights should be exerted.
Hence my assertion. No guns should be present at a ‘peaceful’ manifestation. Where people come to manifest their grievances. Where a car or two might get torched. Where a window or two might get smashed.
But where – if things go as ‘planed’, nobody will loose more than a couple of teeth. No matter what!
But as soon as guns are brought along, the ‘atmosphere’ is changed. People start loosing their lives.
And while a car, or a window, can be replaced… lost life cannot be brought back!
And for me, life takes precedence over property. I would aim a gun – If I had one, at somebody trespassing through my bedroom but I would not shoot at them unless my – or others, life was in danger.
So yes, Rittenhouse was right to defend himself but he shouldn’t have brought that rifle to a manifestation. No matter how riotous. It wasn’t his job to police the town. A town which wasn’t his home, where he owned no property… but where he eventually had taken two lives while ‘protecting property’. While asserting “his right to bear arms“.
Kyle Rittenhouse: Calls for calm after US teen cleared of murder.
These Are the Victims Killed in the Kyle Rittenhouse Shooting in Kenosha.
A Tale of Two Shootings.
St. Louis couple who brandished guns at protesters plead guilty.
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