Kyle Rittenhouse abruptly departed the stage during an appearance at the University of Memphis on Wednesday, after he was confronted about comments made by Turning Point USA founder and president Charlie Kirk.
Rittenhouse was invited by the collegeās Turning Point USA chapter to speak at the campus. However, the event was met with backlash from a number of students who objected to Rittenhouseās presence.
The 21-year-old gained notoriety in August 2020 when, at the age of 17, heĀ shot and killed two menāJoseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, as well as injuring 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutzāat a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
He said theĀ three shootings, carried out with a semi-automaticĀ AR-15-style firearm, were in self-defense. TheĀ Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest where the shootings took place was held afterĀ Jacob Blake, a Black man, was left paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot by a white police officer.
Our gun culture is so nuts that it normalizes shit like this.
When you look at it this way, it is utterly unsurprising that we have so many mass shootings.
This isnāt normalisation, itās celebration.
Iām not going to be coy about why theyāre celebrating him either: The pro-gun community spends hour after hour theorycrafting about how they can shoot people with their cool guns and get away with it. Kyle is being celebrated for finding a new āget out of jail freeā technique that specifically targeted undesirables for murder.
Thatās all there is to it. They shower him with fame and money because he killed BLM protesters with Americaās favourite gun. Itās his reward.
To me the nightmare is going to happen when we see more doxing with open carry. Imagine a situation where there will be apps listing the people to be targeted, people follow them around with guns, and the moment they react to the threat they get murdered under stand your ground. All perfectly legal.
Yep. There are far-right groups whose favourite pastime (after being racist) is figuring out how to kill undesirables and get away with it.
I actually wouldnāt be even slightly surprised if the whole āminorities need to buy guns and carry them everywhere as a magical safety talismanā began as a way of bringing the police-issued excuse āhe had a gun so I got scared and shot himā to the public.
Of course, I also wouldnāt be surprised if it came from a room full of sleazy gun industry executives who worked out that propaganda and hero fantasies work on left-wing people too.