The rifle is a weapon. Let there be no mistake about that. It is a tool of power, and thus dependent completely upon the moral stature of its user. It is equally useful in securing meat for the table, destroying group enemies on the battlefield, and resisting tyranny. In fact, it is the only means of resisting tyranny, since a citizenry armed with rifles simply cannot be tyrannized.
Jeff Cooper, The Art of the Rifle.
My old pal Scott Greenfield sent me a link to this opinion piece in the New York Times: The Truth About Kyle Rittenhouse’s Gun. Farhad Manjoo writes about how the prosecutors’ “deft” closing argument
had a power beyond this case … because it cleverly unraveled some of the foundational tenets of gun advocacy: That guns are effective and necessary weapons of self-defense. That without them, lawlessness and tyranny would prevail. And that in the right hands — in the hands of the “good guys” — guns promote public safety rather than destroy it.
In other words, Binger cleverly confirmed the author’s beliefs about guns. (Beliefs are emotions. Let that marinate a bit.)
I didn’t think Binger’s argument was terrible. Scripted performances, such as closing argument, are hard to screw up, even for mediocre lawyers with no listening skills and poor judgment.
Hard to screw up, but not impossible: Binger, in the course of that argument, pointed a rifle toward the courtroom audience, with his finger on the trigger, causing anyone the least bit gun-safety conscious to cringe.
Back to Manjoo. The New York Times opinionist’s “truth” about Rittenhouse’s gun is “At every turn that night, Rittenhouse’s AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle made things worse, ratcheting up danger rather than quelling it.”
He is wrong about the facts, claiming:
The prosecution says the killing began when Rittenhouse pointed his gun at Joseph Rosenbaum, an unarmed, 36-year-old protester, prompting Rosenbaum to run after him in an effort to stop a potential shooting.
In fact the State’s claim was that Rittenhouse pointed his gun at or toward Joshua Ziminski and his wife, prompting Rosenbaum to run after him. There was no testimony about Rosenbaum’s motive, for obvious reasons. (More on Rosenbam’s motive below the payline.)
But that’s only marginally relevant to his “truth,” and on that, in the specific case the opinionist may not be wrong. Rittenhouse’s rifle may have made things worse—though nobody can say what Rosenbaum would have done if he hadn’t had Rittenhouse for a target, and Rittenhouse’s—and others’—presence there with AR-15s may have prevented greater harm to property.
I wish Rittenhouse hadn’t gone down there at all. Sahil “Sal” and Anmol “Sam” Khindri, the owners of Car Source, the dealership that Rittenhouse went to protect, did not deserve his help.
The presence of men with rifles may have kept Car Source from burning, but they should, in hindsight, have let it burn, and let Rosenbaum snuff his own smoky candle some other way.
On the object level, Rittenhouse’s presence in Kenosha with a gun obviously made things worse for him—nothing good came of it. It probably made things worse for Huber and Grosskreutz.
But it wasn’t just Rittenhouse’s presence. It was also Rosenbaum’s, and Huber’s, and Grosskreutz’s cavalier treatment of a kid with a rifle.
A perennial anti-gun argument on the internet is, “you can’t expect to beat the U.S. military, with its F-15s and tanks.” There are several good counterarguments: the U.S. military is not likely to use its F-15s and tanks against their neighbors; while tanks are not vulnerable to rifle rounds, their operators (and supply lines) are; the U.S. military has done a shitty job of winning wars against other people who don’t have planes and tanks; and so forth.
But I think the best argument is to reject the premise. Ten million people with rifles don’t have to beat the U.S. military if the war never starts. The war never starts if the outcome is unsure. The outcome is unsure because there are ten million people with rifles on one side, and drones and bombs on the other. (Some more thoughts about the risks and rewards of hot civil war below the payline.)
In that scale, then—ten million people with guns—will the guns make things better, or make things worse? There are undeniably costs imposed on society by widespread gun ownership. It is probably true that due to the prevalence of guns more people are murdered: America’s murder rate is four times Australia’s or the U.K.’s, and three times Canada’s. It may be true that due to the prevalence of guns more people commit suicide: America’s suicide rate is higher than the U.K.’s, Canada’s, or Australia’s.
But the costs are all highly visible, and the benefits may be invisible ones, such as reducing state depredation on our right to be left alone and minimizing others’ interference with our selves and our possessions.
There are estimated to be more (possibly many more) than 200,000 defensive uses of guns in the U.S. annually; most of the time the “use” is just exhibiting the gun—someone intends someone else harm, realizes that the someone else can defend himself, thinks better of it. The greatest benefit of an armed populace, then, is deterrence of interference in our lives. That benefit is almost entirely invisible, and the cost extremely visible.
So it is with Rittenhouse’s rifle. The cost of his taking his rifle to Kenosha in August 2020 was huge. The benefits to him were nil. The other rifles there probably deterred people from destroying property, but the beneficiaries of that deterrence wound up betraying those who provided it, so judging by their gratitude that benefit was small.
All this, I believe, went down because Rosenbaum had no respect for the fact that Rittenhouse could defend himself against attack. The fact that Rittenhouse could end his life did not deter Rosenbaum. And because Rittenhouse felt the need to shoot Rosenbaum (Binger’s idea that Rittenhouse was obligated to stop and evaluate his first shot before firing his second, third, and fourth shots is ridiculous to me: if you are justified in using deadly force, you use deadly force until you know the risk is gone) Huber and Grosskreutz thought they were justified in using deadly force against Rittenhouse (whether correctly, because they thought he was an imminent danger to others; or incorrectly, in retaliation). And because Huber and Grosskreutz weren’t deterred by the rifle—Huber thought he could disable Rittenhouse with his skateboard, and Grosskreutz thought he could get the drop on Rittenhouse—Rittenhouse was justified in shooting them as well.
All for want of respect for a citizen with a rifle. If Rosenbaum had appreciated and responded appropriately to the beautiful terribleness of the thing, he and Huber might still be alive.
Which brings us back to the trial, in which twelve people may suggest by their verdict, “if you don’t respond appropriately, that is, with wariness, to the rifle, that’s on you; Rittenhouse is not guilty” or “you don’t have to respond appropriately to the rifle, we’ll avenge you; Rittenhouse is guilty.”