The life-or-death stakes of the Rittenhouse trial
by Will Bunch | Columnist
Published Oct 31, 2021
... “When do we get to use the guns?” he asked. Many .. gasped, but more than a few at Kirk’s Turning Point USA event cheered or clapped, as the man quickly added “that’s not a joke ...”
... on that same day in that same state of Idaho ... A 27-year-old man with a history of ... online hate speech .. entered the state’s largest mall on Monday and gunned down seven people ...
... the relevant question .. isn’t so much when do we get to use the guns, but how are we going to make it stop? The events in Idaho called attention .. to a U.S. political right that .. is increasingly celebrating violence. This lethal notion is blooming in a hothouse of ginned-up bogus conspiracy theories — that the 2020 election was stolen from the movement’s leader, Donald Trump, or that COVID-19 is a plot to take your liberty ...
This is a 55-gallon drum of highly flammable political rage — not something that you want to come anywhere near with a lighted match. Unfortunately, Monday marks the launch of a Wisconsin murder trial with the potential for exactly that ...
The greater risk to the republic is that a successful self-defense argument from attorneys for Rittenhouse — already a cause célèbre for the Trumpian right, which raised the $2 million to release him on bail — will be interpreted by all of the worst people as a sign from the U.S. justice system that it’s not only OK but heroic for citizens to take up arms for their perceived — and in too many cases invented — grievances ...
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/kyle-rittenhouse-trial-right-wing-political-violence-20211031.html
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