The Rittenhouse Case

 I have not followed the Rittenhouse case until it became impossible not to follow it at least a little if I watched the news. I know only what I have seen in the news, and a lot of it is strange. He is not a child and was not one when he did the shooting, but he was a minor living with his mother. One has to wonder if she or his father went along with him going on his own to a violent riot in another state, or if either tried to stop him. One really has to wonder how someone thought giving a firearm to someone his age to carry unsupervised in a riot was a good idea. I know there are seventeen and eighteen year-olds in the armed forces, but  they  have gone through at least basic training and are under the direction of responsible older officers and noncoms.

If the news it accurate, it seems he was acting in self-defense in the shootings, and that it would be very difficult to show he was not beyond any reasonable doubt.  The betting is that he will be acquitted, and that seems likely to me. (Officials in the region seem to think so too. They are preparing for rioting by leftists.)

Some conservatives in the media are touting Rittenhouse as a “Second Amendment hero”.  That makes little sense to me. The case has nothing to do with the right to keep and bear arms. It is about whether in one incident a firearm was used legally or criminally.  Nor do I find his actions as reported heroic. They are at best only justified. A calmer and more experienced man might have handled the situations without killing anyone.  The riot in Kenosha was a mess, but he was not someone who should have tried to do something about it, irrespective of how his intervention turned out. He was neither immediately affected nor mature enough.  He had no business being where he was.

Halloween

We did not have many trick or treaters this Halloween, a total of only seven in three groups. Some years we do a little better, but we rarely have a bunch. Over the last few decades Halloween has become more fun for adults and less fun for kids. It is good that more adults  join in the fun – decorating  their houses, dressing in costumes, or having parties.  But I wish the kids better  than the way things have turned out for many of them.

The trouble began in the 1960s with stories in the media about criminals and psychopaths putting razor blades (and later needles) in apples or candy given to trick or treaters.  It  turned out that most of the cases were hoaxes, and most of the rest may have been  pranks by kids, but the damage was done. As late as a few years ago one of the medical outfits in our town was getting publicity by offering to X-ray the contents of kids’ trick or treat bags.  Then there were the urban legends about poisoned or dope-laced Halloween candy  that probably peaked in the 1980s but still circulate.

Such scare stories hyped by the media with no regard to either accuracy or statistical context have frightened parents. Some parents  have forbidden trick or treating altogether – perhaps turning to such gosh awful alternatives as trunk or treat gatherings in church or store parking lots. Others have fired up the helicopter  and followed kids old enough to trick or treat on their own on their rounds. It is too bad. Old people often think things in their childhood were better than what kids have now. In this case  they are right. Going out in the dark with one’s buddies looking for candy and adventure was pretty good fun.