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Crime Gun Crime Gun Nuts

WATCH Kyle Rittenhouse Get Reminded Of His Violent Past: ‘You’ve Killed Two Human Beings’

Gun-rights activist and acquitted killer Kyle Rittenhouse got more than he bargained for when he sat down for an interview with British commentator Piers Morgan, who reminded Rittenhouse that while he’s only 20 years old, he’ll always be known as the guy who shot down two human beings in cold blood.

Speaking with Morgan on “Uncensored,” Rittenhouse was asked, “You killed two people and wounded a third. How do you feel about that?”

Rittenhouse replied:

“Well, Piers, they attacked me. They left me with no choice. I have nightmares every night of being attacked and being ambushed and them trying to steal my gun and pointing guns in my face. It’s not an easy thing to do. But I did what I had to do to stay alive and if I didn’t, I would be dead.”

Morgan retorted:

“Yeah, listen. You were acquitted, and many in America believe that you had the absolute right to defend yourself. I’m just curious on a human level, you know, you’re very young even now. What are you, 20 years old now? And you’ve killed two human beings and wounded a third, I just wonder how that feels?”

Rittenhouse: “I don’t think that’s an appropriate question to ask how it feels. It’s not an easy thing to do, it’s something I live with every single day, it’s nightmares I have. It’s something I have to deal with, I have to deal with the PTSD and the trauma from having to do that.”

But Morgan didn’t relent.

“Right. But it seems to me your emotions are more about you, and your trauma because your life was being threatened and that side of it, rather than the question I’m asking, which is simply, on a human level, how do you feel about being so young, and yet having on the record, for the rest of your life now, that you took the lives of two people, regardless of the circumstances?”

Once more, Rittenhouse refused to answer the question he’d been asked.

“And like I just said, it’s something that I deal with every day. I deal with the PTSD and the trauma and the nightmares. It’s not easy to deal with it.”

As usual, Rittenhouse wants us to believe that he’s the victim. But it’s kind of hard to make that claim when you’re still walking around, writing books, and engaging in shameless self-promotion. His victims don’t have that luxury.

Categories
GOP Gun Crime

WATCH: GOP Senator Gets His A*s Handed To Him When He Tries To Slag Chicago

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy made a complete fool of his himself today during a Senate hearing on the causes of gun-related crime when he attempted to suggest that the city of Chicago had become a “shooting gallery.

Kennedy was questioning Dr. Megan Ranney of the Yale School of Public Health when he suggested that crime isn’t rising in Chicago as a result of law-abiding residents carrying guns, but rather is because liberal prosecutors are letting dangerous felons run free.

That led Ranney to remind the senator that his home state of Louisiana could also be called a “shooting gallery.”

“Mississippi, Louisiana, and Missouri actually have higher firearm death rates.”

Ranney is absolutely right. Louisiana has one of the highest murder rates in the United States, with  21.3 homicides per 100,000 people in 2021, according to figures from the National Center for Health Statistics. The only state with a higher rate is next door in Mississippi, which has 23.7 homicides per 100,000 people.

Despite Ranney’s facts, Kennedy asked, “What about Chicago?”

Ranney: “I don’t live in Chicago,” she replied. “It’s not my primary area of research.”

She added that crime in cities such as Chicago is likely caused by “easy access to firearms” and “lack of great education.”

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Gun Crime

Judge Allows Wrongful Death Suit Against Kyle Rittenhouse To Move Forward

A federal judge in Madison, Wisconsin has ruled that a wrongful death lawsuit filed against Kyle Rittenhouse by the father of a man shot and killed by Rittenhouse in August 2020 can proceed as planned.

According to PBS, attorneys for Rittenhouse had sought to have the suit dismissed.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman on Wednesday dismissed motions filed by Rittenhouse and the government defendants seeking to dismiss the civil rights lawsuit.

In allowing the case against Rittenhouse and the others to proceed, the judge said that Anthony Huber’s death “could plausibly be regarded as having been proximately caused by the actions of the governmental defendants.”

Rittenhouse had argued that the case against him should be dismissed because he wasn’t properly served with the lawsuit. Adelman dismissed that, saying that Rittenhouse “is almost certainly evading service.”

Attorneys for Huber said they spent over 100 hours trying to locate Rittenhouse so he could be served, with Judge Adelman noting in his ruling, “Rittenhouse has been deliberately cagey about his whereabouts. Although he denies living in Florida, he does not identify the place that he deems to be his residence.”

Anand Swaminathan, an attorney for the Huber family, said the judge’s ruling means his clients are now “one step closer to justice for their son’s needless death.”

“The Kenosha officials that created a powder keg situation by their actions tried to claim that they cannot be held accountable for their unconstitutional conduct; that argument was soundly rejected today.”

Rittenhouse was criminally charged with homicide and reckless endangerment for the shooting deaths of Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum. He traveled to Kenosha from his home in Illinois, complete with an AR-15 style assault rifle. He later said he had done so to protect businesses that were at risk when riots began after a white Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake, a black man.

In November of 2021, Rittenhouse was acquitted on all charges after he claimed he acted in self-defense. Since his acquittal, he has become a darling of right-wing media and gun rights groups.

 

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Gun Crime Gun Nuts

Kyle Rittenhouse’s Michigan Pro-Gun Rally Is A Humiliating Failure

Kyle Rittenhouse (a.k.a. Killer Kyle as he’s often called) should be able to draw one hell of crowd when he shows up considering that he’s a darling of the right-wing gun fetishists who think they need to strap semiautomatic weapons to their obese frames in order to visit Wal Mart and pick up some beer and bologna for the weekend.

But it turns out that Killer Kyle isn’t much of an attraction, as he proved when he was a featured speaker at a pro-gun rally in Ionia, Michigan.

When he did speak, the tens (if that) of people who showed up in the heat got to hear Kyle intone against anyone who has ever suggested that sensible gun control is a good idea.

“Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her anti-freedom cohorts are hellbent on shredding Second Amendment rights for law-abiding Michiganders,” Rittenhouse said.

Rittenhouse called House Minority Leader Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, a “weak-kneed Republican” who “opened the door” to a red flag law. Hall was one of five House Republicans to vote for the three bills establishing safe storage, drawing outrage from some conservatives. Hall did not vote for the bills establishing a red flag law.

Rittenhouse may have also been under the impression that Republicans controlled the House — asking, “what’s the point of a Republican majority?” — when in fact Democrats control both chambers of the Legislature. A message seeking comment was left with Hall’s office.

Yeah, Kyle. Blah blah blah. He might just as well have said, I like guns and killing people, and I know you do, too, or why else would you be here to listen to a loser like me?

Well, because losers attract other losers. It’s the Second Law of the Physics of Pathetic.

However, something good did come out of the rally: The humiliation and mockery that was doled out online in response to Killer Kyle’s below par crowd size.

Maybe next time Killer Kyle needs to serve some beer and sandwich meats to guarantee that the fatties like him make the trek.

 

Categories
GOP Gun Crime Gun Nuts WTF?!

Matt Gaetz: There Were No Mass Shootings When Automatic Weapons And ‘Cannons’ Were Legal

As the country reels from yet another mass shooting — this time in Louisville, Kentucky on Monday — Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is suggesting that fully automatic weapons and “cannons” should be declared legal because when they were, mass shootings were nonexistent.

On his Firebrand podcast, Gaetz began with the right-wing’s favorite bullshit tactic whenever there’s mass deaths from gun violence: Thoughts and prayers.

“This morning, we were made aware yet again of another shooting, this time at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky. We, of course want to take time to mourn the loss of innocent life, but we should not wait in acting to prevent these frequent aggressive acts from happening in the future.”

From there, the Florida Republican asserted that gun control is actually the problem, not the solution.

“Your grandparents used to be able to order mail-order automatic weapons, and when the Second Amendment was written, the American people, such as they were, could own cannons. No mass shootings back then.”

That’s simply not true, but it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Gaetz doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

The National Firearms Act, which outlawed automatic weapons, was enacted in 1934. Why? To stop mass shootings by gangs involved in bootlegging and organized crime, as NPR has reported:

In the 1920s and ’30s, the U.S. was dealing with a different kind of gun violence epidemic: a massive increase in organized crime, fueled by Prohibition.

Gangsters, like Al Capone, were making big money trafficking illegal alcohol. And a key weapon in their arsenal was the machine gun.

“Those criminals from the mob took advantage of the rise of the portable machine gun, capable of firing multiple rounds of ammunition with the single pull of a trigger,” says Adam Winkler, a professor at UCLA’s school of law and author of Gunfight: The Battle Over The Right to Bear Arms in America.