When is it Justifiable to Shoot Someone?

The shooting in Kenosha Wisconsin is the latest in a series of controversial violent events in the upper Midwest this summer.  This is the first one not to directly involve a police officer, meaning that the rules which govern who is responsible are different.  Just a quick recap, 17 year old Illinois resident Kyle Rittenhouse traveled to Kenosha with an AR-15 to protect businesses from rioters.  He was allegedly guarding a gas station when he was attacked by a group of rioters, some armed with guns.  He showed enough restraint to allow one close enough to knock him over and club him with a skateboard.  In an impressive recovery, we was able to shoot three of the rioters, two of whom died from their injuries, and make his escape.  One of the victims was clearly armed with a pistol, but it is not clear who started shooting first.  Kyle is currently charged with first degree murder, presumably to placate rioters.  It appears that the DA should have the latitude to rule this as self defense with no charges, or charge anything up to murder one, but what charge is justified?

While we don't know the exact circumstances, nor the details of what happened, it is still worth examining the principles we would use to determine who is at fault, once the facts of the matter are established.  I can't speak to what is legal, only to what I believe is right or wrong, and therefore I believe "should be" legal.

First off, he is a minor, and apparently not legally allowed to openly carry a gun.  I think that is a reasonable guideline that should rarely be enforced for its own sake.  Minor's have a right to self defense, but one could argue it is their parent's responsibility to protect them, not their own responsibility, and therefore they shouldn't need a gun.  Regardless, I think the fairest way to handle the issue, is that if anyone over 14 or 16 is openly carrying a firearm, they automatically be treated by the justice system as an adult.  If you want to run with the big dogs, you have to play be the same rules.  On the other hand, if you want to charge him as an adult, you can't reasonably charge him with possessing a firearm that is otherwise legal for him to have.

Now that the age 17 issue is set aside, they are all out after curfew, meaning that they are shouldn't be on public property.  I don't know what the legal rules around curfews are, but they shouldn't apply to people on private property with the owner's permission.  This conflict started at a gas station, which is private property.  If Kyle had the owner's permission to be there to defend the location from rioters, the curfew should not apply to him.  The curfew would apply to the rioters, as they were either on public property, or trespassing on private property without permission.  If Kyle didn't have permission to be there, this becomes a non-issue that cancels out, but if he did have permission, this should weight heavily in his favor.  If the conflict started on private property (the gas station), even if he was pursued onto public property (running down the street), that should be in his favor.

Then there is the issue that someone was clubbing him with a skateboard.  We don't know for sure who threw the first punch, or initiated the violent contact, but it seems unlikely that it would be the guy holding the rifle.  What we do know is that Kyle is not afraid to shoot someone if he feels it is justified.  Knowing that to be the case, and that he was clearly outnumbered, it doesn't seem reasonable that he would set aside his rifle and initiate a hand to hand confrontation.  We know that he showed enough trigger discipline to let the guy who knocked him over get within reach.  At some point after that, the shooting started, and one of the people he shot was holding a pistol.  If he didn't shoot first, I can't see how this wouldn't be a clear cut case of self defense.  If someone is shooting at you, I can't imagine a case where it wouldn't be totally justified to shoot back.  This was the premise of dueling back in the day, if I understand correctly.

If Kyle shot first, how do we determine if this was a case of legitimate self defense, or murder?  I am sure that there are some established legal thresholds for this, that vary between states, and some of which are probably ridiculous, based on the 80 year old charged with killing a home invader who had already beat him and left him for dead.  He was outnumbered by violent attackers, some of whom were armed with guns as well, and they were actively assaulting him.  And on top of that, other people have been killed by rioters in other locations recently, further making that a realistic possibility.  So it appears to me that his life was clearly in danger.

So unless there is some major revelation that changes the basic facts that have been shared with the public, I see no reason that this shouldn't be considered a case of self defense.  He would have to have been there without permission, and been the aggressor, threatening those who were not threatening him, and have fired first, for it to be reasonable to charge him with murder.  If any of those three things aren't true, I think he is justified in his actions, primarily because he was outnumbered and on the ground, regardless of the fact that his attackers were armed.

It takes true courage, or true stupidity, to attack someone who is holding an AR-15.  So the person who was beating on him with a skateboard is either a hero for attempting to subdue a homicidal maniac with his bare hands, or deserving of death for beating on a kid who got the best of him.  The DA clearly sees it as the former, but I don't think that is likely, unless a lot of new information comes out.  Other people seem to agree with him in demonizing Kyle without that other information, so I doubt anything like that will be forthcoming.  The reaction against him is all based on feelings, not on the actual events as they have been reported, similar to a number of other recent incidents that have set people off.

States Rights

The tension between the individual states and the federal government, over who has authority over what aspects of society, has existed since the constitution was ratified.  The short version is that the states have constantly losing ground to the expanding federal government, ever since states rights reached their peak at the signing of the tenth amendment.  Traditionally Republicans have favored maintaining as much authority at the state level as possible, while Democrats have been in favor of shifting as much of that authority to the federal government as possible.

Now that there is a Republican president, we hear less about states rights, because neither side of the aisle benefits as much from advancing their traditional position.  But this week, we have seen a big shift in how the Democrats are approaching that issue, with two separate compacts being agreed to by multiple states, to work together outside of the federal government, to coordinate the re-opening of America as the corona virus lock-down restrictions get lifted.  This is in direct defiance of the President's assertion that he has the authority to determine when the lock-downs get lifted.  I was originally encouraged by this conflict between the states and the federal government, as it weakens the overall power of government (think checks and balances) and would lead to getting things open sooner.

I favor easing the restrictions progressively over time, but starting immediately, since the peak has passed.  And two entities competing over who has authority creates a race for one of them to pick a date that the other has to respond to.  If someone throws out May 31st, it will be hard for the other to extend past that, putting them in a weak position, but they could push it forward, so that it will be visible that they were the one responsible for re-opening the economy.  This probably leads to an earlier release than otherwise would have happened.  I still think that is possible, but most of the talk is still about things over a month out, which I think is ridiculous.  It is unnecessary and unsustainable, both economically, and politically.  There will be a rebellion before then, and rightfully so.  And the economic damage increases at an exponential rate over time, just like the virus did.

The longer the lock-downs are in place, the more force will be required to maintain them, especially as it becomes more obvious that they are not necessary.  That application of force is the main problem, both it its implementation, and in the precedents that is sets.  We are already seeing all sorts of abuses of power that escalate as the situation deteriorates, and those are more concerning to me than the virus ever was.  I would prefer to risk losing 2% of our population, to losing a higher percentage of our freedom.  There are all sorts of ways to illustrate that freedom is more valuable than life, but in this context, the best one might be to point out that even the most oppressed beggar in Asia has life, but very few of earth's inhabitants have freedom.  And scarcity is one measure of value.  That scarcity will only increase, based on the direction we are headed, further increasing the value of the freedoms we have.

Big Decisions

I continue to be more worried about the response to the virus, than the virus itself.  While it is still spreading, it is slowing, which is a positive sign.  Fewer new infections each day than the day before, same with hospitalizations.  But that has not led to the loosening of any of the virus related restrictions.  Hopefully soon.  Trump had a conversation with reports about how big of a decision it was, to determine when to re-open the economy, the biggest decision he has ever had to make.  I could make the case that it is the biggest decision anyone has ever had to make.  If we look at other big individual events, like D-Day, "only" 150K people were involved in that, and 3.5K died, at least that day.  Many more over the next year of that invasion of Europe, but that was still small in comparison to 300M Americans, which could lead to up to 2M deaths if the virus is allowed to spread undeterred.  Determining when to re-open the country is a big decision, but only because the government got so involved in shutting it down in the first place.  That is a lot of responsibility, and it didn't have to be that way, and still doesn't.  Re-opening can be as voluntary as closing down should have been in the first place.  And the decision making can and should be done at more local levels, by states and counties, because they each have different situations, so they won't be prepared at the same time for the same steps.  Trump could encourage areas that are less impacted to loosen restrictions, while leaving the specifics to local officials, and could override certain decisions making certain aspects of the response voluntary, or declaring certain things essential, and immune to local regulation.  Church is the main one that comes to mind, as we are seeing the most conflict there, not because of the virus, but the response.  He could also ban all enforcement of the health recommendations, telling people to follow them at their own discretion, but that they are responsible for the results.

It occurred to me while watching the county health directive video, put together by the county's health officer, who is "responsible for the health of all citizens in the county" that it would be good to have an official who was responsible for the freedom of all citizens of the county, who could weigh the recommendations of the health officials against the other interests that are impacted.  Then I realized we do, or should.  They are called mayors, county supervisors, governors, judges, etc.  Their job is to protect our freedom, and they seem to have all been intimidated by the media into playing along with the "we should save lives from the corona virus at all costs" narrative.  I came across a statistic that the government usually values a single human life at around $5M, which makes a $25K hospital ventilator that only saves 1 in 6 of the patients that are put on it, a bargain.  But if we value a single life at $5M, and just spent $9T in the last month, so far, on the shutdown, we better have saved 2M lives to make it worth it.  Ironically 2.2M was the number being thrown around when the federal government started taking this seriously, but I think that is inflated, and could have been easily lowered by earlier intervention.  The total cost has yet to be scene, but I am confident that it would be best to start loosening restrictions in areas that are past the peak of infections, even though I recognize that risks increasing infections going forward.  There is a balance that can only be found by trying.  Different states can try different things, and learn from each other, as that is the benefit of the decentralized power of federalism.

I just hope that we can see certain restrictions loosened soon, which should relieve some of the tension of the situation.  The instability and high tension is what has me concerned that it will lead to bigger problems.  Certain social distancing techniques can continue with little cost, but we need people to get back to work, for their own good.  Hopefully they can grow from the positive aspects of the recent pause to normal life, and recover from the negative aspects.

Corona Virus in the Moment

We are about two weeks into the Corona virus lock-down, and while we have far surpassed my initial estimates of 50K infections and 1K deaths, we are still nowhere near the millions that certain people were predicting.  Some people want to lift the restrictions, while others want to tighten them,  Some are convinced it will eventually infect nearly everyone, and we are just slowing it down.  But viewing the progress in foreign countries, whether Europe or Asia, indicates that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, as things seem to be improving there.  Auburn never took the shelter in place orders as seriously as our more densely developed neighbors, but so far seems no worse for the wear.  I am much more concerned about the precedents set by enforcing those orders than I am about the spread of the virus, but both are potential problems, that have the possibility of getting way out of hand.

Personally, I have been focused on installing my own solar panel system for the last few weeks, but now that it is up and running, I will have a bit more time on my hands to try to use wisely while stuck at home.  And I am fortunate enough to have the resources to stay home for the time being, and just make preparations for the future, as we all try to determine what that will look like.  I still think is in likely that things will improve within a month, but I am planning for the eventuality that it does not.  The garden becomes the next focus, as things warm up, as an alternate source of food.  Might be time to expand the chicken flock as well, since that has been an under utilized resource.  But those things are longer term investments, that we have to make it through the short term in order to benefit from.

Current totals are 270K infection and 7K deaths.  At this point I think we may see 1M infections, and 50K deaths, but it is hard to know who to trust, as both the media and the government are incentivized to exaggerate the extent of the issue.  It will be interesting to see with hindsight how many people had minor infections early on, without realizing it.  Lots more people think they have COVID-19 than actually do (<80% of tests are negative) and lots of other people thing they have already had it.  It will be really interesting to see the blood test results when searching for anti-bodies in a random selection of the population.

Politics in the Moment

This time period will be interesting to look back on with the benefit of hindsight, but it will be hard to remember what it felt like in the moment, which is that value of recording it in writing.  With 25 Democratic challengers competing in the presidential primary, it is anyone's guess who the nominee will be.  Trump had barely entered the race at this point four years ago.

Twitter conversations continue to be a popular topic in the media, continually escalating the partisan dialog to new lows.  It is hard to tell whether Trump is impulsive and lucky, or a cunning mastermind.  Either option can be comforting or scary depending on how you look at it.  Part of me thinks he is too inept to effectively do to much damage to the country, while another part of me recognizes that he succeeds at half of what he sets out to do.  Fortunately I agree with more of what he has done than what he has said, and what he has done matters more in the long run.

Racism is the topic of the moment, even though it's definition has been expanded beyond the point of recognition in order to apply it to recent events.  Most of the incidents it is applied to have less to do with race than nationality or culture.  But their has been an interesting distinction made between "Go back where you came from," which implies making a choice to leave, and "send her back," which implies unilaterally doing something by force.  Having a high value for Freedom, it makes a significant difference to me how these possibilities are framed.  Fortunately everyone, including Trump, has come out against the latter, which was heard from the crowd, not from him, at a campaign event.  But it is a natural extension of "Lock her up," which was a popular slogan of the first race.

Part of me wishes Trump would shut up and focus more on getting work done, but he seems to have figured out how to feed the 24/7 media what they need to stay in business manufacturing partisan hysteria for profit.  And that may be a key ingredient in shifting attention away from the actual issues that are getting worked on.  Only time will tell how effective that approach is.

Forgiveness and Moving Forward in Light of the Past

Last winter I reconnected with someone I had worked with seven years before.  I had previously been in a position of informal leadership over them, before life took us separate ways.  He resurfaced in way that clearly seemed to be God's timing, during a series of other events that I interpreted as His leading me a certain direction, and we began working together, very informally, from across the country.

A few months later, I suddenly stopped hearing from him entirely.  I later learned that was because he had gotten himself into some pretty serious trouble.  From the info I have been able to find, he clearly made a few bad decisions and showed poor judgement, but it seems likely his actions may not have warranted the string of consequences he was potentially facing.  All of the charges against him were dropped a few weeks later, so there will probably be no more legal ramifications, but the publicity has wreaked havoc on his credibility and reputation, as well as his nearly completed graduate degree.  It is a pretty rough situation for him, and many people are probably running the other way, "out of an abundance of caution."

At Men's Bible Study this morning we were discussing how the church is as guilty of this phenomenon as any other entity, if not more so, even though we preach about grace and forgiveness.  Personally, I am a bit removed from the situation, with only a couple people we both know, mostly indirectly.  So while the truth does matter, as always, I have few details, and little way of verifying any of them, and the past incident may not be as significant as his reaction to it.  Whatever the truth of the past may be, as long as he is repentant, and wants to change, I am open to continuing to work with him, which I believe is the right attitude to have.  The practicality of making that happen is a different matter entirely.

While it would theoretically be possible to resume communication with him, and never even mention or acknowledge the incident and aftermath, that doesn't seem like a very healthy approach for anyone involved.  But initiating a conversation about the recent events, that I know little of the true details about, is quite challenging.  I want to bring the issue up, without being dismissive of or insensitive to what he has gone through in the aftermath.  I want to communicate that I have heard certain things, so I am not totally in the dark, without making assumptions or judgments about the incident itself until I hear his side of the story.  And I want to open the path towards resuming our relationship, while still setting boundaries while I learn more about where he is at, and what effect these events have had on him.  So that email draft has been bouncing around for a while, both in my head and now onscreen.  A textbook example of the significance of articulate and sensitive diplomacy, and a test case for reconciliation and rebuilding.  But it ain't easy, and who knows how it will be received.

Courage and Cowardice

While most virtues are losing their regard in popular society, courage is still valued, and cowardice frowned upon.  It is interesting to observe which current events are made all consuming for a moment, and then forgotten in a week, and which are more enduring, resulting in actual changes.  The Valentine's Day shooting in Florida seems to be sticking around in the public consciousness, more so than other mass shootings in recent memory.  This may be due to a few unique characteristics compared to most other recent shootings, that shed some light on how we very courage and cowardice.

Besides the tips that law enforcement ignored ahead of time, there were armed officers on scene during the event that didn't get involved.  The one who was on site from the beginning of the event has already been removed from his position, but there are three other officers who are accused of arriving during the shooting and not engaging the shooter, who initially escaped the scene.

If reports are correct that the officers in Florida took cover outside during the shooting, that is one more result of the erosion of honor in our society.  In trying to remove all forms of shame, we have lost honor in the process.  Men used be more afraid of being a coward than of dying, but that doesn't appear to be true in this case.  But the public reaction seem to be a sign that not all is lost in that regard.  We still do view cowardice with disdain, and are looking to shame and punish those who exhibited it.  This is the first time I can recall hearing of someone being removed from their position based on cowardice, and it will be interesting to see to what degree the other three are held accountable.

It is also interesting to observe the popular public reaction in regards to limiting access to guns to law enforcement triggered by an event that in reality highlighted exactly why we can't rely on law enforcement to be the only force available to react to these kinds of violent events.  But the public is not known for being logical in their reactionary campaigns to current events.  Which is why we need people who have courage to stand up for what is right as opposed to what is popular.

"We (demons) have made men proud of most vices, not not of cowardice.  Whenever we have almost succeeded in doing so, the Enemy permits a...calamity, and at once courage becomes so obviously lovely and important even in human eyes that all our work is undone, and there is still at least one vice which they feel genuine shame." (C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters 30)