As I watch the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse unfold in Kenosha, Wisc., I am pulled back toward an argument I have sought to make.
Which is that there must be a legislative remedy to the violence that erupted when Rittenhouse allegedly shot two people to death while packing an AR-15 assault weapon.
Rittenhouse faces a potential life sentence if a jury convicts him of the crime for which he has been charged. The young man sat in the witness chair today and told the court how the rifle he purchased “looked cool.” He had no intention of using to hunt animals or to protect his home. It “looked cool.”
That’s it.
Rittenhouse was packing the rifle while strolling down a Kenosha street during a protest against the Black Lives Matter protesters who marched to object to the shooting of an African-American by white police officers.
I cannot get past the notion that there must be some sort of legislation to be written that does not infringe on our Second Amendment guarantee that allows us to “keep and bear arms.” I am all for the amendment’s provision. I also believe there must be a way to craft some sort of control mechanism that does not prohibit law-abiding, rational American citizens from owning firearms.
I just do not see the Second Amendment as an “all or nothing” guarantee.