The Rittenhouse case shines a powerful, new, national spotlight on the pending New York gun regulation case before the United States Supreme Court and on how the United States shall seek to have law and order for Americans.
Regardless of how the Rittenhouse case comes out, national passions have been stimulated on both sides of those who favor more gun control and those who want less gun control.
Those who want more gun control are in passionate outrage over the idea that Rittenhouse could buy an AR-15, cross state lines [edit 11/20/21 Since posting this entry it has been called to my attention that Rittenhouse did not carry AR-15 across state lines. Such does not diminish what this entry otherwise says.] to go to Kenosha where protests were taking place, kill two protesters, and possibly escape punishment for his actions.
Those who are opposed to gun control potentially find Rittenhouse a champion of citizens taking action on behalf of law and order and see in him a role model for other citizens to take up guns in similar ways to uphold law and order.
[to be continued]
The two competing visions for how Americans shall seek to have law and order are starkly clashing.
One side says the police by themselves are inadequate for providing law and order for Americans, and good guy citizens with guns are indispensable to society for stopping bad guys with guns.
The other side feels America is being overwhelmed by daily gun violence and more gun control is desperately needed. They think that citizens like Rittenhouse who purportedly want to be good guy citizens out and about with guns to stop bad guys with guns are a cause of more gun violence and are intolerable, and must be shut down.
The pending United States Supreme Court case will have bearing on whether states and cities have the power to make it unlawful for wannabe good guy citizens to be out and about with guns to stop bad guy citizens with guns. That is not to say whether states or cities will exercise such a power, but only to say whether states and cities have the power if they choose to exercise the power.
Let there be a national debate about whether states and cities should at least have the power to outlaw wannabe good guy citizens such as Rittenhouse being out and about with guns to stop bad guys with guns.
[possibly to be further continued]
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