Woke up this morning with an idea. A site called Rittenhouse Case Myths or something like that which is just a simple single-page site which starts with a paragraph-length description of what happened that day and then a list of oft-repeated mistruths, linked via floating table of contents, with sourced deboonkings based on trial testimony, public records, etc. I even started writing up a list of the myths to debunk. It'd all be in a Git repo so people could propose changes via issues and pull requests and such. Maybe even have a contact page which features some of the salty email I'd be sure to get. Eventually as I woke up more I realized writing this up would take a long time (and I'm fortunate to have almost more paid work in my inbox than I can handle at the moment), make me a target for extremists, and probably utterly fail to change anyone's mind. Still, here's what I had in my list so far, just in case someone else wants to do anything with it.
- Rittenhouse killed two (or three) black men
- Rittenhouse crossed state lines with his rifle
- It was against Wisconsin state law for a 17-year-old like Rittenhouse to carry an AR-15 rifle
- The full-metal jacket ammunition loaded into the AR-15 rifle was unusual or intentional
- Rittenhouse had no connections to Kenosha, WI and no reason to be there
- Rittenhouse went to Kenosha, WI for the sole reason of attending the “riot”
- Rittenhouse fired aimlessly into a crowd
- Rittenhouse had a duty to retreat before defending himself and did not do so
- Rittenhouse’s mother drove him across state lines
- The prosecution may be able to appeal their loss in the case
- The AR-15 is an "assault rifle"
- The AR-15 is a military-grade weapon
- The AR-15 is a machine gun or a fully-automatic rifle