Rittenhouse's appearance at a university generated hostility from a number of students but he remained positive, saying it had been "a great event."

Kyle Rittenhouse abruptly departed the stage during an appearance at the University of Memphis on Wednesday, after he was confronted about comments made by Turning Point USA founder and president Charlie Kirk.

Rittenhouse was invited by the college’s Turning Point USA chapter to speak at the campus. However, the event was met with backlash from a number of students who objected to Rittenhouse’s presence.

The 21-year-old gained notoriety in August 2020 when, at the age of 17, he shot and killed two men—Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, as well as injuring 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz—at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

He said the three shootings, carried out with a semi-automatic AR-15-style firearm, were in self-defense. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest where the shootings took place was held after Jacob Blake, a Black man, was left paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot by a white police officer.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    29·
    8 months ago

    Because having someone else buy a gun for you that you can’t legally buy, traveling to a confrontational hotspot with your guns, failing to leave a situation that was escalating, and that choice leading to one shooting a mentally ill bipolar person is perfectly legal. And the right wing absolutely wants to make sure everyone knows that. So he gets to be trotted out for any occasion where they need a “famous” person who chose to exercise their right to self-defense, despite making every effort to place themselves in a situation where it might be necessary.

    But that’s not his fault.

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
      23·
      8 months ago

      He also managed to escape open carry laws because the judge deemed any rifle above 15 inches was not a “Deadly Weapon” despite Rittenhouse using the weapon to cause multiple deaths, due to loose interpretation of the grammar of the written laws. And the state congress in IL did nothing to correct him.

          • dgkf@lemmy.ml
            30·
            8 months ago

            For those that need a translation:

            “You have got to be shitting me”

            “I am in fact not shitting you, my dude. It is very disappointing that this is real.”

            • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              4·
              8 months ago

              I agree fully with you, but also this brings back to memory a 20 year old GameFAQs thread where we just posted initialisms and one guy was SO GOOD as guessing them

              I’m useless for this conversation but I’m sharing a bit about what I experienced growing up

              IASIHDFTTBITIWBRAAIAD