By: Shawn Vincent

In the summer of 2020, after a night of civil unrest following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, seventeen-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse left his home in Antioch, Illinois, and drove approximately thirty miles to Kenosha, Wisconsin. He spent part of the day volunteering to remove graffiti from a vandalized high school. As evening fell, Rittenhouse armed himself with an AR-15-style rifle, joined a group of self-described “guards,” and took up a position near a car dealership that had been attacked by rioters the night before.
“People are getting injured,” Rittenhouse told a journalist in a recorded cell phone interview. “And our job is to protect this business. Part of my job is also to help people. If there’s somebody hurt, I’m running into harm’s way. That’s why I have my rifle, because I need to protect myself obviously, but I also have my med kit.”
Rittenhouse was not a licensed first responder. He was a private citizen who had voluntarily traveled to a riot zone, openly carrying a conspicuous long gun past the hour of a mandatory emergency curfew.
Late in the evening, thirty-six-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum, who had been released from a psychiatric hospital earlier that day, confronted Rittenhouse and chased him across a parking lot. Video evidence and witness testimony—including that of journalist Richard McGinnis, who was on the scene — showed Rosenbaum “lunging” at Rittenhouse and reaching for the barrel of his rifle. Trapped between parked cars and a growing crowd, with no avenue of escape, Rittenhouse fired four shots. Rosenbaum was struck in the leg, groin, back, and hand. The wound to his hand is consistent with his gripping the barrel of the rifle when it fired. Rosenbaun died from his wounds.
People in the crowd began shouting that he had just shot someone and continued to threaten violence.  As Rittenhouse fled for safety, twenty-six-year-old Anthony Huber struck Rittenhouse in the head and neck with a skateboard, knocking Rittenhouse to the ground. When Huber tried to strip Rittenhouse of his rifle, the defender fired one fatal shot to Huber’s chest. Seconds later, twenty-six-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz, who was carrying a pistol, advanced on Rittenhouse with his weapon raised. Rittenhouse fired a single shot that struck Grosskreutz in the bicep, ending the attack.
When Rittenhouse saw a man standing near Grosskreutz raise his hands in surrender, Rittenhouse lowered his rifle, scrambled to his feet, and managed to run to safety. Prosecutors charged Rittenhouse with first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide, two counts of recklessly endangering safety, and possession of a dangerous weapon by a minor. He faced the possibility of life in prison. After a nationally watched trial, the jury deliberated for twenty-seven hours before returning a verdict of not guilty on all five felony counts.

Lessons for Armed Defenders

Don’t leave a place of safety to confront a threat (Lesson #14)

Rittenhouse lived in Antioch, Illinois, thirty miles away from Kenosha. No one he was personally responsible for was in danger in Kenosha. He made a deliberate choice to drive to a riot zone, arm himself, and position himself in harm’s way. Steve Moses, firearms instructor and CCW Safe contributor, put it plainly: “If it’s too dangerous to go there without a gun, it’s too dangerous to go there with a gun.” Every dangerous encounter that followed—every shot fired, every life taken, every criminal charge—stemmed from that initial decision to leave safety and inject himself into a volatile situation. While Rittenhouse successfully and legally navigated each deadly force encounter he faced, he would have avoided the entire ordeal if he had chosen not to leave a place of safety. 

Understand the legal consequences (Lesson #3) 

Just because a jury found Rittenhouse not guilty doesn’t mean the verdict serves as an endorsement of his choices. By the time the jury acquitted him, Rittenhouse had endured more than a year of pre-trial proceedings, faced the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison, and watched the experience upend his life and his family’s. As Don West, criminal defense attorney and National Trial Counsel for CCW Safe, observed: “There’s so much time associated with these charges that if he’s convicted of anything, he’s going to spend a significant part of his life in prison.” Steve Moses described the acquittal as a “bittersweet win,” noting that criminal defendants don’t win a trial; at best, they survive it. 

Don’t shoot BEFORE the threat is imminent (Lesson #6)

In each of his encounters on the night of August 25th, Rittenhouse demonstrated remarkable restraint in holding his fire until his attackers posed an immediate threat. Joseph Rosenbaum chased Rittenhouse across a parking lot, cornered him between parked cars, and was reaching for the barrel of the rifle when Rittenhouse fired. Anthony Huber had already struck Rittenhouse in the head and neck with a skateboard and was grabbing for the gun. Gaige Grosskreutz had raised his pistol as he closed the distance. In each case, at the moment Rittenhouse pulled the trigger, the threat wasn’t impending; it was imminent.

Don’t shoot AFTER the threat is over (Lesson #7)

When Rosenbaum went down, Rittenhouse ran. When Huber fell after a single shot, he didn’t fire again. When Grosskreutz stopped advancing after being hit in the arm, the encounter ended. When the person near Grosskreutz raised his hands and surrendered, Rittenhouse held his fire. In each instance, Rittenhouse recognized that the window of justification had closed and acted accordingly. Don West noted that throughout the entire sequence, Rittenhouse appeared to be trying to escape, firing only when escape was no longer an option and stopping the moment the immediate threat ended. That discipline—in the middle of a violent mob, in the dark, under extreme stress—very likely helped a jury to return not-guilty verdicts on all counts.

Respond proportionately to unarmed threats (Lesson #18)

Two of Rittenhouse’s three attackers, Rosenbaum and Huber, were unarmed in the conventional sense. Prosecutors hammered this point throughout the trial, arguing that Rittenhouse’s use of a rifle against unarmed men was disproportionate. The defense successfully argued that Rosenbaum’s intent to seize the rifle and use it against Rittenhouse represented a lethal threat even without a weapon of his own—and that Huber’s skateboard, used as a club against Rittenhouse’s head and neck, constituted a deadly weapon in this context. The jury agreed, but the case illustrates how difficult it can be to justify rifle fire against attackers who don’t present conventional weapons.

 

Get firearms and self-defense training (Lesson #2)

Journalist Richard McGinnis, an experienced handler of AR-style rifles, told investigators that Rittenhouse was “not handling the weapon very well.” Steve Moses notes that an open carrier who appears uncertain or incompetent with a displayed firearm can actually invite attack rather than deter it. Joseph Rosenbaum clearly did not take the teenager seriously as a threat—which may have contributed to his decision to close the distance and attempt to seize the rifle. A defender who presents their firearm without the competence and confidence to back it up can escalate a dangerous situation rather than defuse it.

Avoid the fight (Lesson #36)

Every element of the tragedy—the deaths, the wounds, the criminal charges, the trial— was set in motion by a single preventable decision: a teenager choosing to drive to a riot. Rittenhouse had the legal right to make the choices he made, and he may have made them with genuinely good intentions, but the outcome demonstrates the legal jeopardy an armed defender assumes when they confront a danger they have no obligation to face. Don West says, “Even though there may be threats to property and people, responsible concealed carriers, even those who have some training with firearms, should simply let the authorities do their job, for better or worse.”