Kyle Rittenhouse has performed an about-turn and said he supports Donald Trump “100%.” Rittenhouse had previously posted a video online criticizing Trump’s Second Amendment record, saying the former President had bad advisers on gun ownership rights, adding, “If you cannot be completely uncompromisable on the Second Amendment, I will not vote for you.”
The infamous Rittenhouse, the Outreach Director for the Texas Gun Rights organization, reversed his position just hours after the group formally backed Trump. It called on gun owners to vote in the November election, saying, “We need President Trump to protect our rights.” Rittenhouse quickly tweeted that he had had a “series of productive conversations” over the previous 12 hours and had revisited his position. He said his previous comments were ill-informed and unproductive, and he is now 100% behind the former President.
Rising to international infamy at age 17, Rittenhouse shot three people at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020 – at the height of the Black Lives Matter nationwide demonstrations. The Illinois native was subsequently charged with two counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, and two counts of reckless endangerment.
Prosecutors argued that turning up armed to the protest indicated that he intended to cause trouble and had provoked violence at the event. Defense attorneys said he acted in self-defense and opened fire only to prevent harm to himself. The jury notoriously agreed and found Rittenhouse not guilty on all counts. His legal issues did not end there, however, and the families of the dead protestors filed civil suits against him last year.
The Rittenhouse case exposed a deep divide in American society centered around gun violence and the right to self-defense. His opponents called for a new national debate on how far self-defense rights stretch and polling showed a stark difference of opinion between Democrats and Republicans. A YouGov survey revealed that three-quarters of Democrats believed he should have been convicted, while two-thirds of Republicans supported his acquittal. Black Lives Matter activists meanwhile argued that the not guilty verdict was an example of “white supremacy” in the United States.
