CLAIM: Mike Bloomberg-affiliated Moms Demand Action, a gun control group, used the occasion of the third anniversary of the Kenosha, Wisconsin, riots to claim Kyle Rittenhouse “was not held accountable” for self-defense shootings.
VERDICT: False. Rittenhouse was placed on trial for two charges of murder, one charge of attempted murder, and two charges of reckless endangerment, and found not guilty on all counts.
Breitbart News reported that Rittenhouse faced two charges of murder, one charge of attempted murder, and two charges of reckless endangerment relating to a melée near midnight on August 25, 2020, during Black Lives Matter riots in the small Midwestern city.
Rittenhouse’s trial took place during the fall of 2021 and Breitbart News noted that Prosecutor Thomas Binger claimed Rittenhouse lost his right to self-defense by bringing a gun with him to the streets of Kenosha.
Binger said, “You lose the right to self-defense when you’re the one who brought the gun, when you’re the one creating danger. When you’re the one provoking other people.”
But the jury saw it differently, and on November 19, 2021, Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all charges.
Nevertheless, on August 25, 2023, the third anniversary of the riots and Rittenhouse’s response to being attacked, Moms Demand Action claimed “Rittenhouse was not held accountable” for the self-defense shootings.
Rittenhouse was held accountable for the shootings. He and his attorneys argued that he acted in self-defense and the jury agreed.
NPR noted that Rittenhouse “trembled as the verdict was read, count by count, then collapsed in sobs.”
Watch: Kyle Rittenhouse Breaks Down, Collapses as He Is Found “Not Guilty” on All Counts
WATCH — Kyle Rittenhouse: “Our God-Given Right to Self Defense” Saved My Life
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.