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2 hours agoHe was charged with (effectively) taking a sawn-off shotgun across state lines, which he didn’t do as it was a full-size rifle, and second degree murder, which requires homicide while committing another crime, but the other charge fell through, so there was no other crime. He probably would have been found guilty of something if he’d been charged with crimes he did rather than ones he didn’t, but the prosecutor fucked up, whether by incompetence or because they wanted to ensure he got off after nominally going through a trial so justice could be claimed to have been done.
It’s not self-defence to shoot people if the only reason they’re approaching you is that you pointed a gun at them or someone else and they’re attempting to disarm you because it appears that you’re about to shoot someone or just shot someone. Otherwise anyone with a firearm can just point it at whoever and if they react at all, have free reign to shoot them. In fact, it’s illegal to point a gun at someone else in the first place unless they’re already attacking you (or in some states have entered your property), and Rittenhouse pointing a gun at someone else was the trigger for the whole incident. If he’d been charged for pointing a gun at people, then the second-degree murder charge would have stuck, as self defence isn’t a defence against second-degree murder (otherwise a home invader could claim self defence if they shot the homeowner when confronted).