WROL: Young Man Defending His Life Is Charged With Murder

The Daily Mail reports that Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17 year old young man that shot three rioters with an AR-15, killing two, is to be charged with first degree murder. There are a lot of videos and articles showing portions of the whole incident. (See, e.g., this from Vox Day, and today's news brief from Anonymous Conservative). 

    If you haven't watched the videos or read the news accounts, it appears that Rittenhouse was part of a group that was in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to try and protect businesses from the looting and arson being carried out by the BLM mob. Apparently he was attacked at a used car lot--the video of this first shooting shows Rittenhouse being chased by a rioter who throws something and appears to strike Rittenhouse, continues to chase Rittenhouse, and then you can hear several shots. The rioter apparently was shot in the head. Rittenhouse then proceeded to run from that location. A group of the rioters chased (continued to chase?) after him. Rittenhouse then stumbled and fell to the ground. A rioter leaped and kicked Rittenhouse in the head while Rittenhouse was still on the ground. Another rioter struck Rittenhouse with a skateboard. It appears that Rittenhouse shot at these two, and struck one in the chest. A third rioter attacked Rittenhouse with a pistol in hand, and was shot in the arm. At that point, the crowd had backed far enough away from Rittenhouse that he was able to regain his feet and continued running down the street toward the police. 

    Now, finally, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (Dem.) has ordered the National Guard to come into the town to help restore order. 

    This incident demonstrates something that I wrote the other day about the absence of the rule of law, that I want to repeat. We tend to think of "without rule of law" as a state of anarchy where no laws are applied as to anyone. But "rule of law" refers to a state where laws are applied in a (mostly) predictable and even-handed manner. Or, as the United States Courts explain:

Rule of law is a principle under which all persons, institutions, and entities are accountable to laws that are:

• Publicly promulgated
• Equally enforced
• Independently adjudicated
• And consistent with international human rights principles.

The Oxford dictionary defines it as "the restriction of the arbitrary exercise of power by subordinating it to well-defined and established laws." Black's Law Dictionary explains that "[t]he rule of law, sometimes called 'the supremacy of law', provides that decisions should be made by the application of known principles or laws without the intervention of discretion in their application." 

    So when the laws are not applied against one group or population--that is, they are not equally enforced-- there is no rule of law. This is so because, in those cases, the population which is still held accountable has no recourse under the law, because the law is not being enforced, nor outside the law, because they still face punishment.