Via Bearing Arms by Tom Knighton
Kyle Rittenhouse hasn’t slipped off into oblivion after his acquittal. He’s become something of a public figure, showing up at political conventions and right-leaning YouTube channels. Whether he’s making the right call or not is a topic of debate in some circles, though I don’t see how he has much of a choice. He’s going to be hounded no matter what he does, so he might as well try to make the most of it.
For example, he’s been on a speaking tour of American college campuses, which has stirred up a number of people. Since these are the same people who got stirred up at the idea of Rittenhouse actually going to college, this isn’t shocking.
Kyle Rittenhouse is not a typical college campus speaker.
In 2020, at the age of 17, he took an AR-15-style rifle to a Black Lives Matter demonstration and fired it, killing two people and injuring a third. Rittenhouse said he pulled the trigger in self-defense and was acquitted of wrongdoing.
He has since penned a book, “Acquitted,” and has set out on a series of college speaking events dubbed the “Rittenhouse Recap.” He is slated to appear Thursday at Clemson University in South Carolina.
Rittenhouse is selling books, and ostensibly promoting the right to bear arms on campus, but he’s also trying to persuade young people to join the conservative movement. The key group behind the appearances, Turning Point USA, is led by the self-described “youth director” of President Donald Trump’s first campaign and a key ally rallying votes for Trump this year.
Now, we haven’t talked much about Rittenhouse’s speaking tour because, frankly, there’s not much to talk about. If he’s talking up the Second Amendment, awesome, but unless one of us can attend and report on what he’s saying, there’s nothing for us to comment on.
But there’s one person in particular who seems to be following Rittenhouse everywhere, making things more than a little creepy.
“He has used every moment to gloat and to make light of taking life,” Paul Prediger said, speaking publicly for the first time about what happened in protest of a Rittenhouse speech last week at Kent State. “As if that were not enough, Kyle has embraced and been embraced by those who peddle hateful rhetoric, who believe in nationalism that excludes those who do not look like or think like them, and who have sought to amplify a troubling desire for violence against supposed political, cultural, and religious enemies.”
Paul Prediger isn’t the name he’s always had. In Kenosha, he was Gaige Grosskreutz.
For all of Prediger’s comments, he keeps leaving out a couple of key factors. In particular, how he was part of a crowd that chased Rittenhouse into a parking lot. One member of the group tried to take Rittenhouse’s rifle away from him, constituting a threat to Rittenhouse’s life, so Rittenhouse shot him.
The next person he shot had already assaulted him with a skateboard. Yes, you can kill with a skateboard, meaning that was self-defense too.
Then we have Prediger, nee Grosskreutz. Rittenhouse didn’t do anything to him until he pointed his Glock handgun at him, at which point Rittenhouse shot him.
In other words, Prediger–he apparently has changed his name legally for some reason–is really just upset that Rittenhouse is speaking at different places and not slinking off into obscurity and feels like he has to follow him around to call him out.
The problem is that he keeps leaving out the fact that if Rittenhouse is gloating, it’s not about taking life but of just winning. He came out of a situation where he could have been killed and wasn’t.
Prediger and company hounded a kid, seeing him as easy prey, and he wasn’t. They’d have killed him if he hadn’t been able to defend himself, yet this bunch continues to make it look like he went out hunting people.
And let’s understand that Prediger admitted on the stand that he pointed a gun at Rittenhouse. Why isn’t he acknowledging it here?
Because that goes against the narrative that Kyle Rittenhouse is a bad person.
That’s why an alarming number of people are celebrating those who attacked him–including the pedophile–and calling him racist for it despite only having shot white people.
And Prediger can change his name, but we know who he is and what he tried to do. He got shot for it because he and his buddies couldn’t murder a 17-year-old kid. His opinions on what Rittenhouse does from here are irrelevant unless he owns up to the fact that if they hadn’t attacked him, Rittenhouse wouldn’t be on that campus as a speaker.
Read in its entirety at bearingarms.com.
