On Monday, the world heard Gaige Grosskreutz, the one remaining “victim” of the Rittenhouse shooting, testify under oath that Kyle did not fire until Gaige charged him with a gun pointed straight at him.
It was a remarkable moment. And the reactions underscored the impact of that testimony, with Kyle wiping tears, the prosecutor dropping his head into his hand, and Twitter exploding with disbelief.
But Gaige had simply repeated a fact that anyone who had done the most basic amount of research already knew. The Rittenhouse shooting is unusual in the sheer amount of video footage available to the public – almost from day one.
And from day one, it was clearly a simple story of self-defense.
For that reason, the National Foundation for Gun Rights came to Kyle’s assistance. NFGR exists to defend gun rights and gun owners in the courts, and it was clear that Kyle needed help.
But, the Second Amendment doesn’t protect aggressors, only cases of legitimate self-defense. So before stepping in to help Kyle, we did our due diligence.
Our legal analysis team at the National Foundation for Gun Rights watched the available videos and read news story after news story, painstakingly piecing together exactly what happened that night.
And we reached the same conclusion anyone who watched the evidence with an open mind reached: this was self-defense, at a time when self-defense wasn’t fashionable or safe.
Because Kyle unwittingly became the symbol of standing up to rioters hell-bent on destruction – and frankly, because he had the audacity to fight back instead of letting them attack him at will – he’s been the target of the woke mob ever since.
The Kenosha shootings were the culmination of months of left-wing rioting and unrest, while police and politicians were either unwilling or terrified to check the rabid wave of destruction.
Meanwhile, ordinary Americans watched in disbelief, silently vowing that if the riots came to their town, they wouldn’t sit back and watch in horror as their businesses went up in flames at the hands of Marxist protesters.
When we put out a call to help Kyle prepare for his day in court, those Americans – who we are proud to call our members – sprang into action and donated over $50,000 for Kyle’s legal defense and the assistance of his family.
This was not a popular thing to do. Anyone who stood with Kyle back then caught some of the vitriol aimed at him. In addition to receiving plenty of profanity-laced hate messages, we were threatened more than once with deplatforming by Big Tech.
Kyle had become the unwitting symbol of the peace-loving Americans who believe in protecting life and property with the Second Amendment at their back, and for that, the left was determined to destroy him.
Over the last year, the leftist media (assisted by the Kenosha County Prosecutor) carefully cultivated a picture of a reckless, hate-filled teenage vigilante, a white supremacist there to spread violence.
That’s all well and good, as long as you listen to the media and not the evidence.
Or until the prosecution’s star witness has an awkward moment of truth on the stand.
The Second Amendment is there so that you don’t have to lie helpless on the street while the Anthony Hubers of the world batter you with a skateboard, and the Gaige Grosskreutzes charge at you with illegally possessed guns.
That’s what this case is about, and we were the only gun rights group in the nation who listened to the available evidence and had the courage to stand with Kyle from day one in the face of the woke mob.
A face that now, thanks to the witness testimony in court, is dripping with egg.
