The Rittenhouse Trial: A Reminder of the Importance of Defensive Gun Usage and Self-Defense

Sometimes, it amazes me how events can become politicized so easily. Take a look at the Kenosha unrest shooting that resulted in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse. On August 23, 2020, Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black man, was shot in Wisconsin by a white police officer, Rusten Sheskey. In response, Black Lives Matter protests and riots ensued in the city of Kenosha from August 23 to September 1. It was on August 25 when 17-year old Kyle Rittenhouse got into an altercation with Joseph Rosenbaum, who was unarmed. Rosenbaum, along with journalist Richard McGinnis, confronted Rittenhouse later. Rittenhouse ended up fatally shooting two men and severely injuring another man. Rittenhouse was charged with multiple charges, including first-degree intentional homicide and first-degree reckless homicide. Rittenhouse's defense team asserted that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense. To make a long story short, the jury delivered a not guilty verdict based on the self-defense argument. 

If we look at the facts of the case instead of pundits' comments, it was an open-and-shut self-defense case. In this case, Rittenhouse was not the aggressor. Even Gaige Grosskreutz, the individual that was shot by Rittenhouse but survived, admitted that he approached Rittenhouse while aiming a gun at him. Rittenhouse received a non guilty verdict not because the justice system is broken, but because the prosecution could not prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. 

That did not stop the politicizing or the race-baiting, which is unsurprising given that it is 2021. Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-MO) called the case "white supremacy in action," even in spite of the fact that the individuals that Rittenhouse shot were all white. MSNBC host Joy Reid referred to Rittenhouse as a modern-day slave catcher. Even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which traditionally has defended the rights of criminal defendants, was peeved that Rittenhouse actually received his constitutional right to due process.

This case goes beyond the usual divide between Democrats and Republicans on gun control and the Second Amendment. What we have witnessed, especially by pundits and activists on the Left, is there is true disdain for the idea that a "good guy with a gun" could exist, especially if that guy is white. Anecdotally, I have come across people on the Left that think that the Second Amendment is some antiquated relic and that guns could not possibly have any real value. My takeaway from the Rittenhouse case is that many on the Left has true disdain for guns, even in a legitimate case of self-defense.

In response, I would like to ask the question of how prevalent defensive gun usage (DGU) is. The U.S. Department of Justice found that from 2007 to 2011, there were 338,700 instances of DGU (Table 11). This annual average of 67,740 is on the more conservative end of the spectrum of estimates, but is still higher than the 39,707 firearm deaths in 2019. That figure is arguably low for a number of reasons, including that people do might not want to divulge their gun ownership, that they have illegally acquired a gun, that crimes are generally underreported, or that they were ashamed of being victimized. 

As such, I am more inclined to accept the finding of a 2013 publication from the National Academies Press [NAP], which was commissioned by the CDC. They found that "Defensive use of guns is a common occurrence...with estimates of annual usage ranging from 500,000 to more than 3 million." In 2021, a Georgetown University professor conducted the largest survey of gun owners to date (English, 2021). Not only did Professor English find that 31.1 percent of gun owners have used their firearm in self-defense at some point, but also extrapolated that there are approximately 1.67 million instances of DGU annually. 

Yes, the exact number of instances of DGU in a given year is in dispute, as are so many figures used in political discourse. What should not be in dispute is that regardless of which figure you use, there are enough cases of DGU that it ought to be considered prevalent enough to dispel the myth that there is "no such thing as a 'good guy with a gun.'" One of the main uses of a gun is self-defense. As nice as it would be to have a peaceful world without gun violence, the truth of the matter is the continued existence of violent and criminal individuals bolsters the argument for DGU. Much like taking the COVID vaccine, wearing a seatbelt, or buying insurance, the purchase of a gun for self-defense purposes is a preventative measure. 

If self-defense does not work, then why do police officers, Secret Service agents, and the Department of Homeland Security agents carry firearms? I ask that question rhetorically because evidence finds that DGU works. To quote the NAP report again, "Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., instances in which a gun was 'used' by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies." 

The importance of defensive gun usage is not some abstraction or a fantasy of some ultra-conservative, gun-wielding nut job. DGU is a common and effective form of self-defense, and I am fairly certain that those who have used a gun for self-defense would agree. These figures on DGU do not provide a case for getting rid of the Second Amendment. If anything, these figures, as well as the Rittenhouse case, reinforce the idea of why DGU is just as important now as when the Constitution was drafted.