Gun Rights Group Raises $50,000 For Kyle Rittenhouse

A Colorado-based gun-rights group has raised thousands of dollars for Kyle Rittenhouse, who was arrested in late August for allegedly shooting three people, killing two of them during riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

The National Foundation for Gun Rights (NFGR) is set to send a check for over $50,000 that they say will go “directly” to the 17-year-old who’s behind bars, according to a press release from the organization.

“I spoke with Kyle’s mother this morning to let her know NFGR received over a thousand donations amounting to over $50,000 from folks who support her son,” Dudley Brown, executive director of the National Foundation for Gun Rights, said in the release.

Rittenhouse’s mother said, “No words can describe what we’re going through. Thank you so much – and I know Kyle and the rest of the family would say thank you too,” according to Brown.

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The NFGR believes the 17-year-old “acted legally and defended himself,” while those on man critics are “doing everything in their power” to portray him “as a villain,” Brown said in the release. The purpose of the funding is to ensure Rittenhouse has “the best defense possible,” Brown said.

Rittenhouse was charged with murder after he allegedly killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, as well as Anthony Huber, 26, and injured Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, according to a criminal complaint. Video and the police document indicate that Rittenhouse shot Rosenbaum after the 36-year-old chased him and lunged toward him near an auto body shop.

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Rittenhouse then ran into the street where he fell to the ground and fired upon Huber, who jumped on top of him and hit him with a skateboard, the complaint said. Grosskreutz was shot in the arm after he produced a handgun and moved toward the teen, according to the complaint.

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The Gun Owners of America, another pro-Second Amendment group, has backed Rittenhouse and say the charges weren’t well-founded.

“We don’t think he did anything wrong as far as defending himself and using a firearm,” Rice told the DCNF in a phone interview in September. “They chased him, they followed him and he was forced to fire in self-defense.”

Others, including former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, consider the teenager to be a “right-wing vigilante.”

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The ACLU referred to Rittenhouse as a “white militia member” and said, “right-wing extremists” with “automatic weapons” had terrorized protesters in Kenosha during the shooting, according to a press release.