"Hey Mom, I'm Going to a Riot with My AR-15, OK?"

Technically, Kyle Rittenhouse, in the strictest definition of self-defense, was acquitted of all charges. So what? What was he doing there in the first place?

Teenagers will go to great lengths including lying to themselves and others to have their way, but I suppose you would understand that if you've raised a teenager. Most of us only have to think back to our teenage years with a bit of honesty to remember some of the tall tales we told our parents so we could do what we wanted to do - things we'd never get permission for in our lifetimes.

Confessions of a teenager

I had a good friend growing up in southern California. Dale and I had been buddies since the third grade. Dale lived right around the corner about a block away - an easy walk or a quick zip on a bike. We were less than an hour from the beach and made many trips with one family or the other. But by the time we reached middle school, we wanted to make the trip to the beach more often than our parents were willing to take us.

Our love for the ocean came at a time when surfing was becoming popular, but we were too young and too poor to own a surfboard. However, we could make skim boards out of exterior plywood and gallons of Marine Spar Varnish. But still, the problem remained. We could not get to the beach as often as we liked - so we decided to hitchhike. Dale's parents both worked, and my mom was busy with my two little sisters. So when I said I was heading over to Dale's, see you tonight for dinner, it was just another day in the life.

Could we have gotten permission to hitchhike to the beach? Hell no! Did we do it anyway? Of course! We lived in LA, minutes from freeway onramps in any direction, and we were about ten blocks from the westbound onramp to the Ventura Freeway, less than an hour from Zuma Beach. What could go wrong? We just saw fun and adventure. For two kids with brightly painted skimboards in the 60s, it was easy to get a ride. Way too many surfers remembered their own frustration at being kept from the beach to deny us a ride.

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Kyle Rittenhouse wanted to see some real action. He probably envisioned himself as a white knight riding to the rescue of besieged villagers, and Kyle had his weapon. He told himself all manner of lies, convincing himself that he would be safe, but all the while, Kyle was wondering if he could pull the trigger. What circumstance would allow him to fire his weapon - a vandal breaking a window? Someone throwing a rock? Or, what if someone tried to take his rifle away?

When a baby-faced kid shows up at a riot with a military weapon, some big mean individual is bound to mock him, taunt him, harass him, and ultimately try to take his gun away. Everybody's seen bully behavior like this. Maybe baby-faced Rittenhouse thought no one would dare mess with him while carrying his big, bad AR-15. As Rittenhouse found out, that's not how things work out in the real world. Kyle found himself running for his life.

It takes training to stand up to intimidation, and it takes a lot of confidence, experience, and maturity not to overreact. A teenager lacks sound judgment. There's a reason that auto insurance companies charge the highest premium to insure male drivers between 17 and 26. This is a group that has proven, time and time again, that they lack sound judgment. Teenaged boys often act without thinking, at a time in their lives when their bodies are charged with an overload of testosterone. What a combination for disaster!

Our system of justice put its stamp of approval on teenage vigilantes. I think that is a very short-sighted decision. Rittenhouse decided to take law enforcement into his own hands without the benefit of training or the years needed to gain the necessary maturity. We will see more instances of teenagers taking the law into their own hands, and I don't see that as a positive direction leading to good outcomes.

When I first read about the Rittenhouse tragedy, I thought this would be a good instance for responsible gun owners to take a stand against the use of weapons in the hands of irresponsible individuals, but that was not the case. Instead, they lauded his performance.

Little has been said about what happens when a good guy with a gun meets a good guy with a gun. The third victim was a paramedic on the scene treating the injured. When he encountered Rittenhouse, he believed him to be the active shooter responsible for two deaths. The paramedic had a handgun in his medical bag. When he took it out to confront Rittenhouse's threat, he was shot for his effort. So the question remains:

Would you allow your teenager to go off to a riot with his AR-15?