Jonathan Turley, Fox’s McCarthy Break Down Kyle Rittenhouse’s Dismissed Weapons Charge: Don’t See How it ‘Could Possibly Apply’

Georgetown University professor Jonathan Turley and Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy broke down the dismissal of Kyle Rittenhouse’s charge for possession of a dangerous weapon.

On Monday, Judge Bruce Schroeder presided over the closing arguments for Rittenhouse’s trial, as the teenager faces multiple charges of homicide for shooting three people, two fatally, during last year’s riots in Kenosha. Rittenhouse was also accused of carrying an illegal weapon for his age that night. But after assessing the barrel of Rittenhouse’s gun, the judge and the prosecution agreed that it didn’t fall under the category of a short barreled shotgun, so the charge was thrown out.

When Turley was asked for his reaction to the development on America’s Newsroom, he referred to a column in which he argued that the misdemeanor charge wasn’t applicable to Rittenhouse.

You really have to violate it by having a short-barreled weapon, and if you don’t, you have to — in my view — satisfy that the person violated two statutory provisions: one of which was that he is 15 or 16, which does not apply here. So the judge was asked to address this issue and the defense noted that a police officer stated earlier that it was not a short-barreled weapon. The judge said well, you know, if it’s not a short barreled weapon, I don’t see how this could possibly apply and he said where is the gun? Why don’t we just measure it, which is a rather novel and welcoming statement because it’s bizarre to me that this would go to the jury if the prosecutors have not put into evidence that it is a short-barreled weapon.

McCarthy was also asked to commentate with regard to the video evidence showing Rittenhouse was being chased when he shot the people he killed. McCarthy called it “outrageous” as he surmised that the prosecution’s strategy is to suggest “even though they haven’t put a shred of testimonial evidence in on this point” that Rittenhouse provoked the other people who were involved in the shooting.

“The defense here is that Rittenhouse was responding to assailants and exercising his right of self-defense,” McCarthy said. “What the prosecution wants to argue, based on what I regard as almost no evidence, is that he loses his right of self-defense by having provoked the people to assault him in the first place.”

Watch above, via Fox News.