David S Cohen is a professor Thomas R. Kline school of law at Philadelphia’s Drexel University, and perhaps that explains things; he’s getting too much of his information from the wildly slanted Philadelphia Inquirer. In addressing the verdicts in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, he wrote, in Rolling Stone:

The Rittenhouse Verdict and a Supreme Court Case Could Spell an ‘Open Season’ on Protesters

After the ruling, it’s clear that anyone who protests against racial injustice risks being killed without consequence

by David S. Cohen^[1]At least to judge by Mr Cohen’s Twitter entries, he’s a very hard-left liberal. | Friday, November 20, 2021 | 5:45 PM EST

Today, Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted on all charges after killing two people and wounding another while he was conducting his own armed vigilante patrol of Kenosha, Wisconsin, in response to Black Lives Matter protests. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case about whether people have a constitutional right to concealed-carry permits.

Why am I talking about these two things together? Because in combination, these two cases could mean that it is soon going to be open season on racial-justice protesters around the country.

The Rittenhouse verdict is obviously very concerning for racial-justice protesters. Rittenhouse said he went to Kenosha the night of Aug. 25, 2020, to protect property. He did so by openly brandishing a semi-automatic rifle through the streets of the city in the midst of unrest over the shooting of Jacob Blake. While patrolling the streets, there was gunfire that resulted in some of the Black Lives Matter protesters thinking Rittenhouse was attacking them. They charged Rittenhouse, and he opened fire, killing Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and injuring Gaige Grosskreutz.

In this, Mr Cohen admitted that the shootings of Messrs Rosenbaum, Huber and Grosskreutz were not because they were “racial justice protesters,” but because they “charged” Mr Rittenhouse. Mr Cohen omits, of course, the fact that they did more than “charge” toward Mr Rittenhouse, but they assaulted him as well. Mr Rosenbaum yells, “F*** you!” and dove for Mr Rittenhouse’s weapon. Mr Huber, after Mr Rosenbaum falls wounded and dying, charges at Mr Rittenhouse, and, after Mr Rittenhouse falls to the ground after being struck by an unidentified person in a white shirt, Mr Huber starts to beat Mr Rittenhouse with a skateboard. Mr Huber grabs the barrel of Mr Rittenhouse’s weapon, and Mr Rittenhouse then pulls the trigger, killing Mr Huber. Mr Grosskreutz then charges at Mr Rittenhouse, and, according to his own testimony, pointed his handgun at Mr Rittenhouse, who then shoots Mr Grosskreutz in the arm.

Mr Cohen equates all of that with simply being a “racial justice protester.”

In the infamous screen grab from CNN, with the chyron “Fiery but mostly peaceful protests”, we can see that the “racial justice protests” are not just marchers carrying signs, but some are criminals committing arson. If all the “racial justice protesters” had been peaceful, had just been carrying signs and chanting, there wouldn’t have been any perceived need for people to defend their property. Remember: Mr Rittenhouse’s actions were on the third day of the protests, not the first.

Mr Rittenhouse was not tried for shooting someone throwing a Molotov cocktail, or someone marching and carrying a sign, or someone yelling or chanting slogans or screaming into the night; he was tried, and acquitted, for shooting three people in self-defense. Does Mr Cohen believe that people should lose their right to defend themselves just because there is a “racial justice protest” somewhere in the neighborhood? Does Mr Cohen believe that arson is a legitimate part of “racial justice protests”?

Well, being in the Philadelphia area, maybe he does, given that The Philadelphia Inquirer, the nation’s third oldest continuously published newspaper, fired Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Stan Wischnowski for entitling an article “Buildings Matter Too”, in reference to the arson being committed in the City of Brotherly Love during the “racial justice protests” following the death of drug-addled convicted felon George Floyd during his arrest in Minneapolis. Many of the buildings damaged or destroyed in the Philadelphia “racial justice protests” were in the more heavily black areas of the city.

In one regard, Mr Cohen was using the Rittenhouse case verdict as his lead in for his real message: he is very concerned about the Supreme Court case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, in which the petitioners were denied permits to carry firearms in New York outside of one’s home. New York allows only restricted reasons as sufficient for such permits, and simply living in a high crime area is not considered a sufficient reason.

Mr Cohen makes the specious argument that, if the Court rules in favor of people’s Second Amendment rights rather than state restrictions, everyone will be armed and peaceful protesters at “racial justice protests” will be in grave danger:

What this means in conjunction with the Rittenhouse verdict is very scary for all, but especially for racial-justice protesters everywhere. With a proliferation of concealed-carry permits and a sense among the far right after today’s verdict that they have the freedom to patrol racial-justice protests and act as vigilantes, the court system’s message couldn’t be clearer — anyone who protests against racial injustice risks taking their lives into their own hands.

Of course, the Rittenhouse case was not about that at all. Mr Rittenhouse was legally armed, under the laws of the state of Wisconsin, without the Court having decided on the New York case, and Mr Rittenhouse did not simply open fire on “racial justice protesters.” He defended himself against assailants, after having first retreated and been chased. Rather, it was Mr Grosskreutz who was armed illegally, carrying a concealed weapon after his permit for such had expired. It was the “racial justice protester” who was illegally armed, not Mr Rittenhouse.

Mr Cohen does not seem to like people being legally armed, and claims that they will kill people, and target “racial justice protesters.” However, as of the end of Thursday, November 18^th, in Philadelphia, where Mr Cohen works, 491 souls had been sent untimely to their eternal rewards, the vast majority — if not all — of them by people who did not have concealed carry permits, the vast majority of them possessing firearms illegally. 491 ÷ 322, the number of days elapsed so far in 2021, = 1.5248 homicides per day, not in any “racial justice protests,” but in criminal acts, in intentional murders. 1.5248 x 365 days in the year = 556.552 projected homicides for the city for the year.

And it gets worse. Despite the long, hot summer having reached its traditional end after the Labor day holiday, there have been 128 homicides in Philadelphia since the end of Labor Day, September 6^th, 128 homicides in 73 days, 1.7534 per day, meaning that the pace of killings has gotten even worse, and you can bet your bottom euro that very few, if any, of those homicides were committed by someone who possessed a firearm legally. We have already noted the very personal Inquirer OpEd piece by Temple University Hospital trauma nurse Ruqiyya Greer, pointing out that the vast majority of homicide victims in the City of Brotherly Love are black, while on Friday, Inquirer columnist Jenice Armstrong noted the same thing, and how four black female juvenile students attacked Asian female students on a SEPTA train in a racially motivated incident.

Of course, the “racial justice protesters” in Kenosha were mostly white, simply because Kenosha County population is roughly 87.2% white, and 75.4% are non-Hispanic white. The assailants who attacked and were shot by Mr Rittenhouse were all white, though “Jump Kick Man,” if the identification of him as Maurice Freeland is correct, is black. The problem for Mr Cohen’s argument is simple: it has been the “racial justice protesters” who have been the violent ones, the criminal ones, in the vast majority of the cases. Unless Mr Cohen believes that arson and attacking bystanders or opponents, as the mostly white Antifa protesters did for much of the summer of 2020, are legitimate parts of “racial justice protests,” then his arguments completely fall apart. And if he does believe that such actions are legitimately part of such protests, then there’s just no help for him.