This commentary is by Bob Stannard of Manchester, an author, musician and former state legislator and lobbyist.
At 9:30 a.m., Tom Burnett began making several phone calls to his wife from his first-class seat on Flight 93. He was trying to get the lay of the land as to what was happening outside of the plane of which he was a passenger.
His wife informed him that planes had been flown into the World Trade Center. It was at that moment that Mr. Burnett comprehended the unfortunate situation in which he found himself. Al-Qaida terrorists were hijacking the plane in what had then become clear to Burnett was to be a suicide mission. The last words he spoke to his wife were, “Don’t worry, we’re going to do something.”
Burnett began organizing some of the passengers to fight back. No one knows for certain what happened inside Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001, but what we can piece together, based on phone conversations, was that a handful of innocent passengers made the decision to fight back against the terrorists. As a result of their heroic actions, Flight 93 did not hit its intended target; the Pentagon, but instead crash-landed in a field. It hit the ground at over 500 mph. No one survived. Tom Burnett, and those who chose to follow him, were designated as heroes — as well they should be.
When this tragic incident occurred, Kyle Rittenhouse would not be born for three years. On Aug. 25, 2020, this young man drove to Kenosha, Illinois, where he would acquire an AR-15 from a friend. Had the gun been a little longer, it would have been illegal for Rittenhouse to possess. With this gun, he killed two people/protesters and seriously injured a third, claiming self-defense. He was acquitted.
Here’s the New Yorker’s account of what happened:
Rittenhouse stepped before Harris’s camera and claimed that demonstrators were “mixing ammonia, gasoline and bleach together — causing an ammonia bomb!” One guard said that Rittenhouse wanted to “pump some rounds,” but was talked out of it.”
Among the crowd was an agitated bald guy in his mid-30s. He was wearing a maroon T-shirt, and had brought a plastic shopping bag containing socks, underwear and deodorant. The man, who suffered from bipolar disorder, had recently been charged with domestic violence, and then had attempted suicide. Hours before the protest, he had been discharged from a psychiatric hospital. He apparently had wandered into the melee on the street, where it was difficult to perceive anything but his rage. At the Ultimate Convenience Center, he confronted the armed men, screaming both “Don’t point no motherfxxxing gun at me!” and “Shoot me!”
During the chaos, Rittenhouse moved down the street toward Car Source’s mechanic shop, where rioters had been smashing car windows. He crossed paths with the angry bald man, who chased him into the shop’s parking area. The man screaming “F-you!,” he threw his plastic bag at Rittenhouse’s back. Rittenhouse, holding his rifle, reached some parked cars just as a protester fired a warning shot into the sky. Rittenhouse whirled; the bald man lunged; Rittenhouse fired, four times. The man fell in front of a Buick, wounded in the groin, back, thigh, hand and head.
The nearest bystander was Richie McGinniss, the video chief at the Daily Caller, the online publication co-founded by Tucker Carlson. McGinniss had been following the chase so closely that he had nearly been shot himself. He removed his T-shirt and knelt to compress the man’s wounds. The bald man died.
Rittenhouse stood over McGinniss. Amid the sound of more gunfire, he didn’t stoop to check on the injured man or offer his first-aid kit. “Call 911!” McGinniss told him. Rittenhouse called a friend instead. Sprinting out of the parking lot, he said, ‘“ just shot somebody!”
Demonstrators were yelling: “What’d he do?” “Shot someone!” “Cranium that boy!” Rittenhouse ran down the street toward the whirring lights of police vehicles. To those who had heard only the gunfire and the shouting, he must have resembled a mass shooter: they tend to be heavily armed, white and male.
A demonstrator ran up behind Rittenhouse and smacked him in the head. When Rittenhouse tripped and fell, another man executed a flying kick. Rittenhouse fired twice, from the ground, and missed. Another demonstrator whacked him in the neck with the edge of a skateboard and tried to grab his rifle; Rittenhouse shot him in the heart. A third demonstrator approached with a handgun; Rittenhouse shot him in the arm, nearly blowing it off.
He rose from the asphalt and continued toward the police lights. A man screamed, “That’s what y’all get, acting tough with f-ing guns!”
Rittenhouse tried to flag down armored vehicles that were now moving toward the victims, but they passed him by, even after witnesses pointed out that he’d just shot people. Next, he approached a police cruiser, but an officer inside apparently told him, “No — go.”
Two men were fatally shot. A third was maimed. Everyone involved in the shootings was white. The astonishing fact that Rittenhouse was allowed to leave the scene underscored the racial double standard that activists had sought to further expose: The police almost certainly wouldn’t have let a Black man pass.
Now, the state of Illinois is considering charging those who tried to stop Rittenhouse from killing more people. What would be the response if we accused Tom Burnett of assault for defending himself against a killer?
