Kyle Rittenhouse is a free man, and as a free man, he gets to decide a lot of things. Had his trial gone differently, he wouldn’t. Now, he can decide what he wants for breakfast, what movies he wants to watch, and where he wants to go.

However, in a recent podcast, he admitted to making a decision that I suspect a lot of people simply won’t understand.

He’s decided to have the AR-15 he carried during the Kenosha riots destroyed.

Kyle Rittenhouse is destroying the AR-15 he used during his deadly shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

The 18-year-old cleared gunman told “The Charlie Kirk Show” on Tuesday that the weapon he used to defend himself at Black Lives Matter riots is “being destroyed right now.”

“We don’t want anything to do with that,” said Rittenhouse, who broke down at his trial last month as he recalled having to use it to kill two men and injure another while under attack.

Rittenhouse went on to later express his belief that politicians vilifying him are determined to come for our guns and how the prosecutor in his case essentially tried to argue that the right of self-defense doesn’t exist if you have a gun.

In other words, this isn’t some anti-gun motivated act on his part.

Frankly, I think I get it.

Taking a human life can be traumatic, even if it’s self-defense. Looking at that weapon would likely bring back the memory of what happened. That’s a lot for anyone, but especially an 18-year-old kid who then had to undergo the media attention that followed and has threatened to destroy his life all over again.

Sure, he could have just sold the rifle, but I think we all know that the rifle would be tied to him throughout his life. It would be the Rittenhouse Rifle and he’d have to endure all of that over and over again.

Besides, it’s his property. He can do what he wants with it.

While I don’t like the idea of guns being destroyed on principle, if it’s your gun, you can do what you want with it. Just as I don’t believe it’s the government’s place to tell you what you must do with your property, it’s not my place to do so either.

Frankly, the kid’s entitled to make his own decision on this and I’m going to respect it. Especially considering this who thing didn’t turn him anti-gun, which it could have.

Some may not agree with his decision. That’s fine, too. However, any attempted criticism of his actions on this need to keep in mind that just because he’s doing this with his property, it doesn’t mean there’s any impact on you and your property, so chill out.

Frankly, Rittenhouse has been through enough and he’ll still be going through much more as time marches on. The last thing he needs is still more people griping about what he’s doing, particularly with regard to his own property.

What will be interesting, however, is to see the response from his critics who think all guns should be destroyed. That should be amusing, to say the least.