In August, a 17-year-old decided to pick up a rifle and go patrol the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, in a misguided attempt to help restore law and order. This should never happen. Unfortunately, the tragedy that ensued took the lives of two people and inflicted additional heartache and pain on many others.

What Kyle Rittenhouse did was wrong. No one should ever take the law into his or her own hands. It’s a recipe for disaster. As a society, it is incumbent upon us to look into how and why this happened.