Kyle Rittenhouse, right, accused Donald Trump of being soft on gun rights.
Bernd Debusmann Jr
Role,BBC News, Washington
2 August 2024
Conservative campaigner Kyle Rittenhouse has promised to support Donald Trump in November's US election, reversing comments hours earlier that he would vote against him because he was "bad" at protecting gun rights.
Mr Rittenhouse, now 21, shot dead two men during racial unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020. He was cleared of all charges the following year after arguing self-defence.
Instead of Trump, he said he planned to write in former Libertarian presidential nominee Ron Paul on the ballot.
Trump has repeatedly vowed to protect Americans' right to own guns and to roll back Biden-era restrictions on firearms.
accessory that allows semi-automatic rifles to fire hundreds of bullets per minute, similar to a machine gun. The Supreme Court overturned the prohibition two months ago.
Mr Rittenhouse's video drew the ire of some Trump supporters, some of whom responded with expletive-laden tirades.
"The left hates you and now Maga will shun you," one user wrote.
But the former president's political opponents celebrated what some termed a "break-up" between Mr Rittenhouse and Trump.
"When you've lost Kyle Rittenhouse… Trump campaign is in trouble," posted the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group.
Trump, now the Republican nominee for president, has repeatedly vowed to protect gun rights if elected in November's election.
In February, he told a meeting of the National Rifle Association that “every single Biden attack on gun owners and manufacturers will be terminated on my very first week back in office".
In 2021, the most recent year for available data, almost 49,000 people in the US died of firearms-related injuries, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The figure includes both murders and suicides.
26,994 were suicide out of 48,204.
