President Joe Biden calling for a calm, and a peaceful response to the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, which has re-ignited the gun debate in this country.

A jury found the 18-year-old not guilty of all charges after he shot and killed two people and wounded a third.

Rittenhouse was 17 years old and armed with an assault-style rifle when he traveled from Illinois to Wisconsin, where a protest over police violence against people of color was being held.

Mike Lawlor, a criminal justice professor at the University of New Haven and former Democratic Connecticut lawmaker, says he's surprised with the jury's decision to acquit Rittenhouse, especially because disproving self-defense is extremely difficult.

Lawlor says the situation that unfolded inside the Kenosha, Wisconsin courtroom Friday would have played out different in Connecticut.

He says self-defense laws are very technical, but in Connecticut there's separate rules for self-defense, which are ordinary force and deadly force.

In Connecticut, you can only use deadly force unless you reasonably believe you are in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury.

"In Connecticut, nobody can carry around a loaded AR-15 on a public street and that by itself is a very serious crime and that would sort of invalidate some of the self-defense claims like you saw in Wisconsin," said Lawlor. "If this had been in Connecticut the jury would have the option of convicting him just on the firearm offense."