Thursday, July 18, 2013

Zimmerman part 2

Did Trayvon Martin have the right to stand his ground? Or does that only apply if you're holding a gun?

Trayvon Martin should have been able to walk down a neighborhood street unmolested. It was wrong of George Zimmerman to tail him. It was wrong of Zimmerman to confront him. Zimmerman went out of his way to let Martin know, "hey, you're not welcome here." In the world according to Jack, a guy like that deserves a good ass-whuppin'. If he shoots someone to death for giving him the ass-whuppin' he deserves, he should go to prison.

Unfortunately, George Zimmerman didn't shoot Trayvon Martin in Jack's world. He shot him Florida where, apparently, it is legal to start an altercation and if it doesn't go down like you imagined it in your head, you can kill the other guy. In fact, maybe you even should kill the other guy. There are several minutes of uncooberated events that ocurred during this altercation. What words were exchanged? Did Zimmerman approach him with his gun in hand? Did Martin fear for his safety? Who took the first swing? Kind of fortunate for Zimmerman, isn't it, that he's the only person who can answer those questions.

Trayvon Martin did a brave thing when he stood up to George Zimmerman. Not necessarily a smart thing, being that he was an unarmed teenager standing up to an armed adult, but a brave thing. I guess I've never heard anyone accuse adolescent young men of having too much common sense, right? If anyone stood his ground that night, though, it was Trayvon Martin who had every right to be out on that street, who was doing nothing wrong, nothing even out of the ordinary and yet found himself harrassed by an intolerant, self righteous prick.

Consider this about stand your ground firearm laws. If a state wants to put a man to death it has to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the man has already committed a murder. Under stand your ground laws, any one of us can sentence a man to die based on what we suspect he might do in the near future. It's like some post-apocalyptic comic book scenario. Every citizen is commissioned as judge, jury, executioner, and can make their judgements based on some sort of extrasensory clairvoyance.

From what I understand of the events that ocurred that night, the jury probably made the correct legal decision. That doesn't lend even an ounce of legitimacy to what happened, though. It merely illustrates just how bad stand your ground laws are. This was the nightmare scenario. George Zimmerman, legally, got away with murder.

Thursday, July 11, 2013