Trayvon Martin.

I sure do, Ace.

As opposed to the endless inane and irrelevant anecdotes you "contribute" to nearly every discussion.

 

The last comment was not necessary and incorrect.

In the Trayvon homicide what has happened in other cases is what is irrelevant and an actual insult to him as a human being.

The suggestion that he is fodder for statistics and serves as some justification for your political motivations against self-defense laws is becoming more and more problematic in this thread.

Any legitimate law can be bastardized by authorities, when that happens, it is not the law that is the problem. Here is an anecdote for you, thousands of men have been lynched in this country, premeditated murder without question, and people got away with it. Here is a clue, there was no problem with the law saying premeditated murder was illegal or that any vagueness or other problems in the law that allowed the guilty to get away with it.

 

Beat me to it. There is an underlying unstated assumption that the threefold increase and the non-prosecuted shootings were all due to SYG. Could be true. Could be false.

 

right. but you dont know either. where are the stats? point to them.

 

F, stats. Just look at each case. Look at this case. The problem is not with the SYG law, implications that it is are wrong. Explanations have been provided in many ways.

If I am the City Manager, Mayor, city council or anyone with those kind of responsibilities - my rule would be, call me after every reported homicide, I don't care when or where I am! I ask for details, I ask about the investigation, I make recommendations, I give input, I actually give a shit about what goes on in my city as a responsible official. I don't let b.s. go on - I don't wait for an annual report to make some pseudo-intellectual case about some highbrow theoretical answers to ground level issues. People around here think like bureaucrats. I repeat SYG is not a legit defense in this case.

 

And that is why I said it should raise a flag and that "A three fold increase in justifiable homicides in Florida in six years should be addressed as a public policy issue and that means, in part, taking a serious look at this law"

In part... I did not suggest it was attributed solely to the SYG law, but given the timing, I think it is one issue that should be considered and reviewed.

If I recall from other discussions, Ace likes to point to unintended consequences of laws that he doesnt like and insists those consequences should be addressed or the law repealed. Why not look at this law (as well as other factors) to determine if that is the case and, if so, address it? We're talking about life here, not an unintended new burden on fat corporations.

--- merged: Mar 23, 2012 at 9:34 PM ---
hell, even the conservative tea party governor of Florida agrees with this and I dont think he is out to take away anyone's Second Amendment rights:

 

I dunno. Somehow the idea that a law which allows for limited legal recourse in the aftermath of a violent death is fundamentally wrong. That is my thinking. It is like we are telling people that it is reasonable to make impulsive determinations in a time of crisis which will all be sorted out after a person is dead. What's more, I don't understand why existing justifiable homicide laws needed to be broadened.

It seems to me that the gun rights set want to have it both ways. They want to convince us that we have nothing to fear from people carrying concealed weapons, but they want to extend their rights to use said weapons on people. That is dichotomous to me. I have strong objections, as well, to the notion that it is practical for a state to hand out concealed weapons permits to people because if they shoot someone with it, we can determine in the aftermath whether they were right or wrong and then be outraged if they are found to be negligent or worse. George Zimmerman, apparently, was a walking time bomb. Am I to believe that he is that unique? I think the reason we don't see more of these tragedies has less to do with the steely judgment and crisis management skills of gun owners and more with the fact that not that many people who care to carry guns around with them find themselves in situations where they might find cause to use them. That is not a comfort to me. Someone's child is dead for no reason other than the state allowed George Zimmerman to carry a firearm. Even one is way too many.

 

Stolen from a friend on Facebook:

"Trayvon Martin's case is not "tragic", it was a cold blooded murder. It is not "sad" or "unfortunate", it was a crime committed by a killer. And with all due respect and love to my white friends and colleagues, as the I AM TRAYVON youtube videos and buttons start to pop up, let me be crystal clear....you are not Trayvon Martin."

 

It seems to me that this stuff is bound to happen if:

* You let people wander around with lethal weapons on them
* Tell them it's OK to kill people if they feel threatened (Ha! THEY feel threatened? How about the rest of us?)
* Stir in some racism and male ego

One aspect I don't understand is why, after any fatal shooting, the shooter is not taken in for questioning, the area roped off and a full investigation carried out. It seems a basic requirement for justice to me.

 

I'm a 44 year old white man who likes to wear hoodies, along with Hawaiian shirts, should I be shot? Or is it ok, because I'm white I can get away with it? Wow Geraldo has truly, truly lost it.

 

I am trying to study today but all this stuff is swimming around in my mind so I'm going to write it down.

I tend to think that people who own guns and particularly people who carry guns might just need to understand that using them comes with some risk of going to prison. I don't get particularly upset at the thought of someone spending a few years in prison for manslaughter or a non-premeditated murder charge. It kind of comes with the territory when you kill someone. I don't see anything wrong with the laws as they were. Particularly when we know that we have people on death row and people whom we have already put to death who weren't guilty of killing anyone. When you look at it in that light, you can see clearly the personal bias that is driving this issue for the 2nd amendment cult. Yet all of us are somehow supposed to accept that the consequences for gun owners that existed before were unfair. That this is 'good law.' I say bullshit.

 

I don't know, perhaps call me goofy or accuse me of not knowing the definition of "pre-meditated murder". But to me and in my warped mind, chasing someone with a gun simply because you did not like the way the guy looked at you while on the phone with 9-1-1 and the operator saying stop don't do it, then catching up to said guy and blowing him away for no reason to me is pre-meditated... you (or Zimmerman in this case) had means, knew you were going to use deadly force once you caught up to him and did so... to me that's thinking ahead of time and saying "fuck the consequences, I'm going to get this man and take out my hostility on him, so that he never gets away again." "Cause they always get away." (as Zimmerman is repeatedly heard on the 9-1-1 tape as saying.)

I don't think the law is to blame, I think the law allows a racist community (I say that by the lack of investigation and seemingly care from the community) to be at peace and justify the actions of an out and out murder of a black man in their community.

 

I wasn't referring necessarily to this case. I was making a general observation about cases in which a death occurs as the result of a certain set of circumstances or sequence of events that are not premeditated (ie, manslaughter, 2nd degree murder). Honestly, I don't know enough about what happened that night to call the murder premeditated in a literal sense. Meaning that he left his home to go out and find a black man to shoot. Or even that he followed Martin with the intention of shooting him. We just don't know. I'm not comfortable with assuming that. I think we can assume that he possessed a racial bias that drew his attention to Trayvon Martin and, combined with whatever fucked up mitigating emotions and thoughts he was having that night, drove him to follow him. I'm not trying to excuse the man, I think he should be arrested and sent to prison. But I also feel pretty confident in surmising that, if he could do that night over again, he never would have followed Trayvon Martin.

 

The fact that they passed a law in Florida where you are justified in shooting someone just because you "feel threatened" is ridiculous to me.

But that's beside the point. The 911 tape shows that he shot Trayvon once, and after Trayvon begged for his life, shot him again. After the first shot, the kid was disabled and no longer a threat. The second shot was murder. Many a shopkeeper have been charged with murder under the exact same circumstances.

 

I haven't heard anything about him being shot twice. Are you sure about that? I listened to all of the 911 tapes.

 

I may have heard that 2nd hand. If it's wrong, I take back what I said.

 

Ah, that could be it. Either way, if the warning shot was sufficient to end whatever "situation" the shooter thought he was in, then the second shot was (obviously) unnecessary.

 

He fired a warning shot and then what?

The guy threw his skittles at him and that scared him?

The guy kept running away?

What scenario works?

 

Just to clear the air of misconceptions. If you listen to the 911 calls, each one is asked how many shots are fired and they all say one.

Article URL: Trayvon Martin case’s myths, half truths - BostonHerald.com