Well, George Zimmerman is, officially anyway, NOT guilty of killing Trayvon Martin.
There is really no point in re-litigating his guilt after the fact, because Zimmerman was a victim too, of sorts.
He was a victim of personal weaknesses, maybe even prejudices; but most of all, both man and teenager were victims of “Stand Your Ground,” which gives weak men a license to indulge their dangerous fantasies; and, at least this once, to stalk and kill an unarmed kid completely without consequence.
This isn’t even really about the gun, even though that will undoubtedly be the focus of debate going forward.
And it is because of the inflammatory nature of gun debate in this country that nothing will be done to reign in “Stand Your Ground,” even after this preventable tragedy; because the NRA won’t let this opportunity pass to make it be all about them.
Just watch it happen.
The undisputed facts here are that Zimmerman stalked and harassed a stranger, and when he resisted, shot him dead.
He’s a murderer, plan and simple.
Stand Your Ground was never more than a smokescreen for racist public officials to hide behind. Which is almost certainly the purpose it was intended to serve.
The Florida legislature (and their NRA masters) is surely an accomplice, but the ultimate responsibility on this one has to be laid to George Zimmerman himself.
is the punk here. Guns are swag for too many gunnuts, owning one – or several – is a psychological crutch to their crippled sense of power and manhood/power. Guns are marketed that way – remember “get your man-card punched”?
Like many gun owners, he appears to have anger management issues and untreated mental illness – along with just being an arrogantly stupid surly sunnuvabitch, and a racist turd. Previous arrest for shoving a cop, restraining order for domestic violence, and a documented problem with alcohol. A decent background check would have revealed this? Maybe not, but the NRA wants to make it difficult to take guns out the hands of people like this.
I think the prosecution over-reached with the murder charge. But the facts certainly supported a manslaughter charge, irrespective of whether Trayvon or Zimmerman was the one on top in the ass-whipping.
He’s a manslaughterer, pure and simple. He went looking for a fight, and someone ended up dead by his hand.
I wouldn’t go as far as calling Zimmerman a “victim”, but I think I get what you’re saying. We do the best we can (or maybe not the best) within the laws and cultural expectations that surround us. Those laws and expectations are like the frozen ruts in a Vermont road in the spring. With effort and skill one can maneuver out of them, but it’s easier to drop back in and go where they lead. We need to be thoughtful about the avenues of action we leave open and easy, because people will inevitably go down them.
Two thoughts about Stand Your Ground:
They didn’t have that even in the “Wild West” of the late 19th century. If you shot a man in a gunfight (both participants armed) you went on trial for murder to determine if it was self defense or not.
If Martin had been 21 and armed, he would have had protection from the Stand Your Ground law to shoot Zimmerman, who was admittedly stalking him through the night. Martin could have claimed to be in fear of his physical safety. The defense, in this hypothetical, could have pointed to Zimmerman being armed and his actions that night. Martin wasn’t armed, so (apparently) he used his body. This fact was used against him in court. So why is firearm use privileged over empty-handed self defense?
The defense did not rely upon Stand Your Ground. Instead, they waived that defense and relied upon the standard self-defense defense available under the law of all 50 states. In the end, the prosecutor failed to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. It was that simple. That is a legal principle which we should all stand by through thick and thin, regardless of the ancillary politics that might be swirling around.
Well…WHITEY strikes again
This isn’t about guns or that
Stand Your Ground bullshit;
This is about how it’s OK
For a White person to murder
A Black person, and, hey, I know,
Because on Dec.6, 2012 I was executed
For shoplifting by a Houston WalMart
Security Guard…who happened to be
WHITE, donchaknow?
There was no trial in my case.
Not even any kind of investigation.
If you’ve been following the news
Since Dec. 10, it’s like what happened
To me never happened. I’m glad people
Took to the streets yesterday.
This acquittal was full of shit.
Obama is full of shit.
And White people saying it’s all about
The NRA and guns are REALLY FULL OF SHIT!
It’s about keeping ‘certain’ people in their place;
Keeping ‘certain’ people so beaten down
That a cop or a security guard or a neighborhood watch
Asshole is looked up to by WHITEY as the protector
Of the social and economic and political order of shit.
An order that says: “Fuck you, Nigger, Spic, Poor Person,
Asian, Woman, Child! Get back there in the back of the bus
Where you belong!” Yeah. So now you see how it works.
How you LET IT WORK. Shit. You liberals think gun control
Is going to…what…bring about equality and justice here?
You gonna say: “We fixed everything, Shelly, with our new
Gun laws. Right. Fucking A, ASSHOLES! How nice of you
To care so much in your privileged WHITE little enclaves
In Vermont or some other bullshit WHITEY heaven. Meanwhile my people
Get the shaft. The prosecutors in Florida didn’t even do the WORK.
It’s all about race, baby. About being poor. About Whitey
Being so worried about his precious piece of WHITE American
Bullshit and PRIVILEGE being threatened when a single mother
On Food Stamps says: “Fuck this shit! You’re taking. I’m taking.”
Yeah. And we all look ‘suspicious’ too. Walking down the street
With an attitude. How did we get that way? Maybe we don’t like
Getting murdered all the time. I wish I could make some of you WHITIES
BLACK and send you to Houston or LA or, yeah, VERMONT.
Then you’d know. Then you’d know what needs to be done.
And it ain’t fucking Gun Control. Shit. Go EAT A CANDLE!
Ya know, all this BS about how Zimmerman is defined as a ‘close enough’ white, yet Hispanic, guy by some fucking ‘government’ ( we trust the government, now?) forms, all this crap about STY, and the equivocating about Martin’s actions and what might or might not have happened is enough to give 6 white jurors grounds to acquit on Reasonable Doubt, isn’t it?
“Yeah, your honor,” says the jury. “We’ve been considering what white liberals will post on Green Mountain Daily and Daily Kos. Here is our ‘politically correct’ verdict.
This was a racial crime–a racial ASSASSINATION! Pure and simple. It was all about the COLOR OF MARTIN’S SKIN. He’s BLACK. Not White, not Hispanic–BLACK!
Shelly Frey was BLACK! Darius Simmons out in Wisconsin was BLACK. And the motorists most frequently stopped by our State Police here in Lily-White Dem/Prog PC Vermont are BLACK! We are seeing in Zimmerman’s acquittal the visceral white response when a WHITE PERSON is put on trial for a crime against a BLACK PERSON. Did you folks ever consider how PC came into play over Emmett Till? Of course not. You’ll all good lib-er-als. I wish I had a Bazillion Dollars to fund relocating 50,000 Black Inner City families to Vermont. Think about what 5000 comments on this PC shit would be like, folks.
It’s about RACE! It’s about how a growing ‘racial backlash’ encouraged and funded by the Rich and Wall St. will continue to grow stronger as long as White Lib-er-als have their PC REASONABLE DOUBTS. Think about it this way, if you will, and maybe you’ll find some ‘inspiration’–Obama is BLACK. The Zimmerman verdict is RACIAL BACKLASH. (Remember Hillary Backlash in 1994–The so-called Gingrich Revolution?) Until we stand up and say NO MORE! this backlash will become stronger. Stronger than the anti-Gay, anti-Women backlash.
NO FUCKING MORE! That’s what you say, and what you work on. There shouldn’t be any ‘reasonable doubt’ about it. As a Whitey, I am ASHAMED. Ashamed of my race, ashamed of my country. Ashamed that I even have to write this, because one of you folks should already have written it.
Now, we’ll see what happens in Wisconsin.
taken by some on this thread…
– they take exception to the conjecture that racism played a role in the wrongful death of Trayvon Martin, and/or to Zimmerman’s acquittal.
– and they take exception to the notion that many people who own guns are mentally ill, and/or emotionally incompetent to properly use them.
Based upon the evidence, it would appear that these folks are quite ill-informed, or arrogant in their willful ignorance.
Discuss amongst yourselves, I’m outta here.
I was driving home the other night, and the engine started making this crazy noise. Sort of a grinding and crunching sound. Anyway, I pressed the little OnStar button and the nice lady on the end told me I should pull over and stop the car, and that they would send over an expert to check it out, so that I could get home safely. Once stopped she said not to open the hood but to just get to a safe place at the side of the road.
Well, screw that. I’m not listening to some lady on the end of a phone line diagnosing my car. I mean, WhoTF is she to tell me to pull over and wait for help. And to not drive anymore. Like seriously, I’m sort of in a hurry here. Shouldn’t have hit that button to begin with.
So then this thick black smoke starts pouring out, and I hit that button again. Holy shit! My car is now on fire! Send help. Pull over? No, I didn’t pull over before. Had to get home. Help is on the way sir.
And then blam! The whole world just turned upside down and rightside out. Crazy. So I’m laying there in the road and I see flashers and hear sirens. My car is in pieces. I do that little State Farm jingle from those TV and web ads and my agent shows up and teleports me away to his office. WTF! Who’d a thunk that something bad could’ve happened just driving my car around.
Anyway, fucking insurance guys. Gotta love em. They are covering all the damage. Say they heard me on the tape screaming at that lady on the phone about not wanting to stop driving, but I argued that it was the kid in the back seat getting all smart with me. I tried to stop, but there was just so much power in that engine and I was already almost home…