There have been times I felt threatened by a person I assumed to be "un-armed" (but you can never be positive of that point, can you?). Had that person made a furtive move, I might have shot them. That's not the time for hesitation if you suspect your life is at risk.
I haven't read a lot about the case because everything seems so hyperbolic. But, regardless of anything I might read I wasn't there. Maybe it was murder, maybe it was a reaction to a credible perceived threat. Anything more I might say would be speculation and assumption.
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A person I don't know and have never met killed another person I don't know and wouldn't have met anyway.
ReplyDeleteThing is, that happens every day. Quite a few times, I imagine.
Yep. And the things I have seen about it paint one or the other of those people as "all bad" or "all good". Those kinds of people don't exist. All you could show, to convince me whether the shooting was justified or not, was what was going on at the moment the trigger was pulled. And I have read contradictory versions of that, too.
ReplyDeleteI care a lot when an innocent person, even one I never have met, is harmed. But in this case I can't be certain who was innocent, and I do see that the case is being used as justification to violate MY basic human rights. Which makes me tend to want to take the side of Zimmerman.
I just realized that people may think I am taking Zimmerman's side here. I am not. I am saying I don't really know what happened, and I don't think anyone other than Zimmerman does (Martin did, but death erases him from the equation).
ReplyDeleteI suspect Zimmerman is a person I would not like. I don't care for people with the "enforcer" attitude. I don't like nannies. I don't like meddlers. Zimmerman seems to embody all of those traits. Therefore I have a strong suspicion I wouldn't care for him if I knew him.
But...
I don't think he was wrong to follow Martin. How could it be wrong to follow anyone? Neither one were on their own property- which one had permission to be there? Probably Zimmerman, but I don't know that for certain.
Here's why I side with having this go to a jury. While we don't know the entire story, we have been told a few things: The kid was walking down the street, apparently minding his own business. So far, no reports of him breaking into a house, mugging another civilian, etc..
ReplyDeleteZimmerman's decision to track this kid-based solely on his untrained "hunch"-ultimately resulted in the kid'd death. So his action, from what I am hearing/reading so far, was reckless.
My concern about my rights is that him not being judged by a jury of his peers will give fuel to the debate against guns. To protect our liberties, we need to make sure people engaging in reckless behavor against another while in possession of a firearm are held accountable.
The big problem with a jury trial is that The State stacks juries to get a conviction. Juries are not allowed to be informed of their 1000 year-old right and duty to judge the "law" as well as the facts of the case.
ReplyDeleteIn a free society a jury trial might bring justice. In the US justice is rare and only accidental.
People get killed every day. Shit, kids get killed every day. Just because this kid is black doesn't mean it should be national news. I honestly think the media is running this to increase race tension and divert from the fact that Obama has proceedings to be impeached over the Libya war and he is failing at force us into government health care...
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