Zimmerman trial is sparking racial tensions

George was a big pussy with a chip on his shoulder who got in over his head ended up murdering a child.

 

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Right. However, as the juror said, that didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was whether he feared for his life - which, according to the jury, he did. Thus in this case SYG was not an issue. In another case it might be.

 

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Yes, everyone brags on Facebook. What did Trayvon's trainers say about his skill as a fighter?

 

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I love the idea that if I "fear for my life" I can kill anyone I want!

 

Even if you stalked a guy, got out of your car, and started a fight. To bad Trayvon didn't have a gun, he could have killed George and claimed self defense.

 

Unfortunately nearly all people are racist to some extent. It is a natural human characteristic to be attracted to those with similar characteristics as yourself and to be suspicious of those who are different. I am not sure if this is good or bad.

I have lived and worked here in Silicon Valley since 1996 and this is a massive multi-cultural society. I would work daily with people from a vast variety of races, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Filipinos, Hispanic, African Americans, etc, and even French Canadians. After a while the racial differences had no bearing on the relationships I formed. I found likable and stupid people from all races. We are all inherently racist to some extent and I think it takes a real racial melting pot to see that these emotions/fears can be groundless.

For the Zimmerman case I do not believe that race played a significant role in Georges mind, although I am sure he considered it. His intention was to catch criminals of whatever race rather than having a hatred for blacks which he would target. So why is it being raised so strongly? Listening to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and their open refusal to consider the evidence rationally I can only assume they urgently want to push their personal political agendas. And truth appears to be the first casualty in such cases.

People tend to believe whatever they want to believe despite the evidence and in many cases in the total absence of evidence. Human beings are simply not very good on average at critical thinking and rational thought.

But racism and profiling do need to be combined in a strict mathematical sense, even though the implications can be unfortunate. For my own personal survival I want some idea of who is likely to be safe and who is likely to be dangerous. On simple nationwide statistics black youth account for some 3% of the population but appear to account for over 50% of the crime. To ignore race as part of a profile would be unwise. The downside to that practice is that it might be self fulfilling - e.g. if I think that young blacks are likely to be criminals and I seek them out then I am likely to find them and hence boost the statistics, but that also means I am not targeting young whites and hence they might escape the search which also affects the statistics.

The high crime rate among black youth is a major problem for the black communities especially, but for all of us as well, and in the case of murders it is overwhelmingly black vs black. Whites killing blacks is quite rare. So those pushing the racism issue need to step back and see the bigger picture and target the real issues.

 

And in the gang warfare in many cities that is exactly what is happening with the SYG laws.

The law is good for those well intentioned, but can be a disaster for the innocent against a determined criminal. If you carry a gun the best course seems to be shoot to kill first if you think there is a threat and talk later. Some innocent people will die under such a law.

Of course getting rid of all guns from everyone would help - but is never gonna happen.

The other route is to never own or carry a gun, and that might help prevent some deaths, the downside is that against a determined gunman you might easily die with no chance to defend yourself. And the gunman might or might not be caught, either way you would be beyond caring.

 

That exactly what we need, give everyone guns and self-defense clauses to kill, population control here we come!

Rather what we need is proper regulation of guns and proper self-defense laws that make abuse of that law to mruder very difficult. As for can we get ride of all guns, its worked for many countries, will it work for america? Snowballs chance in hell, at least any time this century, rather pragmatic solutions should be made. I favority is gun insurance: Look we have have mandatory car insurance (now also madatory health insurance) why not mandatory gun insurance? Heavy fine if you are found with a uninsured gun (criminal penities with a unlicenced gun, or rather insurnace and licence should be one in the same) every gun should be tracked, have a record and its owner known to a gun registry organization. Gun nuts often scream that if they are registered they then the big bad goverment can come for their guns someday, solution: have private organization collect and hold registration data, aka insurance companies!

 

Yeah, too bad. It would be fine if Zimmerman had been the one killed.

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In all seriousness though, if Martin had been the armed one and Zimmerman dead, none of us would have heard of the case. Racism only generates attention/activism when its in the other direction.

 

Probably, Martin would have gone to jail and no one would have cared.

 

True. All else being equal, it would have been a much tougher case for Martin to win because of the fact that he was the aggressor. And a non-black being killed out of racism gets no national media/activist attention.

 

As if I needed another reason to boycott Florida.

 

That isn't quite right: stand your ground requires a"reasonable belief" you were in danger. You can't just say you were scared, you have to show that you had a reason why.

 

Neither Trayvon's or George's previous bad acts were brought in and that is fine, but if you are saying that George had no other option than to shoot Trayvon, I wholeheartedly disagree. As I have been contending from the start, George was a coward who was emboldened by the fact that he had a gun and could use it if the slightest thing went wrong. In this case he followed and even told the 911 operator that he looked like he was on drugs, what kind of dumb ass chases down a person he believes is on drugs? How in the hell could he tell he was on drugs if it was dark and he was not that close to the victim? George set up the pins and then got a strike!

 

He would have claimed that Zimmerman was the aggressor - and had just as much proof. It's a lot easier to win a case when you kill the one guy who can contradict your version of events.

But none of that would really matter. If a black man shot and killed an unarmed white man who was visiting his family in Florida, after being told by police to stay in his car, he'd be going away for a long, long time. It is, unfortunately, the current trend in justice in the US.

 

I'm not sure it would be out or racism. Many white people have difficulty understanding what is and isn't racism, for example they bring up some case of a white baby being shot by two black thugs and ask "why are white people not rioting, why does the media not care?" well because those two black thugs probaby did not shot that baby simply because it was white, black people in general don't have a thing for killing white babies. White people being suspcious of black people, assuming they are criminals, is though very common.

Likewise if a black boy shot a white man that was chasing him in the dark, chancer our he would not be thinking "Fuckin crackers are all out th get me, got to kill them now!". Now was Zimmerman thinking "That guy is black, whereing a hoody and walking around at night, therefor he likely a burgler" possible, maybe not even consciously, thing is that many black people have had to deal with others being highly suspicous around them and the case of what happened to Martin opened that emotional wound. Most white people on the other hand don't deal with black people out to kill white babies, hence why they did not riot, hence why even if it was a black boy killing a white man they would not care because that is not a threat they deal with or are reminded about every day.

Fundementally, in this hypothetical we need to ask how a 17 year old can legally own a gun, but hey maybe that alright in flordia too!

 

What?!
I don't have any words right now.
Are we going back to the days of the "wild west?"

Anyone can claim any bs nonsense to back up "their" claim as to why they felt threatened and had to "stand their ground."

 

Not really. If we assume all else remains the same, then Zimmerman is beaten up and shot while martin is on top without a scratch. Tough for people to buy that he feared for his life if he's kicking Zimmerman's ass.

 

No. Zimmerman is shot and bloody; Martin has a few minor/superficial scrapes that he claims were the result of being violently beaten. Who will dispute him?

Tough to believe that Zimmerman, an armed man with martial arts training, was afraid of an unarmed 17 year old, a 17 year old he had been pursuing through the neighborhood. If a jury will buy that, they will surely believe that a teenager could be afraid of a man with martial arts training who had been following him and threatening him.

 

the outcome of this case is very scary. it's scary because it's amazing to realize just how stupid society is and the comments on the news sites. zimmerman did not have a black eye and really no indication that he was being beaten. he has scratch marks mostly which veer more likely like someone was trying to get away from him. it is unfriggingbelievable, even for a female, to believe that he was being beaten and so much of society paints trayvon as some massive aggressor. that particular pool of women has got to be the most dumbest ever, it's unbelievable. when two men get in fights or even teenagers, there is much more physical damage. hell, even domestic violence usually has more than what zimmerman had.

looking at the evidence, it is much more likely that zimmerman was trying to physically detain trayvon. also, there was a witness who saw them in a scuffle on the ground with zimmerman on top holding him down at one point and they said they would call 911, zimmerman refused and asked them to help him hold him down.

he ignored police advice to not follow, he followed without real cause, he did profile as even the 911 tapes attest to as they asked what tm was doing and he could not give a specific answer. zimmerman had no punch wounds or bruises. he even declined medical attention and he was in fear for his life?? he was armed against an unarmed person. he seemed to be intent on finding someone to target as he said 'those aholes keep getting away with it'.

then u have people sure that trayvon was the aggressor with no proof whatsoever. how dishonest is that? if one is followed and another is trying to detain you, that requires physical contact. when one puts their hands on you, u have a right to fight back. they do not consider that possibility. even without knowing who might have started anything, zimmerman was the adult and all indication from his injuries showed he was not beaten to the point of being afraid for his life. the blood on the back of his head was neatly running down, there was no blood smears as well he didn't even have a concussion. he also didn't have a blood smear on his face and tm didn't have bloody knuckles. depending on the position of the gun, his slightly bloody nose could have been from the recoil of the gun.

this verdict is essentially saying that one can pursue you with a loaded weapon, incite a situation and then kill the person but the pursued has no rights to defend oneself and if you do, they can kill you claiming self-defense. this stand your ground law in florida was ripe for being abused by just such type of person. a coward/bully with a chip on their shoulder and something to prove.

the sentiment from many people is that he deserved it, that they are happy some black teen got rid of. it doesn't matter what the truth is, they don't care and their rationalizations/arguments are motivated by harbored prejudice or resentment toward another group, not real justice. it's really sick and no compassion for the loss of this child. these are adults with their own children. it's so ugly and so selfish. it's also disturbing that these people could serve on a jury now or someday because anyone can lie to a judge and tell them that they will be impartial as well as give scripted, politically correct answers but what a case like this shows is iq testing also should be a requirement on cases of gravity as juror b37 is blatant example.

what is the outrageous travesty of the case is the retarded focus only on whether zimmerman was indeed afraid for his life, being afraid for your life should not give one right to kill someone! hello? one may be an extreme coward, irrational or any number of reasons besides having legitimate threat to one's life! he was also on antidepressants and also has a history of domestic violence and multiple felonies and misdemeanors including assaulting a police officer which shows he is prone to violence himself or at the least he has poor impulse control! they never thought of that? or he is just lying that he was in fear for his life. just because one says after killing someone that is unarmed, that didn't even give you a broken bone or bruise? one has to look at the entire situation. he acted with gross misconduct and poor judgement for an adult with a position of authority wielding a deadly weapon against an unarmed person, a teenager! he didnt even beat the living crap out of him. they had a pool of women who evidently are sheltered, have no life experience and bought his poor 'i was afraid for my life' bs, despite not having the wounds that would hardly even match such a story!

anyone who is followed and discriminated like that would be angry and you are talking about a black teen on top of that with the history of that kind of discrimination. zimmerman was aware of that and he is going to pursue a boy that was doing nothing wrong and walking in his own neighborhood and he's not asking for any trouble? really? he had no responsiblity at all? he was itching for trouble and was emboldened knowing he had a concealed weapon AND the boy didn't even give him a black eye? even if he did, that wouldn't justify murdering someone by pulling out a gun and shooting them in the chest!! geezus christ, these women better ask for forgiveness if there is any good higher power.