George Zimmerman found Not Guilty.

There are many instances where a person is actively breaking into a home, forcefully and violently trying to enter a home, sometimes intoxicated and the police cannot come in time. It must be very frightening to have someone banging on your door in the middle of the night. In those cases i would hope a person had the right to defend oneself and often times people are too afraid to leave the house due to then removing the barrier that the perpetrator was trying to remove to begin with, and also they figure there may be accomplices. That said, i have read a few cases similar to that last example. Seems it would be cruel and unusual to have to allow people to force their way into your home.

Many people wont see it that way unless, of course, it was them on the other side of the door. Then it would be ok.

 

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Future Prospects Uncertain

I'm still in a watch-and-see mode; I have no idea how this goes next. Still, though, a few brief notions do occur to me:

• Geraldo Rivera was right: The infamous would-be journalist drew much controversy in recent weeks after he suggested that the Zimmerman jury would have killed Trayvon Martin, too. Turns out he was right.

• Mississippit Burning: For a guy like Pruitt Taylor Vince, who can play one hell of a villain, it still must have been one of the toughest lines in his career when he channeled Lester Cowans—"You only left me a nigger, but at least I shot me a nigger." But here we are in the twenty-first century, and that's really all this law has ever been about. Of course a jury is going to acquit.

• Unsettling outlook: I'm not especially optimistic about what comes next insofar as, well, there are some things I'm not going to say. But amid the questions of civil suits, federal charges, a possible book deal, and so on, Mr. Zimmerman also bears in his wake several spectres of such magnitude as to shadow his future.​

The rest is simple enough; Florida should be avoided by all reasonable measures.

 

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Ah yes, the people like me, the people like that. Yawn.

Go ahead and why dont you tell me all about people like Milkweed. I think your imagination will prove to be waaay off base. I think you will be completely wrong because you are driven by your emotional bias .

Guess what? The cops are giving Zimmerman his gun back too!

 

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@ Fraggle,


Have you ever lived in Ye Olde South or spent anytime at all there? I am a southerner and Boy:bugeye: you are just a little harsh. I have traveled and lived all over these United States and there are Rednecks everywhere I have been. After raising my children for part of their lives in Northern California where African-American culture was pretty much non-existent, I took my children back to Northern Florida (my stomping grounds) in part so that they could be introduced to that culture and in part because I missed that culture. NOT ALL FLORIDIANS ARE REDNECKS OR RACISTS! I, by my own experience and that of my children have a better understanding of the animosity between blacks and whites in this part of the country.

Let me give you a few examples of racism that I and my children experienced in the Old South.

My son was jumped by 10 black teenagers (boys and girls) after getting off of a school bus to walk home, because he dared to talk back to one of the black kids on the school bus. My son was playing basketball with several black children and when he decided to foul them as hard as they fouled him they decided to beat him to the ground. At that time I was a single (divorced) mom. I was working full time and going to college at night and I lived in a not so great neighborhood. One day I was standing in my backyard and a BB goes whizzing by my head and there stood a big black teenager with a BB gun aiming it right at me, I later found out who he was and found out that he would also chase my boys all the way home from the bus stop for no reason at all than just to terrorize them. I could go on and on, but from here I would like to make my point. this hatred is taught in both black and in white homes.

For 6 years of my childhood the only person that gave me discipline and order in my chaotic childhood was a black woman named Ann Simmons and I love and miss her until this very day.
I am as comfortable around African- Americans as I am white people and I have spent a considerable amount of time in their homes because my son married an African- American when we moved to Washington State. Even though I and my children have experienced hatred and racism on several occasions, neither racism nor hatred was taught in my home and it shows in the young men that I raised. Nowhere in America is the animosity and hatred between these two peoples as prevalent as it is in the South, but damn it bombing them is just more hatred and what is really needed is patience and maybe for one more generation of those ignorant rednecks to die off.

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Nowhere in your tirade Fraggle did you mention the hatred being taught to the African American children in their homes.

 

Oh, I don't know, perhaps the one defined by statute?

784.048 Stalking; definitions; penalties.—
(1) As used in this section, the term:
(a) “Harass” means to engage in a course of conduct directed at a specific person which causes substantial emotional distress to that person and serves no legitimate purpose.
(b) “Course of conduct” means a pattern of conduct composed of a series of acts over a period of time, however short, which evidences a continuity of purpose. The term does not include constitutionally protected activity such as picketing or other organized protests.
(c) “Credible threat” means a verbal or nonverbal threat, or a combination of the two, including threats delivered by electronic communication or implied by a pattern of conduct, which places the person who is the target of the threat in reasonable fear for his or her safety or the safety of his or her family members or individuals closely associated with the person, and which is made with the apparent ability to carry out the threat to cause such harm. It is not necessary to prove that the person making the threat had the intent to actually carry out the threat. The present incarceration of the person making the threat is not a bar to prosecution under this section.
(d) “Cyberstalk” means to engage in a course of conduct to communicate, or to cause to be communicated, words, images, or language by or through the use of electronic mail or electronic communication, directed at a specific person, causing substantial emotional distress to that person and serving no legitimate purpose.
(2) A person who willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly follows, harasses, or cyberstalks another person commits the offense of stalking, a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.​

How about that one?

I'd be pissed. However, those hallucinatory circumstances don't apply to the case at hand. Nice try though...

Naturally it's illegal to stalk anybody - the statute is clear. Of course, in order to rely on the illegality of said behavior you would have to incorporate the legal definition into your argument. Which you haven't done. Fail.

And you would be right. Except he wasn't "stalking the poor kid". Come on Fraggle, you're a linguist. Get with the defintions here...

Really? Judge, jury and executioner rolled into one, right? Let's just chuck that presumption of innocence out the window, shall we?

Or... Duh, of course if you see a creepy person wandering about your neighborhood you should wonder whether that potential aggressor is armed. Nice spin though...

Exactly. So let's get out there and make sure that's not an option.

That remains to be demonstrated. Your posts in this thread aren't cutting it though...

Or the appropriate moment to express relief that “The jury kept a tragedy from being a travesty”. I presume you are familiar with this quote and don't require a citation, right?

Exactly. My point indeed. This is the issue that needs to be addressed.

We do. Just flip your perspective.

You're barking up the wrong tree here. I f***ing hate cops, prosecutors and the rest of the system. Stick it to the MAN was my mantra. However, we deal with what we're dealt. Let's fix that system...

Or, they have to be a hispanic on the neighborhood watch... Seriously?

The south would probably be happy with that alternative...

 

Not good, there serious issues with life expectancy and equal access to services but I have never herd of a case like this here, not saying it couldn't happen but I haven't herd of one. The closest I can think of is the Cronulla riots and I believe Allen Jones was censored by ACMA for inciting that not to mention the charges laid against those who were involved. Oh and if ACMAs response seems weak you would be right but its ACMA, they are so scared of "free speech" claims that they never do there job properly. However if you want to know what MY response would have been if it had happened here I would have been just as angry, far more so in fact and I would have actually been joining the protests

 

Well, one reason is that if you "help" you might end up in the same courtroom as Zimmerman.

Let's say you go to help. You see a gun. You grab it and wrestle it away. Both people go after you - Zimmerman because he is thinking "oh shit someone has my gun!" Martin because he is feeling threatened (with good cause.) What do you do? Give it back to them? Run and hope neither of them is faster than you are? Wrestle them both to the ground while keeping control of the gun? Shoot one of them? If so, which one? Think you will hit them? (Unlikely unless you have training; you do what you have trained to do.)

Keep in mind that as soon as you point that gun at either one of them they are legally justified in killing you in self defense.

Or perhaps you don't wrestle it away. What do you do then? Just start hitting people? Who do you hit? If you hit Zimmerman with a wrench, might he turn the gun on you in self defense?

Or perhaps you just watch so as to be a valid witness. Not unreasonable - but in that case you are generally better off farther away than closer.

In situations like this there are often no good options, no good outcomes. As an unarmed bystander in a confrontation that involves a shooting (heck, even as an armed bystander) calling the police is generally the best possible thing to do. Everything else comes second. And if I were there, with the little training I have, my first priority (after calling the cops) would be getting everyone ELSE inside so that no one else was killed by a stray bullet.

 

There is no need to hit anyone, but with cell phone in hand and while calling 911, I would have gone over and started yelling at the top of my lungs at whoever was being the aggressor at that point. Letting them know that the police were on their way and that they might just be looking at the inside of a jail if they continued fighting. I would have at LEAST DONE THAT. Have we become so afraid that we cannot take immediate action when it is called for and it was definitely called for in this case. Did you hear the 911 call and how the person screaming for help was desperate? I realize that I might have put my life in danger but I keep thinking what if that were me and no one came outside to help and I ended up dead.



As I pointed out in an earlier post it is because of our gun laws that we are afraid to help. George Zimmerman would not have followed Treyvon in the first place if he did not have his sidearm. I personally think Zimmerman is a whimpering coward, a damn pansy who set the chain of events into motion all because his gun made him feel safe enough to follow Treyvon , knowing that if any physical altercation took place he could use it. Hiding behind the Stand Your Ground law George Zimmerman got away with murder or at least manslaughter IMO.

 

I wonder what this says to other gun totting folks in places like Florida with very relaxed gun laws. Will this verdict embolden those folks? Will this acquittal result in more gun killings? Will Zimmerman kill again? Will he be emboldened with this acquittal?

 

There is one thing I like about the US, this idiotic decision is not the end. The boys family could still ruin this fuck civilly and the federal government could do what racists juriers couldn't. Here he would walk out scotfree unless the decision could be appealed

 

Which is more valuable: the right to not be afraid or the right to live? What if one's fear is unfounded, what if what one thinks is a break-in is just some people asking for directions? What if you were the one asking for directions and someone shots you dead, because well you not white and your on their lawn so they "felt threatened" by you? I think that if you shoot someone, no matter the reason, you best prepare for a long legal trial in which it must be proven that your reasons were founded, not simply that you felt threatened, but that you were under real deadly threat.

The "Stand your ground" laws are an abomination created by hate and misanthropy: if you have the option to run away and not kill, you should! These laws result in more killing, often for crimes completely unworthy of death! Of course some disagree some believe that death is proper punishment for a drug addict thief/bugler, or on occasion the random person that has committed the horrible crime of "breathing while not white".

 

True. I think there's this tendency to reduce aspects of the case to one thing or another. With so many motivations, I'm not sure how one can judge intent. Then again, the point is 'reasonable doubt' rather than surety.

 

Is this sarcasm? "Reasonable doubt" should not be given to someone that chases down someone, get in a hand fight with them and then shot them dead.

 

That's because there were no eyewitnesses, and the person winning the fight was murdered. You assume that because Zimmerman got the worst of it, he must have been an innocent bystander. That's your mistake. I've been in plenty of fights in my life, and I can tell you that some are quite one-sided. Walking away unscathed doesn't mean you started it.

Martin was winning the fight. You jump to the conclusion that he was the aggressor. I wonder why that is? Could it be because he was a black teenager, and those kids frighten you?

Nor should they. It has no bearing whatsoever on the case.

Is that really how you see this? That Trayvon Martin just walked into a neighborhood looking for trouble?

So what?

And there it is. Racism at its finest.

 

What surprise the cops that spent the entire time trying to make sure he got off give him his gun to kill again

 

Yet here I am. Still alive. Suicide isnt a crime. Painful for the family, but none the less, not a crime. I love the approach of the anti-gun. You cant have something because a criminal might steal it and/or use it.

Maybe we should ban jewelry to reduce gun crime (gun use during robbery is in the +30% of all gun crime).

BZZT WRONG.

Suicide is NOT being killed by other Americans.

Murder via all guns 2011 - 11,101
Total Gun Deaths (including suicide, accidental, and justified) - 32,163
Suicides via all Guns 2011 - 19,766

All traffic fatalities 2011 - 32,367

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states

http://www.nhtsa.gov/About NHTSA/Pr...fic Fatalities Declined by Nearly Two Percent

And finally, 32,367 (all gun deaths including suicide) is 0.01% of 311,800,000 (the population of the USA in 2011).

That is 1/100th of one percent. Quite a bit smaller than FraggleMath.

Chance of being murdered by an American with a gun?

11,101 (murders via all guns) is 0.003560% of 311,800,000 (population of USA 2011)

That is 4/1000th of one percent (I rounded up). FraggleMath... FuzzyMath... you get the picture.

Now just for an attempt at normalizing. I tried to reduce the population to adult only. Stats I used were Ages 15-64 which
gives us an adult US population of 205,800,000. I believe this number to be low. It excludes 39 million 65 and older vs including 15-17.


32,367 (all gun deaths including suicide) is 0.016727% of 205,800,000 (adult population).
That is 2/100ths of one percent (I rounded up).

Chance of being murdered by an American with a gun?

11,101 (murders via all guns) is 0.005394% of 205,800,000.
That is 5/1000ths of one percent.

Bad judgement gets lots of people killed each year. In car wrecks, drowning in rivers/lakes, whole bunch of ways bad judgement can get ya killed. Hence the Darwin awards.

 

Yeah well, you say that now while you are young and aggressive. How about when you are old and cant run fast enough? I dont own a gun, as a matter of fact I have never owned a gun, so i wont be shooting anyone. I only heard of this law a few years ago.

The law you referred to in the link is over 100 years old. Did you read the whole page or just google the title?

Honestly, i dont think you guys read or understand things. Too many responses based off of emotion. Stand your ground laws, which I never heard of before a few years ago, are remarkably similar to self defense laws. Do you think they only apply in the U.S?

Each case is different, i have no idea why you are asking me about any random case you can find and asking me if it is alright.

 

From behind protection (a wall or something) that would be a good idea!

Probably true.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/US/george-zimmerman-beaten-prosecution-witnesses/story?id=19517236

Really? How does that work. I havent been in plenty of fights in my life. Now I see your motivation. You dont want to be killed for assaulting someone. You think brute force violence is OK and following someone you think is suspicious is grounds to hit the follower, but its not ok to defend yourself.

Yet even without seeing the text messages the jury came back Not Guilty. But we are not on the jury and we do get to see the text.

You really think the term gansta defines skin color?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gansta