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catharina
Guest
Sickening that Zimmerman chased down this teen.
More sickening that when he caught him, he killed him.
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More sickening that when he caught him, he killed him.
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IAGladfelter
Guest
Yet that is precisely what Stand Your Ground laws permit. Under a Castle law, a person has an absolute right to kill anyone they find in their house whether they are armed or not. All that a Stand Your Ground law does is extend the “kill zone” from the inside of one’s house to the borders of their property - or the borders of their gated community. Are Castle laws and Stand Your Ground Laws laws which permit vigilantism? Not to the NRA. But perhaps those laws are the problem and they should be repealed.
Changing the subject slightly, perhaps Trayvon wanted to climb the fence into that gated community (fences placed there to keep anyone those in that community considered undesirable) to take a short cut through a safe neighborhood or to simply take a short cut instead of walking around that area.
But the whole purpose of gated communities is to keep people those in the particular gated community consider undesirable. They pay a lot extra for that protection against "them (whomever "them might be.)
Arguably this is a form of segregation - racial and/or economic segregation. “Google” “fortress segregation” and you will find that this is not a new charge against gated communities. Perhaps that is the underlying problem which needs to be addressed and fought . . . that and the vigilantism the NRA seems arguably to promote as a right of “the armed citizen.”
That said, what happened to the old (1950’s) principle of teaching children to stay off other people’s property?
I am not saying that Zimmerman acted properly. All I am saying is that there is more than one side to this event, and that there are a bunch of underlying issues which may well have made what happened inevitable, and those issues need to be identified and addressed.
Blessings,
Irl
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Lujack
Guest
Well, they couldn’t have, since dispatchers have no legal authority to order people around. And who is this “they”? Are all dispatchers now the Borg, all part of the same collective whole?
Its fairly clear, though, that this dispatcher did not want Zimmerman following Martin. Its also fairly clear that Zimmerman should not have been following Martin-the only thing he could possibly have achieved was an extralegal shooting; with no authority to detain anyone, what was he going to do?
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L_piperatus
Guest
Yeah, not like with Sandra Fluke, whom he called trying to score points with young voters and women voters. Not like the case of a white police officer arresting a black professor, where he said that “the Cambridge Police Department acted stupidly”.
If this was White-on-Black violence, he could use it to score points with African-American voters. But since it was Hispanic-on-Black violence, he can’t use it to put down Hispanics, because he needs Hispanic voters. President Obama also won’t call Chicago parents, where more than 10 people were killed or maimed by gang shoot-outs last weekend, including a 6-year old girl and a 1-year old baby hit by stray bullets. That was Black-on-Black violence, and he can’t score extra points with African-American voters by calling the parents of those maimed and killed in Chicago.
Sandra Fluke, the women voters, and college students, that’s different. He needs to score points with those voters, so he called Sandra Fluke.
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pnewton
Guest
I do not believe you about it extending to the borders of the community. If it does however, then Trayvon Martin was well with in his rights to stand his ground against a madman chasing him with a gun and beating him to protect himself. Of course the coward that started the fight then had to escalate when his body couldn’t back up his mouth.
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EmperorNapoleon
Guest
Martin was within his right under the Stand Your Ground law to use whatever force necessary to defend himself from Zimmerman. I think most reasonable people would fear for their life and instinctively defend it after being followed by a strange man, chased, then approached by this man brandishing a loaded gun.
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Lujack
Guest
- Its absolutely sickening that people are using this thread as an opportunity to attack the President, again. Nearly 80% of threads on this forum are dedicated to that; I know that the general forum consensus is that he’s just about Satan incarnate, but there is nothing wrong in this statement, nothing wrong at all.
- Mitt Romney also made a comment on the tragedy of this event. I don’t see anyone calling that mere political pandering on here. I’m not either, because that would be wrong-Romney is a parent as well and of course he’d be shaken by this.
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pnewton
Guest
Furthermore,first swing is unknowable and irrelevant. This isn’t a kids playground. Zimmerman pursued. He also killed. These two facts are not in dispute and actually have bearing.
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pnewton
Guest
One would think that a tragedy would draw people closer. I related very much to the president’s comments and it touched near my heart, as did this death. Many of us here have our own Trayvon’s, even though they are not all innocent, as are none of us, by the way, if you know your scripture. This Zimmerman guy had no business, none, out playing cop with a big gun and not training. It was reckless and negligent.
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Havard
Guest
I can only speak for myself, but my annoyance is because of a singular thing Obama said that Romney didn’t. That thing was Obama’s completely unnecessary remark that the victim looked like him. To that, I say, “what the heck, Mr. President??”
Otherwise, both speeches were good.
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catharina
Guest
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catharina
Guest
Although I have little use for Obama and his pals,
I too am grateful and touched that he spoke about this dead child.
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ellipsis2
Guest
I’ve been too busy to post for quite a while, but had a miniute to check in today. I went to the last page of this thread and was very disappointed to see so many of the "blame the victim’ remarks on this thread. Later, as I had a chance to read the news, I found out that the right wing talking heads finally weighed in/ reported this story. If anyone cares to check, the tone of this discussion changed dramatically after this…Before early this morning honest people had honest opinions whether they agreed or not. Later, ( around 6 this a.m) after Fox and Friends the tone and the posters changed entirely. As the radio pundits added their two cents, more posters felt the need to follow these same pundits. …I liked the thread better when individuals gave their individual opinions.
just saying.
just saying.
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Havard
Guest
Can you name any Fox reader or pundit who blamed the victim?
The only one I’ve seen who has weighed in is Bill O’Reilly, and he did not blame anyone, he just called the death a tragedy. Which I think we should all agree with.
Like O’Reilly, I won’t weigh in on why this all happened because it would be irresponsible of me to do so.
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TMC
Guest
Among the other crazy liberals that have spoken out on the case: Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Alan West, Mitch McConnell. Why aren’t we seeing critizing of them for speaking out?
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Havard
Guest
The same reason we aren’t seeing people criticizing the President for speaking out.
People are criticizing a piece of content in his message.
Also, please refer to:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=9102188&postcount=218
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ellipsis2
Guest
It’s my understanding that Geraldo blamed it on the hoodies, after which his own son was ashamed; and Hannity thought it could be an accident.
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IAGladfelter
Guest
Actually no, he was not. Florida’s law and the Stand Your Ground Law of the other States which have them - mostly Southern and Mountain States - do not give Martin the right to confront and fight Zimmerman because Martin was not a resident employee or watch captain of that gated community. He was an intruder.
Don’t take my word for it. Look the law up and read about similar laws on the Internet. Had Treyvon stopped, and surrendered to Zimmerman, and the Police arrived, he, not Zimmerman, would have been arrested.
You can read about such laws here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-your-ground_law and the more basic article, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_doctrine , and make your own opinion about them.
My own State (one of the quasi-Southern so-called “Border States”) has both a “Castle” and a “Stand Your Ground” law. "Under those laws, some years ago, in my city, a shop owner who was robbed in his store, took his gun, chased the robber out of the store, down the street, a block away, he shot the robber from behind, killed him, took back his money and went back to his store. The incident made the news - “big time” - but the shop owner was neither arrested or prosecuted. Had that event occurred in New York, that shop owner would have gone to jail for a very long time.
The question is, do such State laws violate Federal anti-discriminatory and/or civil rights laws, regardless of what the National Rifle Association and its advocates might say?
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Havard
Guest
Let’s not indict on rumors, watch this quick segment by Hannity:
I don’t see him drawing any odd conclusions.
As to Geraldo, his diatribe about the hoodie was very clumsy, but I think the point he was trying to make was a cautionary one because he’s a dad and he’s worried about his own son being a target of profiling. You’ll notice he calls Trayvon “innocent” and says “God bless him”, so I truly do not believe Geraldo in any way means to implicate Trayvon’s complicity, but rather, he’s just venting as a worried dad.
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Lujack
Guest
I don’t believe this is accurate, especially because Martin, as has been stated before, lacked any official position. He was not an employee or an actual watch captain, any more than I am the neighborhood watch captain in New Oxford, Pennsylvania just by declaring myself as such.
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