i completely agree here. ive seen alot of black people up in arms over this case and other seemingly racial cases when the victim is black but when black people kill white people there is no outrage. there isnt even aknowlegement
acknowledgement of the historical racially based crimes committed against white people by an oppressive regime of blacks, that continues to have long lasting social impacts to this day?
ya, funny that people are more sensitive to the racial component in some cases but not others. makes no sense what. so. ever.
no, I think the history of racial relations in north america makes it fairly understandable that people might be more interested in white on black racism than the other way around...
how could that be racist? its almost the opposite, a type of white guilt or hypervigalence.
I think he might mean black-people not being outraged when it's black-on-white crime. eg The OJ Simpson case, where the media showed black-people outright rejoicing that OJ was found not guilty.
Gender: Male Location: Southern Oregon,
Looking at you.
I would think that most of the white people in North America today are descendants of Europeans who came here after slavery was outlawed. I know my ancestors were in Russia at the time, and did not own slaves of any kind. They themselves were economic slaves to the Czars.
to clarify, you don't think the NRA has impacted American culture in a way that makes guns more prevalent and acceptable?
Canada and America have comparable rates of assault and homicide, but America has, iirc, 2-4x more gun crime.
see, my point would be that simply being hit by someone shouldn't give you the right to end their life. We have seen pictures of Zimmerman's injuries, they are not life threatening. There is no evidence at all that Zimmerman was, provably, in lethal danger.
"he could have been you never know there might have been yadda yadda yadda"
is actually the justification that I think proves my point. Zimmerman being armed and taking the law into his hands like this is the problem in the first place. Martin was breaking NO LAWS. Zimmerman [sure, lets be generous] wanted to "investigate" and ended up shooting him. The problem is this armed idiot walking around in the first place. Modest gun control removes the whole "well maybe Martin could have potentially might have almost killed him?" question from consideration, because people aren't just allowed to be vigilantes, or at least they can't do it while armed.
no, not at all. I do think an armed person who "investigates" someone breaking no laws and ends up shooting them bares far more legal liability in that situation.
lets use a more comparable scenario.
If I were walking home, and a man on a phone was staring at me, to the point it spooked me enough to run off. Then, he pursues me. What would I do? oh, also I'm 17 and way smaller than this adult male
well, its likely I'd do one of two things. The first is run away completely and call the police, the other would be probably exactly what Treyvon did. We know from his girlfriend that he asked Zimmerman "Why are you following me?", or something similar.
If a guy pulled a gun on me I'd likely shit my pants and beg him not to shoot me pull out my 9 like blang blang blang, make it rain on a fool, make em wet.
wannabe vigilantism?
ok, but we also expect higher standards of behaviour from police officers. Why not extend that to anyone who wishes to arm themselves? Shouldn't we expect more responsible behaviour from Zimmerman because he has taken it upon himself to enforce "neighbourhood law", rather than chasing, I'm sorry, "following" a law abiding citizen and shooting them?
it was. what was most idiotic was, because the police got there after the man got the gun, they had no evidence about where it was stored (though the man did have all the store boxes and such). The prosecution tried to argue that he wouldn't have had enough time to retrieve and load the firearm in the time it took him to get outside (something nobody witnessed), etc. such a cluster****.
idk, following someone who you think is up to no good, with the intent to "investigate" them, seems "aggressive". justified, maybe, rational, maybe, legal, maybe, but aggressive.
like, you make it sound as if Martin would have no reason to believe he might be in danger, when the inarguable facts of the case make his situation sketchy at best. Like, we agree Treyvon wasn't going to run across the street and beat Zimmerman up had he not given chase, as emergency services advised.
sure, given the cultural context, they would probably be more sensitive to whites being racists against blacks than vice versa. Especially when it can be seen as something systemic or ingrained in the political system.
Martin was not "way smaller" he just weighed less and ive pointed out earlier that weight differences can make very little difference in an actual fight. Martin was much taller than Zimmerman and imo that makes Martin more physcally imposing. this idea that Trayvon was some little boy needs to stop. he was 17 and thats a grown a$$ man most places.
im not saying he couldnt have been scared or anything but it seems like people are forgetting Trayvon was a big guy and pretty much manhandled Zimmerman (according to his story of course) who was supposed to be the "much bigger" of the two
idk, following someone who you think is up to no good, with the intent to "investigate" them, seems "aggressive". justified, maybe, rational, maybe, legal, maybe, but aggressive.
i never said Martin had no reason to be in fear i just argued he made a bad choice of how to handle it which i think we can agree on (going off of Zimmermans story of course). and he didnt "give chase" he followed (which yes it wasnt the smartest move) Martin to see what he was doing. after the dispatcher told him they didnt need him to follow him Zimmerman acknowledged it and for all we know (which apparently isnt much) he could have stopped in his tracks right there. then Martin COULD have noticed Zimmerman earlier and approached him 1st completely shattering this notion of Zimmerman being the aggressor (just speculation of course)
There is a difference between "being hit" and "I thought he was going to bash my brains out with one more head smash so I moved my head over the sidewalk so he would smash it against the grass instead of the cement". Again, this is what Zimmerman was saying. We still do not know how true his story was/is about the repeated head smashing against the cement. His medical report would certainly clear things up if they released it.
IMO, it looked pretty bad. Looked like he needed stitches in two different directions. If Zimmerman's brother is to be believed...
Additionally, Zimmerman feared his brains were about to be bashed out. It doesn't take much to kill someone by busting their head against the cement, so his life was definitely in very real jeopardy from the beat down he was getting from Trayvon.
Well, no, the opposite is true. There is direct evidence, from the footage alone, that Zimmerman was in lethal danger. The degree of lethal danger can be better determined by Zimmerman's medical report. Did he need stitches? Did Zimmerman experience a concussion? Did he receive a skull fracture? How bad was his supposed nose break? Did he experience a subdural hematoma or even a subarachnoid hemorrhage?
The only fact we have is he had head wounds on the back of his head. They did not look like slices (if we compare it to a knife, for instance), it looked like impact trauma. "But neither of us are medical experts." True. But we do know he had head wounds on the back of his head and he claims it was from getting his head bashed against the cement, multiple times. The head wounds alone are evidence enough than there was very real lethal danger, going on. The degree is yet to be determined until we get his report.
You dismiss that as though it is something unimportant but it has direct bearing on whether or not Zimmers should be given a criminal smack-down.
Did he "take the law into his own hands"? I think you're confusing Trayvon's death with "taking the law into his [Zimmerman's] own hands". Trayvon was not killed because Zimmerman executed him for crimes (if that is what you meant). The verbal confrontation was also perfectly legal. So, no, Zimmerman did not take the law into his own hands, as the idiom is commonly understood.
I think you have already concluded that Zimmerman was in the wrong and have convicted him in your mind. You're using too strong of language, here, against Zimmerman.
I would rephrase that to: "Martin was breaking NO LAWS. Zimmerman wanted to confront what he thought was the person who was perpetuating recent burglaries in the neighborhood and the verbal confrontation quickly escalated into a physical confrontation where the young man sadly ended up shot to death."
Ahhhh. I see, now. I understand where you're coming from. It is the gun problem. Edit - At the end of my reply, you will see that we partially agree (read point #3 in my "what did you mean by 'it'" reply).
Couple of things...
1. I thought in the case of a minor, it was appropriate to refer to the person by their first name? I always refer to minors in news stories by their first names. It is semi-diminutive, I admit, but I thought it was proper writing style? This is why I refer to him as Trayvon and the shooter as Zimmerman.
2. There's a difference between a vigilante and what Zimmerman is claiming went down. Trayvon was not executed for supposed crimes: he was killed in a physical altercation that probably went further than it should have at the fault of both parties. There is nothing vigilante about verbally confronting someone in your neighborhood. Now, you may wonder why I keep protesting your use of "vigilante" in this case: vigilantes carry out punishments. Verbally confronting a supposed "suspicious" person is not vigilantism. Vigilantism would be Zimmerman shooting Trayvon, on the spot, for crimes that Zimmerman supposed Trayvon committed. I do not think what we know shows that Zimmerman did that. Let's be real: Zimmerman got his ass kicked for confronting Trayvon (maybe that's the only reprieve Trayvon will get is that he, a kid, kicked the ass of a grown-ass man that should have minded his own business and let the cops confront the "suspicious" boy).
3. Define "modest gun control" because modest gun control, imo, is less strict gun control than what the US has now, in most regards. Here is the gist of what I would consider modest gun control: convicted violent offenders would not get to touch a gun most of the time (someone would have to flesh out all the scenarios in which a violent offender could use a gun). You would have to pass a test, both shooting and written to get a gun. There would be varying degrees of licenses you would have to obtain to get various kinds of kinds. Fully automatics would be legal. Someone would have to convince me on legalizing things like RPGs, though. You would have to be drug tested and pass on an annual basis. All guns would required to be stored safely and securely or fines would happen. I could go on but you get the picture.
We will forever disagree, then. My question was rhetorical. You should have the right to verbally confront someone supposedly loitering in your neighborhood. I know ever last family living on my street. I know of their children, too. If I saw someone just hanging around the neighborhood, who was not part of any of those families, I would indirectly confront the person with a question, "Hey. What's up, dude? I haven't seen you around here, before. Did you just move in to the neighborhood?" Obviously, that is NOT what Zimmerman did. lol Zimmerman was like, "*That's the SoB that has been robbing our houses. That little sh*t. Imma ask him WTF he is doing here.* What are you doing?"
Well, wait a minute. We have hindsight, Zimmerman did not, at the time. At the time, Zimmerman thought he was onto the perp breaking into their houses. Sure, you and I can look back and say things like, 'Man...Zimmerman was wrong." But, at the time, we would not know for sure.
Unrelated: cheese and potato casserole sounds delicious, right now:
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1. We do not know if he was "spooked". We only know that Zimmerman thought the young man saw him and ran away. We also have his GF's bias account of the situation. If we had the phone records for both parties, we may be able to conclude more directly what happened.
2. You'd sh*t your pants even more and/or you'd run away more OR you'd call the police: most especially because the person is an adult and you are not.
3. Your reaction would NOT be to kick his *ss nor would mine.
We have talked about this before and we determined that you are much less aggressive than I am. I am telling you that not even I would start the scenario out by kicking his *ss...you definitely would not.
I believe this. I promise, I did not/do not read lengthy posts before replying to them. I reply point by point and read them in order and respond in order so I did not see this portion of your post before typing my above #2.
I do not believe that. That's definitely not the type of person you have claimed to be in the past. Unless you're a Guido, DudeBro, or other some type of overly aggressive US male stereo-type which you do not strike me as.
Do we really know that, for sure? Just like we do not know if Trayvon started out the confrontation swinging (I believe this is what Zimmerman says), we cannot know if that's what Trayvon said.
Here's what she said went down:
"He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on. He said he lost the man...I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run but he said he was not going to run.
Trayvon said, 'What, are you following me for,' and the man said, 'What are you doing here.' Next thing I hear is somebody pushing, and somebody pushed Trayvon because the head set just fell. I called him again and he didn't answer the phone."
From her stuff, I can conclude that Trayvon was physically accosted the moment he asked, "Why are you following me" or I could say that Trayvon threw his handset/headset down and started to beat some ass, like Zimmerman claims. The girlfriend obviously concludes he was pushed first from the sound of his handset/headset being dropped. Filtering her bias out, we only know that it hit the ground. He could have put it thrown it there or it could have been knocked there. If we are to believe Zimmers, Trayvon probably threw it there right before he opened a can.
See, the stuff in the strike-through text is more like what I would expect from your or any other normal person.
But, based on his girlfriend's account, Zimmerman may not have flashed the gun from the beginning as Trayvon did not seem to mention it to his GF.
Oh, okay. You already know my thoughts on that, so I won't repeat. But I thought "it" could mean 3 different things:
1. The Florida laws possibly being in favor of Zimmerman.
2. Zimmerman's supposed vigilantism.
3. Carrying guns around during neighborhood watch confrontations because Florida makes that legal (because it can lead to unnecessary death during confrontations).
A more relevant question is what inimalist thinks US gun laws are like. In my experience people outside of the US tend to think that most laws are like Vermont where you can walk in, pay, and walk out.
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
seems like most people have made up their minds about what happened that night and most are against Zimmerman.
ive argued strongly for Zimmerman but honestly i dont really think im as much for him as i am against the masses of people condeming him without knowing or just ignoring the fact completely.
if some new evidence comes out that shows Zimmerman was completely and utterly at fault or started the fight or something like that ill jump on him along with everyone else but until then i feel like someone has to defend this guy since everyone has pronounced him guilty way before a trial was even in the works
KMC Community Forums
May 31st, 2012 05:52 PM
What's up, dude? I haven't seen you around here, before. Did you just move in to the neighborhood?" Obviously, that is NOT what Zimmerman did. lol Zimmerman was like, "*That's the SoB that has been robbing our houses. That little sh*t. Imma ask him WTF he is doing here.* What are you doing?"
