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Now consider what happened when George Zimmerman gunned down 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. It was the same scenario described above but the victim was a black kid and the shooter was not black. Now, before you go ballistic about me playing the race card here, let me make something very clear. In the thought experiment, I set it up so that a black man shoots an unarmed privileged and connected white boy and ask you to imagine the outcome. You did not seriously consider that the police would say “oh, OK” on hearing that it was self defense, letting the guy go. No one with two neurons to rub together would ever consider that as a possibility. It does not matter if George Zimmerman was acting in a racist manner or not for this to be a racial problem. When the black man is the perp, he receives the full attention of the police force and suffers the full weight of the law, plus more, and there is sometimes a death sentence without justice. When the perp is a white man something more like real justice happens. That is racism. <\/p>\n
There are two possible reasons that George Zimmerman did not get arrested for having committed the murder of Trayvon Martin. One is that this is truly a racial event, and the local police saw this as one of their own putting down a black boy. Zimmerman did say to the cop something like “These assholes are always getting away.” This time, the asshole did not get away. The other possibility is that Zimmerman is not being held responsible for what he did because of the NRA, the gun lobby, and the political activism and campaign donations of the gun-nut community and their unabashed political power. This would be because Zimmerman was (according to some) exercising his right to “stand his ground” under Florida’s relatively new “stand your ground” law. <\/p>\n
The “stand your ground” law removes the time honored rule codified in many laws and clarified in many court cases that you must beat a retreat if threatened, and allow the authorities to take over for you. The “stand your ground law” was passed in Florida and has been considered in many other states because, it is said, the police will never arrive on time to save or protect you, so you better be able to carry a firearm and shoot when you feel threatened. So far, I don’t know of any cases where someone has properly acted to “stand his ground” though there are numerous cases where people violently attacked others–using firearms or not–in public places, in states where lots of people carry firearms legally and demand to do so in order to defend themselves or others from felonious violence, where there was not any citizen response of any kind. And now, we have a case of a person “standing his ground” by stalking, running down, and executing a young man who’s only crime was that he liked skittles. And, this case happens where even if the young man who was murdered in cold blood was actually committing a crime, the police could have easily gotten there in time and dealt with him. (I note, based on a comment by Gwen on another post, that Zimmerman had called the police about once a day for several weeks prior to this event, reporting suspicious activity, clearly showing some sort of mental derangement. Clearly he should not have been permitted to own a gun and he should have been charged long earlier for abusing the 911 system. One wonders if he was linked to the police force some way, via friendship or family ties.)<\/p>\n
Both of these–racism or gun nuttery–could apply at the same time, of course. Zimmerman could have acted in a racist manner. Perhaps he had been looking for a black kid to execute. Or, perhaps he’s just a vigilante who had been looking for a chance to gun down anyone handy. Or, perhaps the latter applies to him generally, but the former was opportune; if you shoot a black kid to death, the local police would be less concerned than, say, if the scenario in the thought experiment (above) had played out. In truth, we can’t separate the issues of gun violence and overzealous worship of guns and gun ownership from the issue of race and racism. For the most part, “right to carry” and “stand your ground” and “castle defense” and “you can pry my guns out of my cold dead hands” attitudes and arguments are white, and often over-white, as in white supremacist, racist, and rather tea-flavored, if you catch my drift.<\/p>\n
It is utterly astonishing that Zimmerman has yet to be arrested, even after this incident has received national, and negative, attention. Perhaps something violent has to happen. Perhaps some white kids have to get popped, or a downtown business district burned to the ground, or a half dozen police cars torched and tipped over. I hope not. I hope the authorities act quickly to bring this matter to a close, and then, that state legislatures around the country that have passed “Stand your ground” or similar gun-nut favoring laws undo their idiotic decisions, and those considering such legislation drop the matter. Also, I hope we all recognize that the gun lobby has lost a lot of ground on this one. This event shows the gun nuts for what they are, and it shows what happens when they get their way. <\/p>\n
I personally don’t have a problem with well regulated gun ownership (which this event in Florida is not an example of!) but I do think that the Second Amendment needs to be repealed, because it gives the pro-gun lobby cachet they can never earn on their morals. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I want you to do a little thought experiment. Don’t worry, if you have had a long day and your brain is tired, it won’t be too hard. If you’re a Teabagger and are not very smart, it won’t be too hard. If you’re a middle class white person with concerns about brown people moving … Continue reading Stand Your Ground, Racism, and the Second Amendment<\/span>