Mentions protest...
Prosecutors aren't stupid. They must have known they had a weak case and were unlikely to prevail. I think they were forced to bring it to trial because of the political implications - if they did not at least try, they might be seen as racist.
it's the clear lack of sufficient evidence that ought to be at issue here.Best,Alistair
But just because one non-black guy killed a black guy, everyone goes crazy!!!
The media went crazy and that went a long way to whip up a frenzy amongst those that think the ethnicity of those involved in this case is important.I happen to think it is pathetic, but "man kills man" ain't going to sell any papers.Thal
If Travon's parents had stayed married he would be alive today!
The aggressiveness of his culture didn't help his cause. He could have introduced himself...
To conclude, if murder cannot be proven, Zimmermann cannot be convicted for it, no matter what actually may have happened. That said, the situation is very tragic indeed, for all parties involved.
and a country in which the idiotic concept of ‘race’ (in all ‘races’) is still so very important.
in a country where bearing a gun is but all as normal as bearing clothes, people, for reasons of self-protection, are bound to assume any other person they encounter may have a gun, and have a stance of ‘shoot first, check later’.
if there's also insufficient evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he did this in self-defence, I find it equally suspect that he was not convicted of anything at all and quite worrying in terms of the signals that this may send out.
Oh, and that widespread gun ownership isn’t a good idea.
Imagine you are in your house and an intruder breaks into the house. However, he didn't really break in, since you were an idiot and forgot to lock your door. So there's no evidence that he wasn't invited into your house. Anyway, he's unarmed, but he's also about twice as big as you and could pin you against the wall without lifting a finger and could easily break your neck. So, he's in the house, stealing your sh*t, when you wake up. You grab your gun and slip it in the back of your pants. You walk downstairs and see the guy. Damn, it's your sleazy brother-in-law. He sees you, realizes that you're going to call the police, and runs at you. At this point, you don't know what he's going to do--he might just beat you up so he's got a chance to escape before you can call the police, but you know he knows you recognized him, so that's not looking too good for him, and he also could easily stop you from ever taking another breath, and he's already robbing you, you don't know if he'd be willing to murder (or if he already had murdered) at that point. You lay him full of bullets, he goes down. You call the police. They arrest you, try you for murder, and convict you because you have admitted to killing the guy, and they can think of another, perhaps not equally, but certainly reasonably plausible story for what happened. He came in the house to talk to you about something. He thinks his wife, your sister, is cheating on him, maybe, and he decides to come over, unannounced, to ask for your help and to talk. Do you even have proof that you didn't let him in the house?Plenty of situations where you'd be justified in using self-defense but it'd be impossible to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it was self-defense.
Shooting an unarmed man who you know personally and who didn't actually break in?
Why not shoot one of your good friends, if they threaten to punch you because of a minor altercation too, eh?
You are all wrong!
In-law doesn't imply you know the person well, like them, or consider them good people--I have several blood relatives I wouldn't want in my house. Going into an unlocked house that you do not own without the owner's permission is still "breaking in", even if nothing was broken in the process. And just because you haven't seen a weapon doesn't mean they are unarmed
No, because I trust my friends. There is not a doubt in my mind that if one of my friends knocked me out, I would wake up afterwards. Someone who was robbing me and who I could identify to the police? No, I wouldn't leave that one to chance.
So your personal trust or mistrust is supposed to be adequate grounding to excuse you shooting a man dead?
I was not arguing what the law is, simply stating that A) there are foreseeable situations (whether my example qualifies or not) where one could act in self-defense but not be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was self-defense, and B) that I would feel completely justified in shooting someone under the circumstances I described, whether the law agrees or not.
It sounds that you must live under a system where the accused must prove themselves innocent.
You seem confused. My original comment was a response to Alistair, who said that Zimmerman should have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was self-defense. I posed a reasonably likely situation where one would be justified in using self-defense but it would be impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was self-defense.
What do you think R-forever?
Daaaang he went HAM!!!
I tried google translate, but didn't know where to start.....
hard as a ***edit: appears as though pianostreet doesn't like that last word. Well, hopefully you can guess what it was supposed to be.
and for good reason. if a person's word for circumstances so flimsy were grounds for acquittal, people would generally get to walk away from any one to one murder Scott free. when nobody else is present, you cannot just say you were attacked by an unarmed man so you shot them dead and have that casually accepted. any cold blooded shooting without witnesses (presumably to the front rather than to the back) and where there is no evidence that the person had cause to fear their life (or was even attacked) will be assumed as murder, not as self-defense. if someone lunatic pulls a gun on you, they don't have a right to kill because you've tried to get it off them.
If everybody didnt have such easy gun-access in the USA, the cops wouldnt have be so trigger-happy. This case would likely have been very different then, no matter if there were racist motives or not.
It'd probably take me 6 months to figure out how to get a gun, go through a gun safety course, and get a gun legally in the US. It'd probably take me a month to figure out how to get a gun illegally. Banning guns will not solve our problems.
Texas because there it's against the law not to own a gun...(!)...
Your friend may have "yanked your chain" so to speak
In the south of the US, you get your choices of options. You can have a gun rack, or you can have turn signals. This is so endemic in the culture that even southerners who have turn signals don't use them, as they don't expect them to be there.
It matters, though, when you buy a pickup truck.In the south of the US, you get your choices of options. You can have a gun rack, or you can have turn signals. This is so endemic in the culture that even southerners who have turn signals don't use them, as they don't expect them to be there.
As far as turn signals go it seems that everywhere they are used less and less. Drives me nuts!
I hate to ruin the anti-US pro-Europe circlejerk even more, but it appears as though race is important in certain Euro countries as well. Though, of course, if you were to acknowledge that it exists, you'd be obligated to try and stop it, so perhaps it'd best for your traditional ways to not. It's pretty easy to ignore racism when only 5% of your continent is non-white.hahahahaha
Trevon Martin (Read 3574 times)
