It's Watch!... Neighborhood Watch. Not shoot.

Whoa, my bad. The sheriffs say do NOT carry while doing neighborhood watch. I quoted the wrong person. Sorry.

 

I would care about someone following a teenager around with a gun and creating a confrontation. Yes. I doubt I would have heard about it, but if I had, it would bother me. As to the degree ... I care about news. I debate news. This is news. If that other hypothetical you bring up makes the news, then yes. But I do love this act guys like you pull when you look at THE REAL VICTIMS here. We have a real victim that you don't seem to care about, but you care about all the hypothetical victims. Nice of you.

I have been saying from the beginning that this was going to end in no conviction. The lollygagging at the start of the investigation and the absurdity of the Stand Your Ground law are an impossible one-two punch to overcome.

 

They will go after the association big policy or not

 

"Do not want" is nowhere near the same thing as "prohibited".

 

See, now you're painting me with a broad brush. How do you know what I care about? Where are my personal feelings in any of these posts? I'm speaking from facts, and I think we both agree that there won't be a conviction because the prosecution over tried the case. They should have gone with manslaughter and he'd be serving 20 years.

FOR THE RECORD, I could give two shits about George Zimmerman. I don't like him. I don't like guys like him. He's a wannabe cop. I've never not felt that way.

At the same time, I don't care about Trayvon Martin. I don't know him. Do I have empathy for what his parents went through? Sure, but a part of me also questions how his father doesn't realize until the next day that his son who went out for skittles and ice tea never showed up. And we keep hearing that Trayvon was just a few yards away from his apartment but his dad never heard anything? Something is not adding up there.

You are doing the same thing everybody else is doing with this case, you are thinking because a person is arguing one side over the other that the person automatically aligns themselves emotionally with that side.

Frankly, for the sake of peace, it would be better if Zimmerman was convicted, got the chair and they held a televised execution. Fortunately, we live in a country that doesn't allow the court of public opinion and public pressure make those rulings anymore. And unfortunately for those people wanting #JusticeForTrayvon, the law as it stands and the prosecution's case will not lead to the result they're hoping to achieve.

 

Again, according to who?

 

Tough to prohibit something like that. But it's pretty clear the sheriffs' stance on the matter.

 

So what?

 

So, Zimmerman shouldn't have been packing while on patrol.

Of course, that's a bit of a moot point since he claims he was en route to the grocery store when he spotted Martin. Now why he thought he needed to pack to buy groceries is beyond me - and I say that as somebody with a CCL.

 

Just curious, why do you have a CCL if you don't carry? I have friends (most of them are police officers, though) that have CCW permits and they're always carrying.

 

Do carry on occasion.

I own some rural hunting property that is about an hour from the nearest city. When I go there to work on tree stands or the cabin or to putter around on the tractor cutting hay, I carry. Partly as self-protection if there are any human dangers out in the backwoods (we've had some incidents with poachers and one case of arson) but mainly to deal with wildlife threats.

But running to the nearest grocery store for a gallon of milk? I'll have a pocket knife, but not a pistol.

 

Why is it that some people are so focused on the fact that Zimmerman "followed" or "stalked" or whatever the fuck he did to Martin, and yet at the same time ignore the fact that Martin was the one who initiated the physical confrontation by attacking Zimmerman?

Was Zimmerman out of line and overzealous in carrying out the duties of a Neighborhood Watch captain? Yes. I think everyone on both sides has accepted that this was the case.

Did that overzealousness mean that he was forced to just lay there and take his ass whipping, accepting the risk that Martin would keep pummeling his ass until he was dead? Despite Smallpotatoes' assertions in the affirmative, I'd have to say no, it doesn't mean that at all.

I feel awful for Martin's parents. As the father of a 16-year-old boy, I'd obviously be devastated if he was shot and killed under any circumstances. Their lives will never be the same because of this completely unavoidable tragedy. But my empathy for them doesn't mean I think Zimmerman should go to jail for defending himself.

I just don't see where the prosecution has provided any justification whatsoever for Martin's initial act of aggression, which is what started the fight that led to the struggle for the gun that ended with Martin getting shot.

So unless the jury abandons the law and decides the case on a combination of emotion and fear of Rodney King-style post-trial violence, I can't see any way Zimmerman gets convicted.

Either way, nothing but losers in this case.