44
   

Florida's Stand your Ground law

 
 
ehBeth
 
  2  
Reply Tue 17 Apr, 2012 02:05 pm
@OmSigDAVID,
Call it whatever you need to, to make yourself feel good about yourself.
DrewDad
 
  7  
Reply Tue 17 Apr, 2012 02:38 pm
@ehBeth,
A clear case of cognitive dissonance.

David's entire self portrait is built on the premise that carrying a gun is a smart thing to do.

If other people who carry guns do stupid things, then that would mean that carrying a gun doesn't automatically make him smart, and that is intolerable.

Therefore, Zimmerman must have done the right thing, no matter what knots Davids psyche has to twist itself into.
dlowan
 
  2  
Reply Tue 17 Apr, 2012 04:30 pm
@izzythepush,
Oh great.....this gets crazier and crazier. Hordes of paranoid people with guns and nobody to be paranoid about. That's a vacuum of sorts.
izzythepush
 
  2  
Reply Tue 17 Apr, 2012 04:43 pm
@dlowan,
I know, it's a good article because it explains a lot to the non-American, but I don't think I will ever understand them. I'm just pleased I live next door to a lovely Moslem couple, and not a member of the NRA.
0 Replies
 
Baldimo
 
  -1  
Reply Tue 17 Apr, 2012 04:51 pm
@sozobe,
We know from the police footage that Zimmerman has wounds on the back of his head.
snood
 
  5  
Reply Tue 17 Apr, 2012 04:53 pm
@DrewDad,
DrewDad wrote:

A clear case of cognitive dissonance.

David's entire self portrait is built on the premise that carrying a gun is a smart thing to do.

If other people who carry guns do stupid things, then that would mean that carrying a gun doesn't automatically make him smart, and that is intolerable.

Therefore, Zimmerman must have done the right thing, no matter what knots Davids psyche has to twist itself into.


Just dissonance. Nothing cognitive there.
0 Replies
 
FreeDuck
 
  6  
Reply Tue 17 Apr, 2012 05:31 pm
@Baldimo,
Based on the footage, it wasn't much of a wound. Given that he was treated by paramedics but the wound wasn't even bandaged, it hardly seems like he was subject to a beating severe enough that someone would need to shoot their way out of it.
Baldimo
 
  -1  
Reply Tue 17 Apr, 2012 05:37 pm
@FreeDuck,
You know this how? I find all of this laughable. Before the footage you guys swore up and down that he wasn't attacked and he did it because he was a racist.

Now that more facts are coming out you have to change your position. Well he was attacked but it wasn't bad enough to warrant shooting him. Once the audio tapes came out proving that he didn't use a racial slut the story changed again to "hes a loose cannon". Since you guys have been wrong about this from the start, don't you think your done putting your foot in your mouth?
DrewDad
 
  4  
Reply Tue 17 Apr, 2012 05:57 pm
@Baldimo,
I've only seen the one image, which I don't find compelling at this point.

It was "enhanced," which means that artifacts can be introduced. "Enhanced" explicitly means that the image was manipulated.
Baldimo
 
  -1  
Reply Tue 17 Apr, 2012 06:05 pm
@DrewDad,
You mean it was enhanced after it was torn down. The original footage was altered so that it could be put out over the internet. Your still one of those people who has to change your whole story. Zimmerman didn't use a racial slur and he was attacked. The cut on the back of his head is a few inch's long.

The only reason you don't find it compelling is because it doesn't fit your narrative of what happened.
sozobe
 
  5  
Reply Tue 17 Apr, 2012 06:10 pm
@Baldimo,
What? No.

I saw the original footage, it was fine but not very high-res and you just couldn't tell if Zimmerman had any injuries. It didn't look like it.

He also was walking normally/ comfortably, was in no apparent pain.

The enhanced video footage showed what may or may not be a wound. But as DrewDad says, it was enhanced (contrast kicked up, etc.). The apparent wound may just be distortions.

At any rate, if he did have a broken nose and other wounds, it really seems like there would be more evidence than messed-with video.

Why not take a photo of it?

Perhaps this will come out in court. But it's far from conclusive right now.
0 Replies
 
FreeDuck
 
  4  
Reply Tue 17 Apr, 2012 06:14 pm
@Baldimo,
Baldimo wrote:

You know this how?

By looking at the footage. Isn't that why you brought the footage up?


Quote:
I find all of this laughable. Before the footage you guys swore up and down that he wasn't attacked and he did it because he was a racist.

Now that more facts are coming out you have to change your position. Well he was attacked but it wasn't bad enough to warrant shooting him. Once the audio tapes came out proving that he didn't use a racial slut the story changed again to "hes a loose cannon". Since you guys have been wrong about this from the start, don't you think your done putting your foot in your mouth?

I don't know who "you guys" are and will assume you were using a response to me to address others. Otherwise I would point out that you must not have read my posts on the subject. But a wound on the back of his head doesn't prove he was attacked. It was known from the beginning that there was a fight between them. Since he's the only one alive to tell the story we will probably never know who initiated the physical confrontation.

But as long as we are talking about changing positions, more than one conservative, gun-loving poster had very reasonable things to say about this incident in the beginning. Then the white supremacist sites posted some fake pictures of a kid they said was Trayvon making gang signs and faked some twitter posts and suddenly Zimmerman became a victim. Before you guys got the memo you were pretty thoughtful about it. But now you've been told what to think about it and you really believe that night is day.

The man who initiated the whole situation, brought the gun to the fist fight, confronted a kid after being told directly not to and having been trained not to confront as part of the neighborhood watch training at the Sanford police department (that's all on the Sanford city website in case you think I'm pulling it out of my ass), who had 11 years of life (and probably at least 50 lbs.) more than the victim to develop better judgment... that guy is the victim in this situation and a 17 year old kid who had no weapon and no knowledge of why a guy with a gun was following him and nothing but his fists to defend himself is the aggressor? That's the position you want to take? Everything else is just noise.

Any one of us could be wrong at any given time about any detail in this case since none of us were there. But the basic facts remain: a man with a gun followed an unarmed kid and that kid, who posed no threat to him, ended up dead. There is no reason why this case should have turned in to a political left/right football but it did.

On a side note, I am very happy to know that he didn't use a racial slut. Wink
OmSigDAVID
 
  -4  
Reply Tue 17 Apr, 2012 07:23 pm
@FreeDuck,
FreeDuck wrote:
I am very happy to know that he didn't use a racial slut. Wink
Every slut has a race, right ?
0 Replies
 
BumbleBeeBoogie
 
  3  
Reply Thu 19 Apr, 2012 01:37 pm
@FreeDuck,
Florida Governor Appoints Task Force To Review 'Stand Your Ground' Law
April 19, 2012
by Eyder Peralta - npr

Florida Gov. Rick Scott appointed a task force on Thursday charged with reviewing the state's gun laws, including the so-called "stand your ground law," that came into controversial focus after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

As we've explained, the law, passed in 2005, got "rid of the English Law concept of 'duty to retreat' from a situation that is dangerous outside your home." The law will likely play a central role in the case against George Zimmerman, the man charged with killing Martin.

The Miami Herald reports that the governor's task force includes law enforcement officials, legal experts and politicians, including the representative who sponsored the law. The governor also appointed his lieutenant, Jennifer Carroll, as the 17-member panel's leader.

The New York Times adds:

"'We are not walking into this with any preconceived notions,' said Governor Scott, a Republican, who announced in March that he would appoint a panel to address concerns raised over how the criminal justice system responded to Mr. Martin's killing. He said part of the task force's job would be to examine data that has been gathered since the Stand Your Ground law was enacted in 2005.

"It was Governor Scott who appointed Angela B. Corey as special prosecutor to handle the Martin case after Seminole County's state attorney stepped aside.

"The Stand Your Ground law was cited as a factor in the decision by the Sanford, Fla., police to not immediately arrest George Zimmerman, 28, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot Mr. Martin as he walked home from a convenience store through a gated community. Mr. Zimmerman told police that he shot Mr. Martin, who was unarmed, in self-defense."

Back in 2010, The Tampa Bay Times looked at the law and found that reports of "justifiable homicides tripled after the law went into effect."

The Tallahassee Democrat reports the group is set to meet for the first time on May 1.
sozobe
 
  1  
Reply Thu 19 Apr, 2012 01:42 pm
@BumbleBeeBoogie,
Good news.
0 Replies
 
snood
 
  5  
Reply Thu 19 Apr, 2012 07:44 pm
For those of you still following this case without trying to grind any particular axe, this is a pretty dispassionate analysis of the Martin case that frames the relevant issues quite well, in my opinion. It is useful, especially with the constantly clanging voices of those entrenched on one side or the other, to read something like this just to remember what's at stake in this case.

http://www.thenation.com/article/167455/real-injustice-heart-trayvon-martin-case

At first there was near-unanimity of outrage and dismay. But in recent weeks, the polls reveal that Americans’ attitudes about the killing of Trayvon Martin have become starkly divided by race and party politics: eight in ten blacks say Martin’s killing was not justified, compared with just 38 percent of whites. Meanwhile, 56 percent of Republicans believe that there has been “too much coverage” in the media, as opposed to 25 percent of Democrats. There are plenty of theories to explain this shift, but surely one driver is that we seem to have stopped talking about the case itself and unconsciously substituted for it our usual litany of social anxieties.

It’s curious that so many discussions take an inevitable turn that is prefaced by: “Why aren’t we talking about…” The list of what we supposedly aren’t talking about is long and predictably partisan: gun culture in America; racially disparate rates of arrest and incarceration; “race card” playing; media as circus; statistics about “black-on-black crime”; school shootings as exemplary of “white-on-white” crime; “reverse racism”; high- and low-tech lynchings; Prohibition-era gangsters versus drug-prohibition-era “gangstas”; hoodies as exuding a nefarious life of their own; profiled presumptions-of-guilt as trumping constitutional presumptions-of-innocence; the propriety of shadowy organizations like ALEC crafting, funding and proselytizing for Stand Your Ground laws nationwide; whether Hispanics are white; and whether President Obama’s putative son does or does not look like Newt Gingrich’s putative son. These may be worthy issues, but they have drifted our focus away from how specific facts about the Martin case intersect with the specific peculiarities of Florida law. Given that George Zimmerman now faces trial, now is a good time to remind ourselves what this case is actually about.

Here’s the relevant text of Florida Statutes Chapter 776: “A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if: …He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another.” Any person who does have such reasonable apprehension is “immune from criminal prosecution and civil action.” However, this immunity is not available to one who “initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself.”

Thus framed, the issues are relatively simple: Was Zimmerman’s belief that his life was in danger a reasonable one? Was his admitted pursuit of Martin “necessary to defend himself”? And did his admitted initiation of the encounter provoke use of force by Martin? These are questions of fact, now properly before a court of law.

What makes the case exceptional is neither race nor the politics of self-defense alone but rather the complete failure to prosecute—or even investigate—before now. Among the many flaws of Stand Your Ground, the standard of reasonable belief is not a warrant for total subjectivity. “Reasonableness” is an objective measure in the law; it refers to a public or community standard, not a privatized state of mind. The reason this case attracted such attention in the first place was the shocking complacency of the Sanford Police Department as enforcers of that standard.

Police failed to follow the most basic procedures for a homicide investigation: Zimmerman was never tested for drugs or alcohol, while Martin’s body was. After sticking him in the morgue, there was no attempt to identify Martin or to notify his family. This was not just sloppy and unprofessional; it flouted basic tenets of our jurisprudence. The police’s facile conclusion that there was nothing to contradict Zimmerman’s account is explicable only on one of two grounds: either they blindly deferred to the word of the confessed killer and thus abandoned any adherence to a community standard; or they instinctively shared Zimmerman’s vision, establishing being frightened to death by a young black man as a reasonable community norm.

Another strange feature of the current debate is the frequent assertion that because there were no witnesses to the shooting, there is “no evidence.” In fact, there is plenty: forensic reports about signs of struggle, the fact that Martin was unarmed, Zimmerman’s 911 call detailing intent to pursue Martin despite police exhortation not to, Martin’s phone conversation with a schoolmate, the voiceprint analysis of cries for help and, of course, Zimmerman’s catalog of at least forty-six prior calls to 911 to report a panoply of misplaced suspicions directed at unidentified others. The fact that this is “circumstantial evidence” does not render it a lesser kind of proof. Most crimes don’t come outfitted with cameras focused on the crime scene, after all, particularly homicides. Nearly all convictions are won by pointing to the irrefutable logic of a picture drawn from largely circumstantial bits and pieces of evidence.

Finally, there are those—particularly our friends at Fox News—who conflate the call for justice with a call to convict. This is a fundamental misapplication of civics. It’s worth repeating: what’s distressing about Martin’s death is that it took so long for his killer’s actions to be interrogated at all. Political philosopher Giorgio Agamben has observed that what distinguishes a state of exception is “not the chaos that precedes order but rather the situation that results from its suspension.” When law enforcement officers accept—without question—an admitted killer’s assertion that a homicide was justified because “he scared me,” they license open season. Without question.
Ragman
 
  1  
Reply Thu 19 Apr, 2012 07:48 pm
@snood,
Thank you for posting that. I don't mean to be so brief but I'm absoring the info. However, I think the report speaks volumes as it is.
0 Replies
 
Lustig Andrei
 
  1  
Reply Thu 19 Apr, 2012 08:00 pm
@snood,
What Ragman said.
0 Replies
 
JTT
 
  -3  
Reply Thu 19 Apr, 2012 08:31 pm
@snood,
Quote:
The list of what we supposedly aren’t talking about is long and predictably partisan:


No ****, Snood.
snood
 
  2  
Reply Thu 19 Apr, 2012 09:55 pm
@JTT,
JTT wrote:

Quote:
The list of what we supposedly aren’t talking about is long and predictably partisan:


No ****, Snood.


You blithering obdurate idiot. You didn't even read the frikkin article. You make no sense at all, and you're a blight to productive discussion.
0 Replies
 
 

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