Do you think Zimmerman will be convicted of murder?

Trayvon Martin shooting: Shame on the NRA and its newest poster child, George Zimmerman
Another guy in America who should never have been allowed to carry a gun
by Mike Lupica
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
April 13, 2012

Officially the National Rifle Association convention is not supposed to begin until Friday, at the America’s Center of St. Louis, Mo. But really the NRA convention began Thursday in a courtroom in Sanford, Fla., its keynote speech delivered by a man in a jail jumpsuit who barely said a word.

His name is George Zimmerman and he is not just the face of the NRA in this country, he is the face of gun laws built on the fears and paranoia of the gun lovers in the NRA, the ones who have made a mockery of the Second Amendment. His name is George Zimmerman and in all the big ways he is the darling of the NRA, which wants the whole country to shoot first and ask questions later.

And if an unarmed 17-year old kid ends up dead in the street, well, that’s just the cost of doing business.

Zimmerman: Another guy in America who should never have been allowed to carry a gun but sure had one the night he shot Trayvon Martin. A guy who finally got arrested for murder because a brave Florida prosecutor decided George Zimmerman wasn’t allowed to hide behind one of those Stand Your Ground laws that have become a better license to kill than James Bond ever had.

Mayor Bloomberg was talking about laws like that again yesterday, one day after delivering a speech in Washington that was the biggest and best speech any major American politician has ever given on the subject of guns.

“These laws are vigilantism masquerading as self-defense, and getting 25 states to pass them is one of the best con jobs the NRA’s leaders have ever pulled off,” Bloomberg said. “They don’t give a damn whether innocent people are shot and killed. And they don’t give a damn about the integrity of the American justice system. They want to create a nation where disputes are settled by guns instead of gavels, and where suspects are shot by civilians instead of arrested by police. These laws destabilize our justice system, they degrade our society, and they destroy innocent lives. We can’t be silent — and we can’t let them stand.”

And here is what Bloomberg said on Wednesday at the National Press Club, on the day when he and national African-American leaders announced a new partnership to reform or repeal shoot-first laws now on the books in Florida and 24 other states:

“The NRA’s leaders weren’t interested in public safety. They were interested in promoting a culture where people take the law into their own hands and face no consequences for it. Let’s call that by its real name: vigilantism.”

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are still expected to show up in St. Louis this weekend, become two more major American politicians genuflecting in front of the NRA. The President? He talks a good game about how a son of his might have looked like Trayvon Martin. But when does he stand up on shoot-first laws the way Bloomberg has? Maybe the answer is simple enough: Obama is still running for something.

Always the NRA’s game is to spend money trying to defeat those who call them out for being the high-class gunrunners and phony patriots they are. But Bloomberg, in his last term as mayor of New York, isn’t running for anything. It is why he doesn’t run away from the NRA, or run to it for a pat on the head the way a parade of politicians will this weekend in St. Louis. You better believe gun lobbyists in Washington spread around a lot of money. Bloomberg has more.

So at a time when the NRA peddles fear as a way of weakening laws and arming people like Zimmerman who then go take the law into their own hands — the NRA’s slogan really should be “more fear, more guns” — Bloomberg isn’t afraid. Again you wonder who raises a voice this way when Bloomberg is no longer the mayor of the biggest and most important city in the country.

Bloomberg, so much smarter than these hicks from out of town who want to make him out to be some kind of Socialist, liberal big-city sissy, is smart enough to know that this case in Florida will be as much about Stand Your Ground as it is about a dead teenager, shot by a wanna-be neighborhood cop who ignored the police dispatcher telling him to get out of there and leave the kid alone.

“Florida was the NRA’s first target (for Stand Your Ground),” Bloomberg said in Washington Wednesday.

Florida was the first target. Now unarmed teenagers are targets. The NRA convention really did begin in Florida Thursday, the convention’s real headliner in handcuffs, another trigger-happy Second Amendment guy now charged with second-degree murder....
...Just another shooter in handcuffs not looking nearly as tough without his gun

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/trayvon-martin-shooting-shame-nra-newest-poster-child-george-zimmerman-article-1.1061033#ixzz1v2cgTaQP

The business of the NRA is to make money for the NRA.

were they carrying skittles and iced tea?

Quote:

By the way Firefly in your desire to change the self defense laws I assume you are for also for changing the laws in Florida that it is legal to used deadly force to stop a rape if need be?

Interesting story along such lines:

http://www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com/2012/05/impunity-for-criminals-and-disarmament.html

Story is about Brazil, where people are not allowed to own firearms, and rape is a way of life...

Quote:

In Brazil, here is what happens, according to several Brazilian newspapers:

Gazeta Digital of April 29, 2012: Man invades a house and rapes a 21 year-old woman, in Cuiabá. The crime happened Sunday morning (29). After the victim’s husband left for work, the robber took advantage to enter in the house. According to the police, he raped the woman and fled taking a cell phone, a notebook and a wallet.
Impacto of January 10, 2012: Attacker invades a residence and rapes a 13 year-old girl.
Repórter MT of December 1, 2011: Gang invades a house, ties husband and rapes his wife: Four armed men tortured the wealthy Ávila family on Wednesday night (30). According to the Civil Police, the criminals, besides robbing the family, raped the lady of the house, during the robbery. A female cousin of the family was able to flee from the group, which had also tried to rape her.
Guia Campina of April 18, 2012: Woman was overtaken by a robber inside of her room, and was raped. The police have not be able to identify the man who invaded a house this Wednesday at dawn, where he attacked and raped a woman and later fled taking a bicycle, money and some objects. The woman told the police that she was sleeping in her bedroom with their three children when she was overtaken by a stranger who attacked her armed with a machete and forced her to have sexual relations with him. Her husband was working in a factory.
MidiaMaxNews of February 28, 2012: Two young women, one 14 and the other 24, were raped by a man who invaded the house where they live about 3:40 on Monday.
90% of all of homicides in Brazil unsolved

In Google, I found countless cases of Brazilian girls and women raped at night by robbers who invaded their houses. When an attacker invades a house at night and finds a man, the robbery may be followed by murder. But when the victim is a woman alone, whose husband is working, rape is inevitable.
And a poor and defenseless woman cannot even utter complain to the criminals, who have total freedom to torture, rape and kill. If the criminal chooses to kill the victim, the police can do very little, before or after the murder. The Brazilian police have been powerless in their efforts to stop more than 50 thousand murders a year — not to mention untold thousands of rapes.
About 90% of the cases of homicides committed in Brazil are never solved and their perpetrators are never found guilty, according to the president of the National Association of the Federal Criminal Experts, Hélio Buchmüller. That is, 90% of murders in Brazil go unpunished.
Who can say that in cases of rape even more go unpunished?
It is obvious that the government-sponsored media and the government itself educate the population to trust only in the police for protection. Thus, if a robber suddenly invades the home of a young woman in the middle of the night, she should kindly ask for his permission to call the police. If the criminal is kind, both may remain seated on a sofa awaiting the police. Certainly, the end will be very happy and no rape will happen!
Maybe the anti-gun government should launch a public campaign to educate criminals to allow their victims to call the police during robberies, rapes and murders. This would greatly help the police and victims.
Sadly, criminals will never pay attention to government anti-gun campaigns, or campaigns demanding that criminals be kind to their victims. They will never give their victims a chance. And the Brazilian police, with their overload of crime cases to solve, could never afford to respond quickly to all emergencies.
So what should a victim do to defend herself?......

The article goes on to describe the different culture in the US and how that impacts the occupational safety of criminals (like Trayvon Martin) in this country...

How bad is gun crime in the US? The latest data from the FBI's uniform crime reports is out and it provides a fascinating picture of the use of firearms in crimes across America.

At the beginning of the year the shooting spree in Tucson, Arizona, that targeted congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords left six dead, including a nine-year-old child. But since then, the issue has been given scant attention.

However, the figures themselves are astounding for Brits used to around 600 murders per year. In 2010 - the latest year for which detailed statistics are available - there were 12,996 murders in the US. Of those, 8,775 were caused by firearms.

The FBI crime statistics are based on reports to FBI bureau and local law enforcement. The figures are not complete - there are no stats for Florida on firearm murders and the data for Illinois is "incomplete". But even so it provides a detailed picture of attacks by state.

However, the figures themselves are astounding for Brits used to around 600 murders per year. In 2010 - the latest year for which detailed statistics are available - there were 12,996 murders in the US. Of those, 8,775 were caused by firearms.

All meaningful statistics in the US indicate that private ownership of firearms and things like concealed carry licenses reduce crime substantially.

Gun control keeps guns out of the hands of violent criminals
far more successfully than your free for all.

How bad is gun crime in the US? The latest data from the FBI's uniform crime reports is out and it provides a fascinating picture of the use of firearms in crimes across America.

At the beginning of the year the shooting spree in Tucson, Arizona, that targeted congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords left six dead, including a nine-year-old child. But since then, the issue has been given scant attention.

However, the figures themselves are astounding for Brits used to around 600 murders per year. In 2010 - the latest year for which detailed statistics are available - there were 12,996 murders in the US. Of those, 8,775 were caused by firearms.

The FBI crime statistics are based on reports to FBI bureau and local law enforcement. The figures are not complete - there are no stats for Florida on firearm murders and the data for Illinois is "incomplete". But even so it provides a detailed picture of attacks by state.

All meaningful statistics in the US indicate that private ownership of firearms and things like concealed carry licenses reduce crime substantially.

However, the figures themselves are astounding for Brits used to around 600 murders per year. In 2010 - the latest year for which detailed statistics are available - there were 12,996 murders in the US. Of those, 8,775 were caused by firearms. [How many were "CAUSED by" swords?
How many were "CAUSED by" rocks?
How many were "CAUSED by" bathtubs??]

That's wrong, Poop. None of those murders were caused by firearms and none of them would have been prevented by limiting access to firearms for normal, honest people. All meaningful statistics in the US indicate that private ownership of firearms and things like concealed carry licenses reduce crime substantially.

The purpose of licensure is government-sponsored DISCRIMINATION
as to who has the legal right to fight back when violently attacked, and who is not good enuf for that.
It is glaringly unConstitutional.

All meaningful statistics in the US indicate that private ownership of firearms and things like concealed carry licenses reduce crime substantially.

Exactly which kinds of crimes are "substantially" reduced by private ownership of firearms
and concealed carry licenses?


I'd like to see your "meaningful statistics" on those types of crimes.

Most societies acknowledge the fact that licensing of firearms works to minimise gun-related crime. This is where the position of the USA is unique and intriguing. The right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the Second Amendment of the USA Constitution. During the 1990s, firearm policy in the USA resulted in laws making legal access to guns easier. Not only is it now easier to buy a gun in the USA but there are laws in place enabling Americans to carry concealed handguns in public. The powerful pro-gun lobby in the USA argues that wider access to guns enhances public safety and the carrying of guns by the public has a deterrent effect on violent crime (Lott & Mustard, 1997). The main aim of US policy is to prevent guns falling into the wrong hands. The policy of the British government, however, has been to reduce the number of guns in circulation thereby hoping that less will be available for criminal use. Over the years there have been many amendments to UK gun licensing law, with the result that we now have the most stringent controls in the world. The statistic that the UK has approximately 400 firearm deaths per year (7 deaths per million population) as opposed to about 30 000 in the USA (106 deaths per million) suggests that the UK approach may work. Amendments to UK gun laws, however, have made interpretation and operation of the current law complicated, so that in 2002 the Home Office produced guidance to the police on firearms law (Home Office, 2002).