Do you think Zimmerman will be convicted of murder?

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.

Will Zimmerman have to testify?

It seems that for any of the absurd narratives in his defense to be presented, he'd have to take the stand wouldn't he?

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.

Introductory Notes

This research is based upon the most recent available data in 2010. Facts from earlier years are cited based upon availability and relevance, not to slant results by singling out specific years that are different from others. Likewise, data associated with the effects of gun control laws in various geographical areas represent random, demographically diverse places in which such data is available.

Many aspects of the gun control issue are best measured and sometimes can only be measured through surveys,[1] but the accuracy of such surveys depends upon respondents providing truthful answers to questions that are sometimes controversial and potentially incriminating.[2] Thus, Just Facts uses such data critically, citing the best-designed surveys we find, detailing their inner workings in our footnotes, and using the most cautious plausible interpretations of the results.

Particularly, when statistics are involved, the determination of what constitutes a credible fact (and what does not) can contain elements of personal subjectivity. It is our mission to minimize subjective information and to provide highly factual content. Therefore, we are taking the additional step of providing readers with four examples to illustrate the type of material that was excluded because it did not meet Just Facts' Standards of Credibility.

Crime and Self-Defense

* Roughly 16,272 murders were committed in the United States during 2008. Of these, about 10,886 or 67% were committed with firearms.[11]

* A 1993 nationwide survey of 4,977 households found that over the previous five years, at least 0.5% of households had members who had used a gun for defense during a situation in which they thought someone "almost certainly would have been killed" if they "had not used a gun for protection." Applied to the U.S. population, this amounts to 162,000 such incidents per year. This figure excludes all "military service, police work, or work as a security guard."[12]

* Based on survey data from the U.S. Department of Justice, roughly 5,340,000 violent crimes were committed in the United States during 2008. These include simple/aggravated assaults, robberies, sexual assaults, rapes, and murders.[13] [14] [15] Of these, about 436,000 or 8% were committed by offenders visibly armed with a gun.[16]

* Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology,[17] U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year.[18]

* A 1993 nationwide survey of 4,977 households found that over the previous five years, at least 3.5% of households had members who had used a gun "for self-protection or for the protection of property at home, work, or elsewhere." Applied to the U.S. population, this amounts to 1,029,615 such incidents per year. This figure excludes all "military service, police work, or work as a security guard."[19]

* A 1994 survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Americans use guns to frighten away intruders who are breaking into their homes about 498,000 times per year.[20]

* A 1982 survey of male felons in 11 state prisons dispersed across the U.S. found:[21]

• 34% had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"

• 40% had decided not to commit a crime because they "knew or believed that the victim was carrying a gun"

• 69% personally knew other criminals who had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"[22]

* Click here to see why the following commonly cited statistic does not meet Just Facts' Standards of Credibility: "In homes with guns, the homicide of a household member is almost 3 times more likely to occur than in homes without guns."

└ Washington, DC

* In 1976, the Washington, D.C. City Council passed a law generally prohibiting residents from possessing handguns and requiring that all firearms in private homes be (1) kept unloaded and (2) rendered temporally inoperable via disassembly or installation of a trigger lock. The law became operative on Sept. 24, 1976.[33] [34]

* On June 26, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, struck down this law as unconstitutional.[35]

* During the years in which the D.C. handgun ban and trigger lock law was in effect, the Washington, D.C. murder rate averaged 73% higher than it was at the outset of the law, while the U.S. murder rate averaged 11% lower.[37]

Britain

* In 1920, Britain passed a law requiring civilians to obtain a certificate from their district police chief in order to purchase or possess any firearm except a shotgun. To obtain this certificate, the applicant had to pay a fee, and the chief of police had to be "satisfied" that the applicant had "good reason for requiring such a certificate" and did not pose a "danger to the public safety or to the peace." The certificate had to specify the types and quantities of firearms and ammunition that the applicant could purchase and keep.[38]

* In 1968, Britain made the 1920 law stricter by requiring civilians to obtain a certificate from their district police chief in order to purchase or possess a shotgun. This law also required that firearm certificates specify the identification numbers ("if known") of all firearms and shotguns owned by the applicant.[39]

* In 1997, Britain passed a law requiring civilians to surrender almost all privately owned handguns to the police. More than 162,000 handguns and 1.5 million pounds of ammunition were "compulsorily surrendered" by February 1998. Using "records of firearms held on firearms certificates," police accounted for all but fewer than eight of all legally owned handguns in England, Scotland, and Wales.[40]

† Homicide data is published according to the years in which the police initially reported the offenses as homicides, which are not always the same years in which the incidents took place.
‡ Large anomalies unrelated to guns:
2000: 58 Chinese people suffocated to death in a shipping container en route to the UK
2002: 172 homicides reported when Dr. Harold Shipman was exposed for killing his patients
2003: 20 cockle pickers drowned resulting in manslaughter charges
2005: 52 people were killed in the July 7th London subway/bus bombings
[41]

* Not counting the above-listed anomalies, the British homicide rate has averaged 52% higher since the outset of the 1968 gun control law and 15% higher since the outset of the 1997 handgun ban.[42]

Yeah, I can. A few dodgy [??] geezers used to drink in a pub near me,
none of them could get hold of guns,

or wouldn't take the risk of having an automatic jail term.

I'm not naming any names though, but that's as good as your evidence.
Here's another quotation for you.

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).

Remember Jared Loughner--he shot Rep. Giffords, and killed 6 other people...with a legal gun.

He's so crazy they still haven't declared him competent to stand trial.

Why do physicians ask patients about gun ownership?

1. You have a reasonable chance of shooting yourself:
Between June 1, 1992, to May 31, 1994 about 34,485 accidentally injured themselves non-fatally with a firearm. This averages out to about 18,000 non-fatal injuries a year.

2. If you manage to not shoot yourself, you have a reasonable chance of harming yourself with the gun anyways:
Not counting those who shot themselves, about sixteen-thousand people injury themselves with firearms each year in the United States sufficiently to require a visit to the emergency room. Usually these injuries were the result of the routine handling of firearms, with 43% from recoil.

3. About half of children unintentionally shot are shot in their own homes, with their parents own gun. Another 40% are shot in the house of a friend or relative. To those of you working through the math, 90% of children injured by firearms are injured by a parent, relative or friend's gun.

This Issue Brief... supports earlier findings that people with guns in their homes appear to increase their risk of being shot fatally (intentionally or unintentionally) or taking their own life with a gun.

Statistics are reviewed which show that a gun in the home is far more likely to lead to the death or injury of a family member or friend than to the death of an intruder. Data on victimizations and the use of firearms for self defense are then examined for the crimes of burglary, robbery, assault, and rape. In each case the effectiveness of guns in preventing or deterring the crime is analyzed, and compared to the effectiveness of other self defense methods. The data presented in this report indicate that private handgun ownership provides no significant deterrent to burglary and violent crime. It may, in fact, escalate the severity of the violence if offenders believe they must be more heavily armed than the citizenry. The statistics also showed that the use of a weapon in resistance to a criminal attack usually results in greater probability of bodily injury or death to the victim. Other methods of resistance, such as flight or verbal resistance, were found to be more effective in aborting the crime while having less probability of causing harm or death to the victim. In circumstances where the offender is armed, non-resistance most likely resulted in the minimum amount of harm to the victim. The authors conclude that because of the surprise nature of most violent crime and the fact that it is likely to occur between strangers, it is improbable that the victim would have time to use the handgun in any event. They argue that in light of the risks of handgun ownership - the possibility of escalating the violence of the crime, and the risk of accidents and suicides among family members - other safer methods of crime prevention must be adopted.

in the UK there is a drive to ban the sale of large kitchen knives
as such large knives tend to be used between housemates.

Back to the real news. The medical report has been released showing that Zimmerman had a broken nose, 2 black eyes and cuts on his head. Another medical report says that Trayvon had cuts on his knuckles.

Michelle Jacobs, a defense attorney and law professor at the University of Florida, said the reports show there was a fight between the two men but it does not get to the central points of the case: Why did the fight occur, and was the use of deadly force justified?

"He may have gotten injuries, but it could have been because it was Trayvon Martin who feared he was at risk of death or serious bodily injury," Jacobs said. "The injuries themselves do not tell us anything about who initiated the contact. And that's what the case will hinge on."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-05-16/trayvon-zimmerman-medical-report/55022578/1

05/16/2012
TheWashingtonPost
Reports on Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman don’t answer one key question
By Jonathan Capehart

The overriding goal of securing the arrest of George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin was to get this strange case out of the court of public opinion and into a court of law. All of the conjecture and amateur sleuthing that consumed us for more than a month would give way to real police work and rules of evidence. Yesterday, we got our first look at the evidence that both the prosecution and the defense are examining during the discovery process. They fill in some of the holes in the picture from that rainy night on Feb. 26, but the story remains murky, particularly on one key question.

WFTV in Florida reported last night that the autopsy of Trayvon’s body by the medical examiner revealed only two wounds: broken skin on the knuckles and the gunshot wound. As the station’s legal analyst said, this could be a sign of Trayvon defending himself or trying to get away or it could bolster Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense.

Matt Gutman of ABC News got his hands on the medical report filed by Zimmerman’s physician. The neighborhood watch volunteer refused to go to the hospital the night he killed Trayvon, but sought medical attention the day after. According to Gutman, the report showed Zimmerman to have had two black eyes, two cuts on the back of his head, bruising in the upper lip and cheek, lower back pain and a “closed fracture” of his nose.

The report also notes that Zimmerman, who said his head was bashed repeatedly into the sidewalk, was not diagnosed with a concussion. He was also taking Adderall (prescribed for attention deficit disorder) and Temazepam (prescribed for insomnia). But we’ll never know if this played a part in the tragic event because Sanford police didn’t test Zimmerman for drugs or alcohol. They did one on Trayvon, though. He was clean.

The injuries reported would appear to support Zimmerman’s story that he was defending himself against attack from Trayvon. That they were reported by a family physician and not the result of an independent exam taken at the crime scene gives me pause. Remember the video surveillance of Zimmerman arriving at the police station? Sure, a more enhanced version appeared to show the lacerations on the back of his head, but the lack of the appearance of blood on a man who reportedly had his nose broken and shot someone who was on top of him remains puzzling. And to those who would leap on the Zimmerman medical report to exonerate him, keep in mind that the prosecutor had this information and still charged the killer with second-degree murder.

Neither Zimmerman’s medical report nor Trayvon’s autopsy gets us any closer to resolution of the one question that matters. As ABC News legal analyst Dan Abrams put it last night, “Who was the aggressor?” Finding Zimmerman guilty (or not) of the murder charge rests on a jury answering this vital question.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/reports-on-trayvon-martin-and-george-zimmerman-dont-answer-one-key-question/2012/05/16/gIQAoLf2TU_blog.html

1) Between June 1, 1002 to May 31, 1994 .0137% of the population was injured with a firearm.

2) .006% of the population had to visit the emergency room due to firearm injurys that were not life threatening.

3) How can we work the math on this one, when there are no #'s to work with. They make a statement that "about half of children" not a really scientific number then they say "Another 40% are shot". So the final % of children shot is 90% but we don't have any #'s to work with. How many children were unintentionally shot?