bob,
That's one heck of a neo-racist argument you provided.
George Zimmerman was found not guilty, because the jury had reasonable doubt, that is all.
Zimmerman was found not guilty by reason of justifiable homicide. He freely admitted killing Martin, so the only question for the jury was whether the killing was justified, and they concluded, as they had to, that it was justified per the preponderance of the evidence ? in particular:
- that it was Zimmerman who was screaming for help for more than 40 seconds,
- that it was Zimmerman who sustained defensive injuries consistent with the threat of grave bodily harm or death,
- that an eye witness reported Martin being on top in a manner consistent with Zimmerman's claim of being pinned and pummeled, and
- except for the bullet wound, the only injuries suffered by Martin were two abrasions on his knuckle, offensive injuries.
This body of evidence points clearly to Martin having been lawfully shot and killed while in the commission of a forcible felony upon the shooter.
Many neo-racists more powerful than anyone here have tried to spin a tale in the face of the above undisputable evidence to make Zimmerman appear guilty, including some of the jurors, but none has succeeded. Take your best shot at doing so if you can do better.
It does not equate to some sort of legal proclamation that his account of the incident was 100% the truth.
No one claims that it does, but post-trial logic drives one to the conclusion that Zimmerman's story was at least substantially true. In fact, the trial supported the city police department's and county prosecutor's decisions not to file charges against Zimmerman, as there was insufficient evidence to do so. A corrupt special prosecutor was able to file charges only by side stepping a grand jury, who she knew would not indict, and by filing a perjurious charging affadavit that was accepted by a corrupt judge.
His jury, just like the O.J. Simpson jury and many others, simply found that the prosecution's case as presented was not enough to erase reasonable doubt and convict the accused, nor did they find that the victim was to blame.
Simpson was justifiably tried for murder 1. Zimmerman was, unjustifiably, tried for murder 2 and found not guilty by reason of self defense. Self defense played no role in Simpson's trial.
I believe in FL for a claim of self defense to prevail, the jury must find the claim to be supported by a preponderance of the evidence. In other words, the jury must be at least 50.1% certain that the claim is true. For the claim to be true, the accused must have been under threat of death or great bodily harm via a forcible felony or threat of a forcible felony. Thus, it logically follows that if the jury accepts the claim of self defense, they are by necessity assigning blame of a forcible felony or threat thereof to the one shot hy the accused.
While it may be possible for someone to interpret a non-threatening action as a threat and, as such, be found not guilty by reason of self defense, that is not the case here, because the evidence clearly points to Martin having had been in the commission of a felonious assault. But, feel free to spin a yarn consistent with the evidence that involves an innocent Martin. I enjoy good fiction.
In fact, the only thing the jury said against Martin was that 'he also could have walked away'. That is a far cry from a "felonious assault."
Wrong ? the jury said Zimmerman was not guilty, per the jury instructions, by reason of justifiable homicide.
Saying he "Stupidly bring his fists to a gunfight", is ridiculous. Was the minor supposed to violate the law and bring a gun instead?
Martin was stupid to start a fist fight with a citizen in a jurisdiction where one can carry concealed. That is the take-home lesson here, and the kind of crime concealed carry is meant to deter. When neo-racists look for excuses for Martin, the take-home lesson is lost and society as a whole suffers. Thugs and wanna-be thugs would do well to take the take-home lesson to heart, as should those who value our 2nd Amendment rights and our natural right to self defense.
If "a young male minority (i.e., a member of a group that is responsible for half of all violent crime)" is accurate ?
It is. See, for example:
New Century Foundation, 2005,
The Color of Crime: Race, Crime and Justice in America, 2nd Ed, New Century Foundation, Oakton, VA.
Here are the Foundation's major findings:
- Police and the justice system are not biased against minorities.
Crime Rates- Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery.
- When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife.
- Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate, and Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate.
- The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.
Interracial Crime- Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent.
- Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black.
- Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against
a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.
- Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa.
Gangs- Only 10 percent of youth gang members are white.
- Hispanics are 19 times more likely than whites to be members of youth gangs. Blacks are 15 times more likely, and Asians are nine times more likely.
Incarceration- Between 1980 and 2003 the US incarceration rate more than tripled, from 139 to 482 per 100,000, and the number of prisoners increased from 320,000 to 1.39 million.
- Blacks are seven times more likely to be in prison than whites. Hispanics are three times more likely.
One example of how nefarious neo-racism is can be seen right here: the fact that perhaps 3% of our population accounts for roughly 50% of our violent crime has been effectively covered up. Furthermore, neo-racist political correctness precludes pointing this fact out or doing anything effectively to solve the problem. Please forgive me for not being intimidated by neo-racist tactics or foolish enough to swallow their tales.
[D]id Zimmerman have a history of reporting and following individuals who did not fall in that group with the same frequency?
To my knowledge Zimmerman never reported anyone he suspected of a violent crime. He reported people he suspected of property crimes, specifically burglaries.
(After all, someone else is committing the other half of the violent crimes).
The incarceration rate of blacks for property crimes, per
The Color of Crime, is 5-times greater than that for whites. For Hispanics it is about 1.5-times greater than that for whites. As I recall, Zimmerman's community was roughly 50% white, 30% Hispanic, and 20% black. As I recall from the trial, Zimmerman had made three prior calls to report suspicious characters, all three of whom were black. Adjusting community proportions by relative incarceration rates (assuming relative incarceration rates are the same as relative property crime rates), and one would expect a randomly selected burglar to be black a bit more than 50% of the time. In other words, you are willing to brand the multi-racial Zimmerman a racist based on the equivalent of someone flipping a coin three times and having it come up heads each time. For your information, that's hardly a rare event. One should be far more certain before whipping out the race card.
Ultimately, all that happened is George Zimmerman got off the hook for a fatal shooting, nothing more can be read into it than that. Everybody, please note that I did not say 'got away with'. I do not know what actually happened, neither does the jury, and neither do any of you.
Zimmerman was never on any legitimate hook. Seems like the city police, county prosecutor, the jury, and me all figured out that Zimmerman did not murder Martin. Playing the ignorant one in light of obvious evidence is not becoming.
Are there people 'waving the bloody shirt' (in this case a hoodie) to suit their own agendas? Absolutely. But there are better ways to counter that than to make comments like "Thank you, George, for taking out the trash" which has been stated on this forum.
Classic neo-racist accusation. I was the one who thanked George for taking out the trash, and you have not an iota of evidence justifying your play of the race card here. Those who are strangers to facts, law, and logic almost certainly don't care, but I could care less what color the trash is. Furthermore, I don't care if the trash is taken out by the criminal justice system or by an armed citizen.
We can use the word racists, but by ignoring comments like that, we're the ones who paint ourselves with the same brush. The bottom line is, those who use Trayvon Martin will likely win more support from the moderates in this country than those who use George Zimmerman can. America is full of people who do not own guns but do not feel strongly either way (yet) about gun control. These are the people we need to persuade to protect their own rights, and certainly can't afford to alienate. With that in mind, Mr Zimmerman is a poor choice of poster boy for the Second Amendment. Please let him quietly go away.
I challenge you to back up your allegation that the comment under discussion is in anyway racist. It is, however, neo-racist, which is use of unfounded allegations of racism, the fabrication of such allegations, or the willful spreading of such fabricated allegations, a tactic of last resort for the unprincipled scoundrel and the unknowledgeable.
Those who falsely claim Trayvon's innocence are the one's imperiling our society and jeopardizing our rights to be armed and to defend ourselves. Silence is typically interpreted to denote agreement. Remain silent at the risk to yourself, your family, your community, and your nation.
