If someone is following you, would you feel like your life was in danger? If that person had a gun, would you feel like your life was in danger?
You are seriously going to bring that up? Women are more likely to be shot and killed by an intimate partner than killed by a stranger using using any weapon. Also, the presence of guns in the home is associated with an increased homicide risk within the home. research@BSPH | Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
You’re cherry picking the prosecution’s experts. At least two forensic experts at the trial said his wounds were consistent with one having one’s head slammed against concrete, hard. And there was the little matter of a broken nose. In hindsight, that may mean nothing to a macho guy like you must be–but if you’ve just had your nose broken, and are laying on the ground with your head being whacked over and over into concrete, I can see how some normal people might think they’re in mortal danger. I know I did when my jaw was broken in a mugging–non-life threatening at that point–yeah. But it sure didn’t feel like it–and I had every reason to fear for my life.
Again–and of course–obviously—this is based on Zimmerman’s account. And that account is very, very, very possibly complete bullshit. Fine.
But please don’t pass cherry picked testimony as the only testimony, and don’t imply that only a pussy could legitimately fear for their life in a fight. Even a pudgy 34 year old against a 17 year old. Because you’re dead wrong.
The question is whether they were objectively in mortal danger, or is the mere feeling that you “might be” in mortal danger enough to freely deploy lethal force as often and as frequently as you like?
People are notoriously bad at being objective about situations involving themselves. This goes triple in the heat of the moment when stuff is going down and passions are high. A self-measurement of “I kinda felt like I might die” really what we’re going to use as a standard for our society to determine whether we can legally kill other citizens or not?
I mean, if we held our police up to these same weak standards of self defense, they’d be killing people left and right under the banner of self-defense every day, wouldn’t they? Is that OK?
By any objective standard or subjective standard, having your head bashed into concrete over and over is reasonable standard enough. Or are you saying there’s NO case where lethal force is justified against an assailant?
Wait, but common-law also has the duty to not use excessive force… which he definitely did. Now this whole case has gotten me mad and makes no sense. How is a gun “reasonable force” against an unarmed attacker?
No wonder the prosecution hoped Zimmer took the stand while the defense pushed the “Trayvon reached for the gun” narrative. Even Juror B37 stated the “stand your ground” wording in her interview with CNN.
Not at all. Imagine that Zimmerman was in fact an on-duty cop and exactly the same scenario went down. The only thing that changes is, Zimmerman is a cop with a gun instead of a citizen with a gun.
My point is that you don’t go to lethal force lightly, which is why cops are held to a high standard, travel in pairs, have years of training, lots of legal oversight, internal affairs departments, etcetera.
None of that really exists for citizens carrying lethal force who can deploy it at will under the banner of self-defense and Stand Your Ground if they feel threatened and can self-evaluate at any time to “I thought I might get killed, so…”
No cop could ever get away with this, but that’s exactly what this case proved a citizen can do.
That’s the point - it’s not excessive force if you are legitimately fearing for your life. There’s a standard that has to be met (‘would a reasonable person…’), and the jury decided that being unable to retreat due to having your 5’11" assailant sitting on your chest and continuing to pound on you meets that standard.
Assuming you’re exempting the obvious case of rape–(right?) an unarmed attacker can easily be capable of doing extreme or fatal injury to someone else, and when that unarmed assault escalates to causing severe, life threatening injury (like, maybe repeatedly bashing your head against cement), then use of a gun to save yourself enters the reasonable realm.
The forensic pathologist for the defense said Zimmerman’s head struck the ground twice, the other two medical experts said once. All said they may have been caused from falling to the ground or from a scuffle with Martin. He definitely broke his nose, but that’s hardly an injury that threatens death.
Excuse me? Where did I say that Zimmerman “started an argument with him”? If you are going to quote me, at least quote my actual words. Zimmerman started the situation by following Martin. Even if it may be legal, I would still be terrified if someone was following me at night. I would really be afraid if someone with a gun was following me. Being a small female, I would have no immediate options … I cannot outrun a gun (or probably most other people) and I would lose in any sort of physical fight.
Sorry to confuse–I was quoting from the quote you quoted–saw it wasn’t yours, which is why I said “you people”. Didn’t want to go dig up the history–just deal with the idea that popped up that Zimmerman started an argument.
I agree–it would be terrifying to notice someone following you. I really wish the idiot hadn’t followed Martin. But to say–if you accept Zimmerman’s accounting–that running back to him, and attacking him, was Martin acting self-defense–when Zimmerman had shown no aggression and was following at a distance and there were many, many other options open to him–just doesn’t seem like a very strong argument.
