As the trial of George Zimmerman draws to a close, I have a confession. I haven’t watched a second of coverage. The main reason being while what happened to Martin was tragic other things took priority over the trial. The other reason being I didn’t get invested in the case only for Zimmerman to walk, as it’s speculated he will.
There have been preemptive calls not to riot if he’s acquitted. While there shouldn’t be riots regardless of the out come, there should be peaceful protests nation wide. Stand Your Ground laws have a history of being used to justify murders. Florida in particular has a pattern of selectively enforcing the law and when the victim is black the shooter walks in the majority of the cases.
Since its passage the law has allowed drug dealers and other criminals to instigate fights, pull their gun and then kill rivals. And in other cases people left an altercation to get their weapon, came back and shot the other party. And even though law enforcement officials argued SYG didn’t apply, the shooter was still acquitted.
The other problem with SYG is it has gives people an excuse to escalate violence. In case after case minor altercations get turned into shoot outs. In one case two men got into fight and fell into water. When the other tried to get out the first man shot him in the back of the head. No charges were filed. In another case a man discovered his wife was cheating on hi, confronted the man and when they got into a fight, pulled his gun and fired.
Then there are the various cases where people chased after robbers and gunned them down. While you have a right to defend yourself you can’t assert that when you’re the aggressor and not in imminent danger. The main flaw with SYG laws is they are redundant because people are already covered by self defense laws, which have in them mechanisms for ferreting out false claims and stemming violence by requiring people to walk away if they can.
SYG confers blanket immunity, encourages people to engage in vigilante justice, and makes it near impossible to investigate because the shooter is often the only witness. When the verdict comes down, remember Martin and the others that have died because of this law, and let’s do something to ensure this doesn’t happen again.