Minotaur
Governor
In regard to the many stories since the jury decided the Zimmerman case, I wonder if everyone understands that SYG language was in the jury instructions as it is important. It was located under Manslaughter and it does cancel out manslaughter in that it forces the jury to only look at the fight. Manslaughter takes your actions pre-fight into account. We may as well remove manslaughter from choices to jury in murder cases as it can't be used in Florida. It is what it is but in the middle of all this I worry for all of us who do not carry guns. What do we do? What is left for innocent people walking to the store or going about any ordinary task and having the misfortune of someone thinking we look suspicious, or we are rude to take a parking space, or they just don't like our expression or skin color? What is the difference between a pedophile chasing our children and a strange man chasing our children in the night? What can you do when you are innocent and yet can't protect yourself from a man with a gun because if we do try to save our life we can be legally killed.
I think the bottom line is that guns enable people to push things until someone ends up dead rather than using common sense and try to avoid trouble. Trayvon's death should have shown us all that we are all in danger and we have lost our right to feel safe in our own communities because we just don't know who is packing and what his intentions are when he is displeased about something a normal person going about their daily tasks did, or looks like he did, or looks like he may do. But it is as legal to kill you or your children or grandchildren as it was to kill Trayvon. This SYG law is absolutely fearful and it allows the irresponsible behavior so an adult can confront the criminals living in their own minds and apply it to an innocent child walking home from a neighborhood store. Adults are suppose to be adults but I no longer know what that means now that we have armed people causing incidents as they act out and a kid ends up dead and our courts can't even save future children because to fight back when someone is chasing them is to be responsible. But if a stranger follows our children we tell them to run. We tell our children to fight back. We tell our children to NEVER go with a stranger. Trayvon is the exception because that child being followed by a stranger had no right to defend himself. He only had the legal right to be killed.
We can do better than this. Change that horrific law so everyone feels a little safer and not just armed men scrambling around at night inventing bad guys and acting out a Cowboy nightmare.
I think the bottom line is that guns enable people to push things until someone ends up dead rather than using common sense and try to avoid trouble. Trayvon's death should have shown us all that we are all in danger and we have lost our right to feel safe in our own communities because we just don't know who is packing and what his intentions are when he is displeased about something a normal person going about their daily tasks did, or looks like he did, or looks like he may do. But it is as legal to kill you or your children or grandchildren as it was to kill Trayvon. This SYG law is absolutely fearful and it allows the irresponsible behavior so an adult can confront the criminals living in their own minds and apply it to an innocent child walking home from a neighborhood store. Adults are suppose to be adults but I no longer know what that means now that we have armed people causing incidents as they act out and a kid ends up dead and our courts can't even save future children because to fight back when someone is chasing them is to be responsible. But if a stranger follows our children we tell them to run. We tell our children to fight back. We tell our children to NEVER go with a stranger. Trayvon is the exception because that child being followed by a stranger had no right to defend himself. He only had the legal right to be killed.
We can do better than this. Change that horrific law so everyone feels a little safer and not just armed men scrambling around at night inventing bad guys and acting out a Cowboy nightmare.
