Walther PPK/S and Walther P99c AS with concealed carry holsters
I know I’m going to regret this, but I feel it’s time to weigh in the on George Zimmerman trial and offer the perspective of someone who is licensed to carry a concealed weapon, and who frequently does. What I have to say is probably going to outrage people on both sides of this issue, but so be it.
First of all, the jury got it right. Under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, those six women simply had no choice but to vote Mr. Zimmerman not guilty of either murder or manslaughter. But “not guilty” is not the same as being “innocent,” and I believe that save for an ill-advised law, Mr. Zimmerman would otherwise be in jail for exercising extremely bad judgment that resulted in the death of a fellow human being. Indeed, Mr. Zimmerman’s decision to follow Trayvon Martin after having notified the police and while carrying a weapon run counter to not only everything I was taught in class, but also counter to Mr. Zimmerman’s training as well (as shown in court testimony).
In short, regardless of Florida law, Mr. Zimmerman in my opinion had at the very least a moral obligation to retreat after notification to the authorities was made. Instead, he chose to exit his car which then had the effect of placing Mr. Martin in a Fight-or-Flight defense posture. Unfortunately, Mr. Martin’s “fight” response won out over his “flight” response, and he wound up dead as a result. Given the same circumstance — being obviously tailed at night by an unfamiliar male of unknown intent — I’m not sure what I would have done if I were unarmed. Being armed, the decision is easy; I would attempt to retreat to safety while calling the police, and fall back on my weapon only if attack appeared imminent or the attacker progressed into my safety zone after being warned to desist in his advance. Having a weapon allows you to equalize the odds and forego the fight response because you no longer have to consider the possible need of attacking by surprise to throw off balance your potential adversary.
Quite frankly, Stand Your Ground is a flawed legal concept that was intended to protect a citizen who rightfully defends him or herself in a public setting and outside of the protections afforded by the Castle Doctrine, which allows you to use deadly force if confronted in your place of residence. Extending Castle Doctrine-style protections to public venues is just plain ludicrous and we now see the consequences of doing so.
This is not to say that Duty to Retreat isn’t also a flawed concept. It is. Anytime a defendant is required to prove in court that they are innocent (in this case, requiring proof that the defendant attempted to either escape or evade prior to resorting to deadly force), then you’ve created a situation that is rife with potential for prosecutorial abuse by overzealous district attorneys. Indeed, Stand Your Ground was a direct result of just such abuses in the past. Want a recent example? You need look no further than the George Zimmerman case for validation. Under that flawed Florida law there was no way Mr. Zimmerman could have been found guilty with the evidence available. To be perfectly frank, even though I believe Mr. Zimmerman provoked the incident in question, I was left wondering why Judge Debra Nelson declined both motions to acquit submitted by the Zimmerman defense team.
Just how flawed was the prosecution’s case? Enough that the evidence was never even submitted to a grand jury for review. This is a protection afforded by the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Fifth Amendment begins, “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury . . . .” Mr. Zimmerman’s case received no such scrutiny because I believe the prosecution knew or at least strongly suspected that a grand jury would return a “no bill” on the charges. Instead, the prosecuting team brought forth their shocking lack of so-called “evidence” to a judge in a preliminary hearing in which Mr. Zimmerman’s defense team decided against mounting a defense and instead proceeding directly to trial.
Bottom line from the perspective of a concealed carry licensee? Mr. Martin was killed by bad law at the hands of someone who has demonstrated that he had neither the temperament nor judgment to be carrying a concealed weapon in public. Mr. Zimmerman is, in my view, the poster child for why citizens should be vetted within reasonable limits despite the guarantees of the Second Amendment. Notice that I stressed the word reasonable. States such as California, New Jersey, Illinois (despite their recent approval of concealed carry), Massachusetts, Maryland, and the City of New York are neither reasonable nor responsible in their limits on the basic and fundamental right of people to defend themselves. Since both Los Angeles and Boston have very recently demonstrated that the civilian populace can and will be left to their own devices to defend themselves if a higher priority issue arises, and since the U.S. Supreme Court has on multiple occasions found that local jurisdictions have no legal requirement to protect citizens in a timely manner, anything less than fully recognizing the right to self-defense is simply unacceptable.
There simply has to be a middle ground between Stand Your Ground and a Duty to Retreat, and that middle ground needs to be codified into law in those two-dozen or so states in which Stand Your Ground is now implemented.
There simply has to be a better way.
Decisions — Murder in Paradise
The Globe — Murder in Luxury
R. Doug Wicker — Author 
” Mr. Zimmerman in my opinion had at the very least a moral obligation to retreat after notification to the authorities was made.”
Why?
Your neighborhood is plagued with burglaries and you spot a person who looks to be a likely burglary suspect. You want the police to at the minimum stop and question him. You are in no place you don’t have a legal right to be. You don’t instigate any attack against the other person, and perhaps do not instigate any verbal exchange or verbal threat to the person (we don’t for a fact know the above is true, but going on Zimmerman’s testimony let’s suppose it is for purposes of discussion).
In other words, if true. Zimmerman did nothing illegal, or in my view immoral. It is not immoral to seek to protect your neighborhood and carry a handgun for personal protection.
You are viciously attacked and a person is on top of you who may kill you or seriously hurt you. That person had no legal or moral justification to attack you and you fear for your life. You pull a gun and shoot him to stop the attack.
You have done nothing immoral in my view. You are prosecuted solely because of politicized racism, not the facts.
lwk
free2beinamerica2.wordpress.com
Pretty much agree. What exactly did Zimmerman expect would happen? Would he have also cornered a bear and started poking it with a stick?
I think the Zimmerman case is a classic example of what is wrong with the laws and mentality of gun owners. The majority have a gun for sport or protection, but a small minority use it as a passive aggressive or plain aggressive tool. When I was looking through gun stats the big thing I noticed about the US was the escalation of violence from disagreement to shooting. Here in Australia a fist fight breaks out instead of a shooting, that escalation just doesn’t occur.
“Would [Zimmerman] have also cornered a bear and started poking it with a stick?”
We have no evidence that Zimmerman approached or anyway threatened Martin. In the U.S. the basic law in most states is that you can’t claim self-defense if you were involved in starting the fight, e.g., used “fighting words,” or engaged in any physical aggression towards the other person first.
Self-defense in the U.S. is exactly that – defense against unprovoked aggression.
“…a small minority [of gunowners] use [a gun] as a passive aggressive or plain aggressive tool.”
People who aggressively use a gun against others in the U.S. are called “criminals.” In Texas, and other states also, it is against the law for a person to “brandish” or display a firearm in any fashion, or even use threats like “I have a gun” as intimidate anyone.
In Texas for sure if you have a legal concealed firearm in public then you _never_ display it or tell anyone other than a sworn police officer that you have it (and to the police only if stopped and questioned).
“… the big thing I noticed about the US was the escalation of violence from disagreement to shooting.”
People who have a license to carry a concealed handgun in the U.S. are some of the most law abiding citizens in the country. A few, a very few, are arrested each year for firearms violations, but at a rate slightly lower than sworn police officers being arrested for firearms violations (which also doesn’t happen very often, though did see something on the news the other night about a police officer being arrested, but I think it was for domestic violence as far as I could tell).
Of course you idea of “escalation of violence” is probably accurate for young gang bangers and drug dealers in our inner cities where the vast majority of real gun violence occurs. The real problem in America is our Drug War and social problems in our inner cities, predominantly among blacks and latinos, exacerbated by failed social policies dating back to the 1960s.
According to some of the latest FBI statistics for 2011 that I have seen blacks account for over 50% of homicides in the U.S. where race is known although they are only 12-13% of the population.
America’s crime and violence problems would compare very favorably with Australia except for these very specific “hotbeds” of violence attributable to very specific causes other than guns.
lwk
free2beinamerica2.wordpress.com
Actually, we do have evidence. Zimmerman was following Martin and confronted him, this was part of the testimony and what led to the public outcry and trial occurring in the first place.
So it isn’t really self defence if you confront someone. Your other points only emphasise my point about escalation of violence.
No, aggressive use of a gun doesn’t ipso facto mean you are a criminal. You seem to have also mistaken passive aggressive for outright aggressive. Also, you have completely missed my point. I was discussing ego and perceived invulnerability from some gun owners and the carry over attitude that brings to normal situations.
Sorry, but was Zimmerman in Texas or Florida? How is Texas relevant, as it isn’t a comparison point like I did with US vs Aust?
Your point on law abiding citizens was why I said the vast majority of gun owners “have a gun for sport and self defence” and not “all gun owners are reckless assholes.” My condemnation was of the small minority who are idiots.
No, the escalation of violence was not for “gang bangers” or “drug dealers” it was for violence and homicides in general. And no, violence per capita rates are much lower in Australia. We have “hotbeds of violence” as well, but they still don’t reach the violence rates of the “hotbeds” in the US. You seem to have some sort of disconnect here. Have you looked at the gun violence figures for the US in comparison to the rest of the world, as they are the highest in the western world and are only really beaten out by countries that are at war or have massive civil unrest.
You’ll notice that I actually support gun ownership, not something that is very easy in Australia. But this idea that you “need” a gun, that underlines much of the emotional bias on gun control, is pretty silly.
“Actually, we do have evidence. Zimmerman was following Martin and confronted him, this was part of the testimony …”
There were people who came up with all sorts of theories about Zimmerman confronting him. There was zero _credible_ evidence though that Zimmerman confronted Martin. That is why the jury found him not guilty.
The testimony of Rachel Jeantel – supposedly the girlfriend of Martin – lacked credibility. After the verdict she went on TV and said that she thought Martin threw the first punch and that he just planned to do a little “whup ass” on Zimmerman to teach him a lesson and didn’t mean to kill him. She justified this by saying they thought that Zimmerman was a “creepy ass cracka” and homosexual predator.
What is reasonable from the evidence is that Zimmerman may have for a while followed Martin at a distance to keep track of his location for the police. At some point he lost track of him and headed back to his car – possibly after the police dispatcher said “you don’t have to do that.”
According to Zimmerman then Martin ambushed him and attacked him.
But to summarize, there was no credible evidence that Zimmerman confronted Martin. If there had been the outcome almost certainly would have been different. In the U.S. if Zimmerman had confronted Martin then the self defense claim might very well have not been allowed. That is a basic principle in American law.
“…what led to the public outcry and trial occurring in the first place.”
What “led to the public outcry” was the “profiling” of Zimmerman by the media because to them he was a white guy. Later they had to invent “white hispanic” when they learned he was of hispanic heritage.
So it isn’t really self defence if you confront someone.”
Exactly right. That is why the not guilty verdict tells you that the jury had no credible evidence that Zimmerman confronted Martin.
“I was discussing ego and perceived invulnerability from some gun owners and the carry over attitude that brings to normal situations.”
Actually just the opposite happens. Most people are made much more careful because of the responsibility. I carry a loaded handgun in public and I speak from personal experience.
This is _proven_ by statistics in the U.S. for people who do carry legal concealed handguns. As a class of people they do sometimes get arrested for firearms violations, but at a rate slightly less than sworn police officers for the same offense.
You have a theory about how you think people act, but there are facts and statistics on legal U.S. carry that refute them.
“Sorry, but was Zimmerman in Texas or Florida? How is Texas relevant…”
Because for many states the basic principles are the same. First off in both your claims to self defense can easily be nullified if you have a part in starting a lethal confrontation. In both you may have to prove your fears of death or harm from attack are “reasonable.”
“My condemnation was of the small minority [gun owners] who are idiots.”
A not insignificant portion of car owners are also idiots and the cause an inordinate amount of death and destruction in accidents. The benefits of cars outweigh the certain fact some people will misuse them. The same is true of firearms.
“No, the escalation of violence was not for “gang bangers” or “drug dealers” it was for violence and homicides in general.”
And you will share a link that scientifically documents your claim?
“…violence per capita rates are much lower in Australia.”
It also has been in both Australia and the U.K. But that is more a cultural issue than a gun issue.
“But this idea that you “need” a gun, that underlines much of the emotional bias on gun control, is pretty silly.”
The Founders of the United States did not think tyranny was “silly.” That is why they included the 2nd Amendment.
lwk
So, let me get this straight, I should provide the stats on violence that are widely available, but you aren’t going to provide stats to back up your claims (which we both know is because those are anecdotal claims and not stats collected by any recognised agency).
Also, a lot of your statements are essentially gun propaganda myths. Please refer to this: http://tysonadams.com/2013/06/26/i-think-youre-mythtaken-guns/
Zimmerman was directly told by police to stop following Martin because they feared a confrontation. The witness heard a confrontation. What part of this didn’t you read?
So you justify America’s higher gun violence by saying you have a bigger culture of gun owners and violence? Please tell me more about your logic in that justification.
The second amendment trope is a fun one, good to see it trotted out. Worth reading some history and the wording of that and all of the amendments. John Green does a great breakdown of American history in CrashCourse.
As I pointed out previously and in the linked article, the best way to become involved in a gun fight, to be shot at or wounded or killed by a gun is to carry one or have one in the home. Now this would superficially appear to be corralative rather than causative, but the studies I’ve linked to in my final paragraph of the linked article show that it is causative.
“I should provide the stats on violence that are widely available,..”
Previously you had written:
“When I was looking through gun stats the big thing I noticed about the US was the escalation of violence from disagreement to shooting.”
I have not seen “widely available” stats on “escalation to violence.” That is specifically what I am asking for. It sounds like you are saying that Americans – more than others – have a “hair trigger” in regards to going to violence. That seems like an extrordinary claim, hence I asked your source.
“Zimmerman was directly told by police to stop following Martin because they feared a confrontation. The witness heard a confrontation. What part of this didn’t you read?”
Here is a copy of the transcript of Zimmerman’s call to the police dispatcher. Again, just for clarification, Zimmerman never talked to a sworn police officer. He talked to civilian police dispatcher:
Click to access full-transcript-zimmerman.pdf
Here is the relevant part of the transcript:
Dispatcher: Are you following him?
Zimmerman: Yeah
Dispatcher: Ok, we don’t need you to do that.
Zimmerman: Ok
“Ok, we don’t need you to do that” is not a command.
“So you justify America’s higher gun violence by saying you have a bigger culture of gun owners and violence?”
We certainly have a different culture. We also have huge racial issues, ghettos, and gang bangers, and that is where the difference is, where the larger stats come from.
I dare say my town is as safe, or safer than just about anywhere in Australia. And there are tons of guns in my town.
“… the best way to become involved in a gun fight, to be shot at or wounded or killed by a gun is to carry one or have one in the home.”
Given that Americans use a firearm in self defense upwards of 2,500,000 times a year (Dr. Gary Kleck) you could also say that one of the best ways to not become a victim of criminal violence or mischief is to have a fiream.
“Now this would superficially appear to be corralative rather than causative, but the studies I’ve linked to in my final paragraph of the linked article show that it is causative.”
I don’t see the link, but there was a study by a Dr. Kellerman that has been largely debunked (and a reason for defunding this research at the CDC some time ago, although it likes Obama wants to restart it – that is politicized “research.”) Others took his own data and proved it showed just the opposite of what he claimed.
Basically it came down to this. If you were an ex-felon living with a drug dealer then maybe you were 43 times more likely to be shot with your gun or something. But for normal, law abiding people it simply did not apply.
lwk
And still you haven’t provided reference for any of your claims…. If you are honestly telling me you can’t look up violence stats, I have doubts as to your own stats claims.
Now the claims about the 2.5 million defence uses is an extrapolated figure from a study that is largely discredited, most notably by the Harvard Injury Control Centre who referred to it as the “most outrageous number mentioned in a policy discussion by an elected official”. The more realistic figures for this are a fraction of the size. In fact in 2010 there were only 230 justifiable homicides in the US. 2006-2010 it was 1031.
You refer to “gangbangers” a lot. Aside from the fact that gangbangers means something different in most other countries, there are no actual stats collected on this by the BJS or FBI. In fact the BJS report titled Firearm injury from Crime quotes that only a third of gunshot admissions have any stats recorded against them and of that only 6% are gang related (the majority being 29% killed because of an argument).
But you go further and refer to a big “racial issue” and “ghetos” as though that is where the gun crime is. Well again, not according to the stats. In fact you are most likely to shoot or be shot by someone of your own ethnicity and that is likely to be someone you know.
You use a woeful strawman, pretending that I was referencing a study I didn’t, and then debunking it as though it has anything to do with the two studies I cited plus the general firearms report and its summary of other studies. The figures still stand that owning a gun makes you 4.5 times more likely to be shot. In fact one of the reports took into account assault victims being able to defend themselves and the chance of them being shot rose from 4.5 to 5.5 times more likely. Justifiable homicides account for 2% of homicides in the US.
Also, I didn’t comment upon this in my previous post, but racial profiling was an issue. I’d also point out that you don’t have to be white to be racist. I also noted that you only quoted one part, not the part where the dispatcher is arranging for the cops to meet Zimmerman. When viewed as an entire conversation the idea was for him to be a neighbourhood watch, not a neighbourhood confront.
Your comment about Australia is an empty claim with no evidence nor plausibility. The average rate of violence in the US is double that of the next highest affluent nation. If you want to compare Australia’s violence rate of 1.0 per 100,000 to the US’s 4.8, feel free to tell me how unsafe Australia is.
Essentially, you are wrong. I don’t care how you want to justify your gun hobby, you are twisting facts and flat out buying into propaganda that drives what the report I cited called “weapon priming” and just drives violence higher. I have nothing against owning guns nor the sport of shooting. I don’t see much point in carrying a firearm, but I don’t have a particular issue with it as long as the person is responsible. But the reality is that increased access to and ownership of guns increases violence and deaths (not to mention injuries), the very thing the gun is supposed to help protect against. It is this “weapon priming” that gun owners have to be aware of and resist and that may even mean acknowledging that their guns are probably best left at the shooting range.
The both of you must realize by now that you’re talking right past one another, right? Neither of you is going to change the other’s mind at this point.
Tyson — I would like to make two points about this supposed connection between violence and access to guns, if I may.
1) If guns were indeed the impetus behind human violence, the gun ban in the U.K. would have reduced violent crime. It hasn’t. And now there are those in the U.K. looking to ban kitchen knives. Seriously.
And once those kitchen knives are gone, what’s next? Golf clubs and cricket bats a decade or two from now, followed eventually by walking canes and perhaps even umbrellas at some point.
2) Many of the gun violence studies in the U.S. include as “victims” people who commit suicide (as if a gun was their only option), legitimate self-defense shootings, and even felons shot by police. Indeed, one recent “study” released by Mayor Bloomberg’s anti-gun group listed as “victims” of gun violence such notorious examples as Christopher Dorner and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. If a group is having to reach that far to skew the “results” of their “study” in their favor, then that study is pretty much worthless. Granted the other side is often equally guilty of skewing studies (that 2.5 million example of defensive gun use is probably much closer to just under 1 million judging from more balanced studies I’ve seen), but two wrongs do not make a right no matter what the motivations.
And for LWK2431 — As a gun enthusiast and CCW licensee I can appreciate your points. However, you’re intelligent enough to know (or at least strongly suspect) that George Zimmerman would not have gotten out of that car that evening if he weren’t armed. If a person is getting their “courage” from a weapon, then they’re carrying for all the wrong reasons no matter what the law says.
Even some of the jurors are expressing their opinion that Mr. Zimmerman, “. . . got away with murder,” and that save for a poorly written and executed Stand Your Ground Law that gave them no choice in the matter, they would have convicted him. I, too, believe Mr. Zimmerman got away with state-sanctioned murder, but as I just indicated that’s a personal belief. As such, you’re not going to change my mind on the matter, and nothing I say is going to influence you into changing your view.
I’ll let each of you have one more word on the subject before I close this thread to any additional comments. Thanks to both of you for keeping things civil to date, and I’m sure you’ll both continue in that same vein with your final comments.
Thanks for dropping by and leaving your thoughts on the matters discussed.
“…George Zimmerman would not have gotten out of that car that evening if he weren’t armed.”
I honestly don’t know what he would have done if not armed. Don’t really know the man. From what I’ve read he seems to be something of an “eager beaver” and volunteer. Just the other day the news had him helping some folks get out of a car that had been in an accident and overturned. If you look at testimony about his life before Trayvon he sounds like a model citizen in many respects – greeting black neighbors who move into his neighborhood and protesting treatment of a homeless black man by the local police. And maybe he had other detracting issues too, certainly not perfect.
But it is easy to say he wouldn’t have got out of the car without a gun, but I am not entirely sure of that. I have seen people do perfectly stupid things before. 🙂
“If a person is getting their “courage” from a weapon, then they’re carrying for all the wrong reasons no matter what the law says.”
If that was true of Zimmerman then I certainly agree. I just don’t know that I know that.
“Even some of the jurors are expressing their opinion that Mr. Zimmerman, ‘. . . got away with murder,’…”
This is really not so unusual as you might think. Think of it as “buyer’s remorse.”
I have personally seen this myself. Was on a jury some years ago in Kansas City, Mo. where a black man was accused of attacking a friend and his wife with a knife. He seriously hurt the friend such that he will be somewhat disabled the rest of his life. All the people involved were black – no racial connotations like in the Zimmerman case.
The evidence was literally “black and white.” Tons of eyewitnesses in nearly total agreement put the defendant wielding the knife. Was essentially a domestic dispute. Looked like he planned to seriously cut up his wife and the friend got in the way.
We had two holdouts on the jury for finding him guilty. One was a liberal white woman and the other was a younger black man. The black man really, really did not want to find another black guilty, period. But eventually we wore him down and and eventually got a unanimous guilty verdict.
As soon as we left the court room we found out from the prosecuting attorney that we were the second jury. The first jury was a hung jury. You should have seen the look on that black man’s face! He immediately accused us of twisting his arm and started talking like maybe the guy wasn’t guilty at all.
Buyer’s remorse. Imagine this juror in the Zimmerman trial. She see’s the real evidence. She reluctantly reaches a verdict. But now that it is over and she is exposed to the venomous hatred of Zimmerman, probably from a lot of her friends and family, all of a sudden she thinks they let a murderer go free.
Buyer’s remorse. That is my best guess of how to explain that.
Been there. Seen that.
“…both of you must realize by now that you’re talking right past one another, right?”
Yea, about ready to give up on trying to be in a real conversation. But I really was interested in his evidence about Americans being more prone to escalate to violence. Guess won’t see that.
lwk
The figures I cited were not including suicide, because I agree, that is a spurious association that is just a political scoring point.
Also, the UK reference is false and part of gun propaganda. They have one of the lowest gun violence figures in the world, even when they include BB guns and the like in those figures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_Kingdom
Again, I’m not against guns, I just think that there are too many people like James Yeager or Vigilante Spector out there who have this completely BS view of the world and “need” to carry a gun as a result.
The U.K. reference on violent crime is most assuredly NOT false:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-24/u-k-gun-curbs-mean-more-violence-yet-fewer-deaths-than-in-u-s-.html
And neither is the move to ban kitchen knives in the U.K.:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4581871.stm
And with that we bring comments to a close. Thank you for your participation as well, Tyson.
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