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Trayvon Martin’s Mom calls on Americans to contact their governor to ask them to  “reexamine similar Stand Your Ground [SYG] laws throughout the nation to keep our families safe.” Reexamine? That’s it? As a call to action, that’s weak sauce. As an emotional appeal to rally the gun control base, close enough. But, what, exactly is the problem? The linked website secondchancecampaign.org tries to spell it out . . .

Prior to “Shoot First,” people had a traditional duty to retreat from a situation outside their home when they could safely do so. Now, afforded immunity and a presumption of lawfulness by the law, armed individuals can seek out opportunities to use deadly force outside their homes. And the hands of law enforcement and prosecutors are tied.

Everyday conflicts can now escalate more easily into deadly shootouts, and the killers can rely on blanket immunity from prosecution or civil suits if they say they felt threatened.

That’s so wrong on so many levels it would take Bruce Krafft 2000 words to fully parse. Suffice it to say, Trayvon’s Mom could have used her son’s death as a teachable moment for a lot of other causes. Attacking Stand Your Ground laws does nothing to help the “children” (mostly teens involved in gangs) shot to death each year.

And much to hurt people who seek to exercise their legal right to armed self-defense. Calling Stand Your Ground laws “Shoot First” laws is a huge disservice to the rule of law in our country, and helps puts innocent lives in harm’s way. Ironic isn’t it?

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49 COMMENTS

  1. She could have used it as a great moment to tell kids / teach parents about how dressing like a thug and wanting to “keep it real” to try to be cool can get your ass shot. Instead of holding her wannabe thug sun responsible for his actions that lead to his death (if he hadn’t been dressed like a thug, chances are Zimmerman never would have noticed him and called the cops), she wants to lie about laws designed to protect people from criminals.

    • Dressed like a thug? The kid had a hoodie on. Not exactly a blazer and tie but not exactly an oversized basketball jersey with baggy jeans and bling to the max either.

      • He wasn’t shot and killed because he was wearing a hoodie. He was shot and killed because he was sitting on a man’s chest and beating the hell out of him.

        If he wasn’t a violent thug who had to “keep it real” he wouldn’t be dead. If his family had taught him the bare essentials of manners this situation wouldn’t have happened.

      • Try looking up some of the many pictures available of Trayvon. He’s dressed like a typical thug with his pants around his ankles and everything. People have thoroughly gone through his Facebook and other online profiles and everything about him is “thug life”.

        Just because the media keeps showing you pictures from four years before the accident when he was a little kid and didn’t get to choose his clothes doesn’t change the person he was at the time of the incident.

    • Trayvon was not shot becuase he looked like a thug. He was shot becuase he actedlike a thug!

  2. Loosing your kid is never easy no matter how good or bad they are. Sure you can point out bad shoots and blame SYG etc, but then again you can point out plenty of bad shoots involving our police officers as well.
    If anything should be done it should be this:
    1. How many shootings took place where someone shot someone else in self defense, or claimed self defense. Please break it down by state.
    2. Then lets reference those numbers against states that have SYG, and Castle laws, lax or constitutional carry laws, and those that don’t.
    3. I am willing to bet you won’t see that the constitutional carry states or SYG states have more shootings than anywhere else.
    In fact we can probably deduce just by numbers that California and DC which have difficult CCW and no SYG have a higher rate.
    Then again we would probably need to also look at each of the thousands of cases to try and cross reference if any of the cases in non SYG states could have been.

    • Just another example of why drawing to intimidate, warning shots, all that kind of thing are a bad idea. If you really think you’re in the kind danger that justifies lethal force, then pull the gun and shoot the guy. If you don’t, then leave the gun where it is.

      Warning shots are especially irresponsible, but people who don’t know anything about guns or self defense love the idea. Except that as we all know bullets don’t stop until they hit something solid, so firing a warning shot is randomly sending an unaimed bullet off to who knows where.

    • Sorry, Charlie but that article doesn’t go into all the details of the case. Once you dig a bit deeper you’ll realize why she was sentenced. Polish your Google Fu skills and search.

    • This is one of those stories, yes she was sentenced to 20 years, where any judge, officer or what ever would have probably just let her go.
      The fact is there is so much legislation and laws it is difficult for anyone to follow. That is a major issue in and of itself.
      Even her abusive husband or ex or what ever felt like it was unjust and he was the one she was pointing the gun at!
      Now her life is ruined, and for nothing more than a warning shot because she wanted to get her keys and get out. Obviously there is always more to the story but the point is she hurt no one, yes her daughter was in the house, but besides the discharge of the firearm she didn’t do anything.

  4. “Prior to “Shoot First,” people had a traditional duty to retreat from a situation outside their home when they could safely do so.”

    I believe what you mean is, “Prior to massive government regulation and intrusion, people had a traditional right to defend their lives, homes, and families from criminals.”

    I’m not surprised by this at all; it’s nothing new for victims’ families to A) be used as emotional tools by tyrants and blood-dancers, B) react solely on emotion and seek some kind of hollow recompense by way of “something must be done,” and C) to flat out use their loss to gain money, notoriety, and status.

    She’s a fool, a tool, and an enabler of victimhood. She doesn’t get a free sympathy pass because of her loss. Tyranny is tyranny.

    • +1, it’s pretty hard to retreat with someone on top of you smashing your head on the ground.

  5. She might also mention not raising a son who is on his third suspension from school–the second one for being suspected of receiving stolen jewelry and this last for probably dealing drugs on campus.

    Not that he deserved to be shot for any of this but he was well on his way to real hoodship. Had he been in school, he would never had been staying with his father’s girlfriend in the first place.

  6. Why is it every time a shooting story includes a “father’s girlfriend” or a “mother’s boyfriend” it’s not good news…

  7. I am dumbfounded more than usual.

    A friend of mine made a good point today:
    America has become a scary place. At one time you were shunned or criticized for not being politically correct. Today you can serve time in jail or prison for not being “PC”.

    The time of the English speaking, white, straight, and Christian is quickly coming to an end in this country. We have already become the sociopolitical minority.

      • What this case proves is “diversity” is a sham. There are only two groups of people in this country — Blacks and Whites. You no longer need to be white to be White. For diversity purposes Asians are white and when latins are involved on the wrong side of PC they are white. The truth is that African-Anericans like Alan West are treated as white as well.

        Let’s be honest, the so called black leadership as exemplified by Jackson and Sharpton have blackness in terms of the behavior of in your face ganstas and welfare queens.

        • You actually sort of have a point in that the Federal Government is now saying that Hispanics are White. To some degree it is semi-correct, but they are actually a lot of Central American Indian. I would say they might be North American Indian, but then my part Cherokee Wife would off me.

      • Who claimed it did? Regardless, diversity itself may have nothing wrong with it, but the reality of the matter is that it has become a tenant of some terrifying, stateist, religion followed by liberals, and in that context there are all kinds of things wrong with it.

      • I never said diversity is the issue. The issue is how these groups have maneuvered themselves into a position where they have a larger say in the media, politics, etc not because they are the physical majority rather because it’s become politically correct to accept their opinions and feelings regardless of individual rights.

        At this point, we may lose a right because of how it oppresses criminals the black folks by giving responsible citizens white folks the right to defend ourselves without duty to retreat license to kill in public

    • nate, so you are lamenting the loss of the jim crow system, and all the sociopolitical power it awards all white people, regardless of class or education? because this is the era that you are referring to.

      • No, he isn’t doing that at all. The argument that one must favor discrimination against blacks if he does not approve of discrimination against whites is a non sequitor and amongst the laziest fallacies in the liberal arsenal.

  8. She’s motivated me to write my legislators urging them to support my right to self defense. I hope others will do the same.

  9. It seems that the more info that comes out about this shooting, the more it seems like a success story of concealed carry & stand your ground. Without the pistol, Mr. Zimmerman might easily be dead or in a coma for the crime of patrolling his neighborhood. The media always seems to make the point that Trayvon was un-armed. True, but that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t dangerous. What in his socialization & upbringing made him think it might be a good idea to attack Zimmerman?

    Another thought I’ve had is that if Florida allowed open carry and that was Zimmerman’s way of being armed, Trayvon might be alive today. Of course that’s assuming that he had enough sense not to jump a man with a gun. “SAVE LIVES, OPEN CARRY!”

  10. Let’s rename them “Don’t break into MY HOUSE and I won’t shoot you, you idiot!” laws.

  11. How about the “Don’t do crimes and your life expectancy might go up” campaign?

  12. Too good not to share: In the book Basic Trial Advocacy, as part of a discussion of how to develop a plausible theory of the case, the author points out how ridiculous it would be to allege that someone summoned the police as part of his preparations to commit a murder.

  13. This is just more of the Trayvon case being paraded as a model springboard for gun control. None of the actions of the POTUS, Media, Liberals, Black Leaders, Trayvon’s Mommy, etcetera have really surprised me thus far.

  14. The only thing that surprises me is that the gun control gang waited this long to exploit Trayvon Martin’s Mother’s grief to attempt to condemn SYG laws. Maybe they were just waiting for the Media to firmly implant disinformation in the general public’s mind as to what SYG laws actually mean.
    Insofar as embracing diversity in this country, I have to agree that it has become a monster with an insatiable appetite to actually destroy diversity. I don’t claim to know a better definition than anyone else, but I’m pretty sure what we are experiencing is tyranny by enforced homogenization. Let’s outlaw St. Patrick’s Day and make it “People Who Like Green Day”. Christmas can become “Santa Claus Brings Gifts Day”, and Easter can become “Chocolate Bunny Day”, and so on ad nauseum.

    • I’m sure that Jesse, Al and the Brady Bunchers found it very inconvienient that Trayvon wasn’t killed closer to Mothers Day.

  15. Another thug who GOT HIMSELF shot.

    The entire disgusting circus with the agitprop from the media and race hustlers. I’ve had it with the PC crap.

  16. Dear Mom,

    Happy Mother’s Day. I appreciate the hoodie but I would have preferred a .45.

    Love, Tray

  18. She should have put as much effort into keeping her kid away from bad elements before his demise instead of going after law abiding gun owners now.

    A side note that is of interest to me anyway.
    When one race claims they are being picked on or singled out by law enforcement I bet sure as the sun rises there are crime stats to back up their so called undo attention let alone what any citizen sees daily.

  19. Look for her to run for office, probably The House. She’ll be elected on the sympathy vote like Mary Mccarthy in New York.

  20. I am sick and tired of organizations that discount wholesale the fact that open-handed techniques can be and are deadly: A few years back, right here in my town, a man lost his life to a mugger who jumped out of the shadows one night, punched him in the head, took his wallet and ran. The man was later pronounced dead at the hospital due to head trauma. In fact, this is not unprecedented. Perform a Google search: The same thing happened April 16th in Milwaukee. (http://www.jsonline.com/newswatch/147611585.html) If witnesses and Zimmerman himself are to be believed, then Trayvon Martin’s alleged attack on George Zimmerman involved several blows to the head. Several. More than one. As death by head trauma is hardly an unprecedented occurrence (and since a person’s ability to defend themselves physically is rapidly reduced after sustaining head injuries), it is entirely likely that Zimmerman’s only recourse was ballistic. Sounds to me like Florida’s Stand Your Ground law did what it was meant to do: It allowed a man who was unable to escape a confrontation the ability to save his own life.

  21. trayvon martin was being stalked by a nutcase with a gun and a documented, historical pattern of fanatical 0verreaction…ie he was an emotionally and mentally unstable wanna-be dirty harry. if some nut job was following me on a dark rainy night acting suspicious, you bet your ass i would act to defend myself…except i would have been armed and better trained than this zimmerman goof. bravo to trayvon for standing up for himself against an unknown armed attacker. its jaboney’s like zimmerman who give responsible gun owners and users a bad rep and make it difficult to defend second amendment rights. by the way, if a hoodie is a signal to shoot first and ask questions later, then some of YOU deserve to have your second amendment right taken away.

  22. Tale of Trayvon
    (to Funky Rap Beat)

    Here is the Tale of Tough guy Trayvon
    Thought he was gangster, but now he is gone

    Someone Trayvoned his ass
    Someone Trayvoned his ass

    Drug dealing, watch stealing
    Crime is what he did
    Creepin round in the dark,
    With tools and loot hid

    Went to the store to buy Skittles and Tea
    So if he was caught, he’d have de-ni-abil-ity

    Jumping over fences, walking through the hood
    Looking into windows, up to no good

    (very brief silent pause)

    Who will Trayvon his ass?
    Who will Trayvon his ass?

    Casing out a house, he met a guy named Zimmer-MAN
    Thought he was a honky, but he were a badass Mexi-CAN

    Trayvon talking tough, threw a couple blows,
    Knocked him to the ground, broke his freakin nose.

    Grabbed him by the head, pounding into the ground
    Zimmer-MAN made his move, then there was a sound

    (very brief silent pause)

    He Trayvoned his ass
    He Trayvoned his ass

    Take then this lesson, learn it if you can
    Do not mess around, with a badass Mexi-CAN
    A badass Mexi-CAN

    (very brief silent pause)

    He will Trayvon your ass
    He will Trayvon your ass

    Final verse, spoken:

    Run away punk: don’t make me Trayvon your ass.

    Copyright
    All Rights Reserved
    Equalizer Group, Inc., et al

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