this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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As a non American, i always thought that Zimmerman’s was also a perfect demonstration of why the whole gun culture thing is inherently fucked/dangerous. When it’s ok for a guy to be walking around with a rifle for the purposes of community safety or whatever, of course people are going to be killed, that’s what guns are for.
Apart from the racism angle (which I don’t intend to diminish), it seems to me a natural consequence of gun rights that at some point a murderer will be acquired because the killing was just part of their second amendment rights.
what bothers me the most about the case is that conservatives often say one of the reasons they should have guns is "what if I'm out at night and someone starts following me, I have the right to have some way to defend myself" which, sure, I get it. but if you look at the details and evidence, trayvon was unarmed, and more or less keeping to himself, until george, who was armed, started following him. maybe it's true that trayvon attacked first (there's no hard evidence indicating this, only testimony from george), but would it be so unreasonable after being followed by some random stranger with a gun at night? why is it not seen as a case of trayvon defending his life using whatever means available in the moment? after all, defending yourself from potentially harmful strangers is so important to them that they believe it warrants having access to lethal weapons (which again, I don't really disagree with, I just think you need people need to be held responsible with how they use that, but I guess chuds are willing to make exceptions...)
Yea, that's the thing about a gun, the escalation it causes is through the roof ... it's fatal, at a distance ... with that threat you both having nothing left to lose and also, in just about everyone's case, no experience in managing the emotions of that situation so of course you're going to react in some way that might be surprising, unpredictable or even arguably irrational. Merely carrying a gun, and posing the threat of immediate death, is an assault in itself.