Florida…
Stand Your Ground: You claim you were frightened, felt threatened, claim there was a gun pointed at you… or you stalk a young black teen and, not knowing who you are, he defends himself with his fists…
In either case you have a right to commit murder; in fact it’s no longer “murder.” Hell, as long as you can lie then it’s self defense, especially if the only other real witness to it all is dead. But the other person does not have that right, even if it’s just with his fists?
Or maybe you just conveniently imagined a gun: just imagined folks were threatening you with something only in your head. They even try to avoid the confrontation by driving off.
Doesn’t matter… killing is no longer murder. You imagined something, and that validates your hunting permit. For now you do have a one teen limit, so if you kept firing over and over you’ve gone beyond the limits of your hunting permit.
In the future will we be able to proudly strap their bodies across the roofs of our cars?
Just asking.
But if these are the rules, all’s fair in imagining, hatred and self defense, right? Every race, ethnicity, sexual or theological preference is represented here, right? Gays, blacks and women can claim some homophobic straight guy had an imaginary gun was threatening them. If Trayvon had gotten a lucky punch in and told the police he felt threatened by some creepy dude following him: just like he did his friend over the phone, then all these pro-Zimmerman folks would have been having Trayvon’s back, right.
Unless you mean with a bullet, I suspect not.
Let’s say you’re a black woman. Your abusive husband is threatening you. You fire into a wall: hurting no one, to warn him off. In the same state that allowed Zimmerman and Dunn a one bag limit, she wasn’t allowed to use Stand Your Ground, or a right to self defense need not apply. Indeed, as the right continual points out, blacks have attempted to use SYG many times. And, as they avoid pointing out, they have failed almost every time.
Not even a one bag limit for you, Mr. or Ms Black Person.
But let’s get away from SYG and connect some seemingly unconnected dots…
Arizona…
A shopkeeper thinks you might be gay. No service for you. Damn all those lunch counter battles won in the 60s, full denial of service ahead! Why? You might be gay.
So, wait, once again all you have to do is claim, think, someone is something and, once again, you have the right to be judge and jury? The abomination that is homophobia aside, you don’t even have to prove these folks were who you claim they were?
We all know folks feel threatened by gays. If we are to believe the extreme, often Christian fundamentalist, right, most gays have out of control libidos, many are after our children, the majority have AIDS which we might get just by being in the same room, a mosquito bite or sitting on a toilet seat. (Not… but remember we’re in fantasy threat-land here.)
As a former hunter I’m a little envious. I used to have to get my small game permit, then one for deer… looks like Stand Your Ground and the thinking: or lack there of, that surrounds it could eventually allow stalkers like George Zimmerman to have a multipurpose permit. And it doesn’t end with gays. There’s a lot of threats to be imagined, to claim, that have been imagined and claimed in the past. Feeling threatened by the government led to Oklahoma City, feeling threatened by Muslims has led to multiple killings and attempts: like the good “Christian” who tried to slice open a cabby’s throat, feeling threatened by Liberals and the left led to shooting up a Knoxville UU Church, hell one could even claim threatened by clinic doctors and staff.
Remember there does not have to be an actual gun. You just have to claim there was one and you felt “threatened.” Why this could become open season for all kinds of “game” hunted by sociopaths who have no problem lying, or killing.
Anyone else catch a whiff of The Turner Diaries to all this?
Now we’ve connected the dots. Here’s the picture…
Joe Citizen, white, Conservative, fundamentalist feels he should have a right to be judge, jury and, in some cases, executioner. Especially if he feels threatened, which he so often is.
My main point: this slope could be quite slippery indeed. Zimmerman and Dunn are folk heroes to the movement. That’s why they defend them no matter what.
“Zimmerman and Dunn?” Is that the newest skinhead rock group?
Humor aside, what we have in this country is not just a SYG movment, or a ban the gays from doing business movement. We have a movement insisting certain people have the right to be judges, jury and executioners.
Watch your back America. If you’re not on the “right” side you might eventually just wind up with a bullet in it.
-30-
Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 30 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
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