Ruminations on Guns, Self-Defense, Eric Holder and Assholes

Somebody once said: "An unknown situation with a gun is better than an unknown situation without one."

I think that's true. But here's the thing: Guns don't make you into Captain America or the Lone Ranger. As BadTux pointed out, if you go looking for trouble, trouble will find you. And if you're some self-important asshole, you'll find it, all right.

For all of the whinging of the pro-Zimmerman crowd that "his life is ruined", I say: "Tough shit." Zimmerman chose to to get into a confrontation with Martin, who wasn't doing anything wrong. Even if Martin didn't have a right to be where he was (which he most certainly did), the worst thing that he would have been doing is trespassing, which ranges from a violation to a misdemeanor, and is most certainly not something that you shoot somebody over. Zimmerman was a neighborhood watch volunteer. Their mission is to act as the eyes and ears of law enforcement, or to put it another way: To observe and report. They're not trained to make arrests, to get into fights or to use deadly force.

What Zimmerman should have done was stay in his car and keep watch. This is not even a close question.

As for the case itself-- This is an old saying: Bad cases make for bad laws. I am generally in favor of stand your ground laws. Things happen fast in real life, and what happens on the street in a half-second may not be fairly assessed two years later by a bunch of people munching pizza in an air-conditioned room. The "duty to retreat" in many states is meaningless, for it implies that you have to turn your back and outrun an attacker who probably is bigger, faster and younger than you are. If someone is bringing violence to you, it's pretty unreasonable to be legally required to have to run.

But I also think that the totality of the situation should matter, not merely uttering the magic incantation: "I was in fear for my life." And I also think that there is an argument to be made for putting the burden of proof, at least to the "more likely than not" standard, on the person asserting that they were justified in using deadly force.

There is something wrong with the idea that a person can pick a fight with another person, then say "fight's over", and if the other guy has the wind up in his sails and continues fighting, then the first guy, the one who started the fight, pulls out his heater and shoots the guy he attacked in the first place and tells the cops "I was in fear for my life", and the cops, in essence, have to respond: "Very good, sir. Here's your gun, would you prefer it if we have our armorer clean it for you?" That doesn't pass the fairness test.

I'm not criticizing the jury in the Zimmerman case. The law is what it is and their job was to look at the facts presented to them and judge them in accordance with the law, not what they'd wish the law was.

As to whether or not the case should have been brought, keep this in mind: In virtually every place I know of, the local district attorney (or prosecutor) is an elected official (or works for one). If there is a clamoring for a case to be brought (or a powerful patron pushing it), they're going to do that. The prosecutor in the Zimmerman case can now go to the voters and say: "hey, I tried, the facts weren't there for a conviction" and probably suffer nothing for it. If the prosecutor had made the call herself, then she might have suffered politically for it.

If there is one thing that politicians look out for, it's their own skins. And that applies to Attorney General Holder, as well.