In another thread, Mason1972 posted this rather unsettling post:
Resoundingly, we all proceeded to agree that this was a horrible tragedy rather than an example of positive gun news. I’m very proud of the gun supporters in that thread who hastened to condemn this police shooting of an innocent civilian.
And yet, some of these same people defended Zimmerman when he murdered Trayvon Martin. Please explain to me how the Zimmerman killing is more justified than this one, considering:
[ul]
[li]Neither Martin nor the victim in this case were committing any crimes.[/li][li]Martin was unarmed, and posed no threat to Zimmerman. The homeowner in this case was armed, and ignoring police instructions. While he did this because he was mostly deaf, the police had no way of knowing this.[/li][li]Zimmerman is a civilian who was explicitly told by Dispatch not to follow Trayvon Martin. This police officer was responding to an actual crime that was being committed.[/li][/ul]
I’m very much hoping you guys can provide a reasonable explanation for why you’d be totally fine with Trayvon Martin being shot (or at least, unwilling to criticize Zimmerman’s actions) while this other case is a tragedy. I’d like to hope that there’s more going on here than the race of the victims.
EDITED TO ADD: I realize I didn’t explicitly state my point of view. I consider both cases to be terrible tragedies. The Trayvon Martin case was worse, as the victim was unarmed, and should have resulted in Zimmerman’s imprisonment for the rest of his life for murder in the first degree (he followed Trayvon Martin and attacked him, for no reason other than Martin’s race making him “suspicious” in Zimmerman’s eye. Since he assaulted Martin, committing a felony, and then proceeded to kill him, then this should count as felony murder, even if Zimmerman wasn’t specifically plotting to kill the kid.)
This case, meanwhile, is an undisputed tragedy. The homeowner should not have been shot, but the police officer who shot him was acting as a reasonable person would when confronted by a possible armed assailant at the scene of a crime who is ignoring police instructions. Add that to the list of reasons not to own a gun.