I would find his zero-to-bullet in the chest decision inexcusable in light of:
-Zimmerman starting it by being Stalkyman AND
-his having very minimal injuries which to not impress me as requiring such an insanely over the top response AND
-his failure to identify and explain himself to Martin, which makes him culpable for Martin’s reaction to him.
Better?
Much more cogent, yes.
I’m not with you here, starting with her being an 80+ year old woman and you being THREE people! How does that compare in any way with a one 17 year old male vs. one 28 year old male? It doesn’t.
So why did the girlfriend say something about Martin being on the porch? Weird.
Yeah, as I think about it, it is a piss poor example, but I’m trying to say that approaching someone to question his activities is not reckless indifference to life. It seems that Z’s actions were either murder one, voluntary manslaughter, or legal self defense. I can’t see murder two here under any scenario.
I don’t think the approach was reckless indifference to life, the shooting him in the chest was.
How is pointing a loaded gun at someone’s chest and pulling the trigger not “an act imminently dangerous to another”? How does it not “disregard human life”? The only iffy word is “depraved”, which people misinterpret to mean something more than it does legally:
Not much riskier than aiming and squeezing. Given the totality of circumstances, even if we accept (most, can’t accept all, too much Liar McLiarson) of Zimmerman’s story, shooting Martin was too much. He had alternatives. His depraved indifference to Martin’s life was evinced by his zero-to-60 choice.
They don’t appear to break it down into voluntary and involuntary. So yeah, maybe under the second definition, if you look at Martin as committing an “unlawful act” by hitting Zimmerman, Zimmerman unnecessarily killed him to “resist”. 
Because I don’t think it is right to say it was culpable negligence to shoot someone. That’s too specific an act.
Didn’t the head of the homeowner’s association say something about how some workers near the clubhouse had seen a suspicious person and followed him at a distance to keep him in sight for the police?
Is that “stalking?”
Or is it the fact that Zimmerman was wearing his sidearm that sticks in your craw? Reading between the lines, it seems like the portrait of GZ is that he was at home, decided to strap on his pistol and go huntin’ for punks. And pounced on the first likely candidate he found, who ended up being TM. And if it hadn’t been TM, GZ would have continued his hunt until he found some other punk.
What I find closer to reality is that, as a person with a license to carry, Zimmerman probably had that pistol on him all day, every day, for years prior to the killing. For a person who abhors guns in the first place, I think that may be anathema. For someone who does it, though, it’s as routine as sticking your billfold in your pocket, or zipping your pants. It seriously just becomes part of your life that you generally aren’t even aware of. You get used to the extra weight on your hip. You get used to having to use stalls in public restrooms so you don’t accidentally expose your weapon. It becomes second nature to look for the legally-defined signs that prohibit you carrying into a certain place. Even if he’d only had the license for a year, that’s 365 mornings of strapping it on, and 365 evenings of taking it off and putting it next to your cell phone, cigarette lighter, and spare change.
And in terms of overreacting, while I agree that it’s possible, I don’t know that the average layperson has a realistic idea of how fast a person can cover 30 feet of distance if he wants to. Hell, I didn’t know–until I was in my CHL class and the instructor gave me a training (plastic) gun. I put it in my holster. He walked off 30 feet. I was facing him, in broad daylight, and he flat out told me he was going to attack me.
And even then, he made physical contact with me before I could even get the gun drawn. It happens fast.
And as any firearms instructor will tell you–once the decision has been made to pull the gun, you have already decided that you’re going to shoot.
Hopefully the attacker breaks the contact and runs away, in which case you can take your finger off the trigger. But usually not.
You are not trained to brandish the gun as a threat or a warning. You are not trained to give a warning shot. You are not trained to “aim for the shoulder.”
You are trained that, once the split-second decision is made, draw the weapon, aim for center-of-mass, and fire until the threat has stopped. Maybe that means killing the attacker, and maybe it doesn’t. You stop the threat.
For future reference, I don’t write between the lines, so anything you find there is something you put there. I own my opinions, beliefs, etc., and I have zero issue with expressing them.
And specifically:
Nope. Not my view.
Umm… what am I supposed to take from this? Because your firearms instructor says this is the behavior you should have, that makes it gospel? Well, I’m not on board with that, but I don’t intend to debate it at length, just sayin’.
Dudes, you’re starting to just argue the same points that were argued to death in the old thread.
This thread is about *the Trial. *
Please?
Does to me. In fact, that would be one definition of his NOT getting his ass kicked: the lack of terrible injuries.
That’s because you are starting from a premise that other people, such as myself, do not accept as proved to be factually true: “putting a beat-down”. The only people who are sure of that are sure for reasons that I do not find persuasive: the injuries (yawn) and the fact that they were observed in SOME kind of struggle on the ground (since no one saw it closeup for more than a few seconds, and no one testified to seeing anything very clearly at all, there’s way too much that could have happened to buy “beat down”)
Again, very, very easy to see it very, very differently. What fits all the facts for me is not a beat down while screaming for his life, but a struggle for the gun, which was in Zimmerman’s hand well before he claims it was. We have no direct evidence of that, but that is what explains Martin’s screams, as well as what YOU (without actually seeing it!) have concluded was a “beat down”, but what I conclude was a struggle to keep Zimmerman from shooting Martin. Because there’s nothing at all believable to me about that being Zimmerman screaming. A man with a gun in his hand who is squeezing the trigger doesn’t sound that hysterical, the person he’s pointing it at does. (And what about the head banging and smothering? With that continuous shrieking? Something in there is bullshit, and my money is on ***all of it. ***) And another tipoff to me that it wasn’t Zimmerman: his need to tell anyone who would listen that it was him, immediately. Don’t even waste your fingers explaining why he would do that, I can hear it already and I don’t buy it for a second. He HAD to say it was him, because if it wasn’t, he was fucked, and he knew it.
Some examples of depraved heart murder:
Some people, probably not you, believe that Zimmerman shooting Martin qualifies because, as previously noted, even if he really did think Martin was gonna put some serious hurt on him, this was outrageously excessive, a “deliberate perpetration of a knowingly dangerous act with reckless and wanton unconcern and indifference as to whether anyone is harmed or not.”
As previously outlined, that liars lie for a reason, and that reason could very well be that they are guilty and trying to hide it.
If TM was on top of him or otherwise assaulting him physically, then Zimmerman reacted exactly by the book, as one would expect from anyone who has been through a handgun defense class. Determine lethal force is justified, draw the weapon, aim at center-of-mass, and fire until the threat is stopped. In his case, that only meant one bullet. In others, it may require 5.
You’re not shooting to kill. You’re shooting to stop the threat. That you may, in fact, kill the attacker isn’t even on your mind. Maybe he dies, and maybe he survives. You’ve accepted that you’re willing to kill, but you’re not attempting to kill. And that’s what’s been lost in this discussion.
BTW, here is the part that was not played in court from the Hannity interview:
Zimmerman: "First I’d like to readdress your question when you asked if I would have done anything differently. When you asked that I thought you were referring to if I would not have talked to the police, if I would have maybe got an attorney, if I wouldn’t have taken the CVSA, and that I stand by. I would not have done anything differently.
But I do wish that there was something, anything, I could have done that wouldn’t have put me in a position where I had to take his life. And I do want to tell everyone: my wife,my family, my parents, my grandmother, the Martins, the City of Sanford, and America, that I’m sorry that this happened. I hate to think that because of this incident, because of my actions, it’s polarized and divided America, and I’m truly sorry."
Actually, that’s the heart of it.
Determining lethal force is justified (some think, cool, others think, dude you’re nuts) then the rest of what you say is just another way of expressing depraved indifference to human life. POV. It’s a bitch.
So is he meaning to suggest that there was NOT anything he could have done differently? Because if so, that’s seriously offensive.
You just can’t read can you? Why do you think prosecution didn’t play that particular part?
Oh, BTW Stoid, something for you if you haven’t seen it already:
Analysis: George Zimmerman Probably Won’t Be Convicted of Murder or Manslaughter – Here’s Why
Agreed. The defense starts tomorrow with it’s main witnesses. There’s a lot of new testimony that we can talk about.
Why are you directing this to my attention? I have been clear that I anticipate acquittal.
I read it several times. Note the question mark in my post, it indicates I am asking for someone to clarify what I wasn’t sure I understood after reading it several times. I fail to see how your two questions above are responsive to my request for clarification, but thanks anyway.