The plot thickens
POSTED BY: whozit
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 10, 2012 11:37
VIEWED: 10592
PAGE 6 of 13
I hear now that the original investigator WANTED to arrest Zimmerman because he did not believe his account of what happened, but was overruled. Wonder where that will go?
And "not illegal" because ALEC got the "stand your ground" law passed and has allowed so many actual murders to slip in. This case has brought it to light and hopefully (!!!) that law will be changed and/or gotten rid of. There were questions about it at the time because it could be interpreted to allow just what happened here, but nobody was listening, apparently.
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The stand your ground law is not bad in theory. It even let a kid defend himself against a bully looking to beat him. The problem is that the law is far to forgiving.
As for ALEC being involved, I judge each law on how it is written, not by who wrote it.
I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
I hear now that the original investigator WANTED to arrest Zimmerman because he did not believe his account of what happened, but was overruled. Wonder where that will go?
And "not illegal" because ALEC got the "stand your ground" law passed and has allowed so many actual murders to slip in. This case has brought it to light and hopefully (!!!) that law will be changed and/or gotten rid of. There were questions about it at the time because it could be interpreted to allow just what happened here, but nobody was listening, apparently.
Hello,
There's nothing wrong with a law that allows people to defend themselves. The problem was with the investigation, not the law.
You may not realize this, but before the law changed to allow people to defend themselves, they had to go through an awful lot of trouble to justify doing so. Lots of mental gymnastics required to calculate when you are allowed to provide resistance to an attacker.
Now it's simple: If you are attacked, you can defend yourself. It was never intended to allow hunting humans, and if the investigation is pursued properly, that will prove out.
--Anthony
_______________________________________________
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Never forget what this man is. You keep forgiving him his trespasses and speak to him as though he is a reasonable human being. You keep forgetting the things he's advocated. If you respond to this man again, you are being foolish.
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Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,
There's nothing wrong with a law that allows people to defend themselves. The problem was with the investigation, not the law.
You may not realize this, but before the law changed to allow people to defend themselves, they had to go through an awful lot of trouble to justify doing so. Lots of mental gymnastics required to calculate when you are allowed to provide resistance to an attacker.
Now it's simple: If you are attacked, you can defend yourself. It was never intended to allow hunting humans, and if the investigation is pursued properly, that will prove out.
--Anthony
Perhaps, but in the end with Zimmerman's injuries and the one young witness that says she say Martin on top of Zimmerman might very well put him within the current law. The way the law is written now if Martin hit Zimmerman first Zimmerman killing Martin was within the law. Everything leading up to that point will not matter.
I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.
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I'm afraid, given the state of our government, who writes laws as well as how they are written is important to me. As I see it, few people pay attention to laws until they impact THEM, but which time it is too late. To know that there is a group out there with an agenda which is writing laws to achieve their agendas, then influencing legislators with indoctrination, access to out-of-state donors, vacations and political pressure to pass those laws word for word as that group writes them, bothers me. A lot. That this same group has gathered together to spend millions to get candidates elected, then does the above with them, bothers me as well.
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Anthony, there already were laws allowing you to act in self-defense. The NRA worked HARD to get this one passed.Quote:
In 2004, the National Rifle Association honored Republican Florida state legislator Dennis Baxley with a plum endorsement: its Defender of Freedom award.
The following year, Baxley, a state representative, worked closely with the NRA to push through Florida's unprecedented "stand your ground" law
Since Florida adopted its law, the NRA has aggressively pursued stand-your-ground laws elsewhere as part of a broader agenda to increase gun-carrying rights it believes that citizens are rightly due under the Second Amendment.
To gain attention and clout at the state level, the NRA gives money and offers endorsements to legislators from both parties. The NRA and the NRA Political Victory Fund, its political action committee, have donated about $2.6 million to state political campaigns, committees and individual politicians since 2003, according to records compiled by the nonprofit National Institute on Money in State Politics.
And ambitious politicians take note that the NRA is heavily invested and involved in congressional races.
Following the Florida victory, the "Stand Your Ground" movement accelerated. In July 2006, the NRA posted celebratory news on its website, noting that legislators in eight more states - Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and South Dakota - already had followed Florida's lead.
"This train keeps a rollin' - Castle Doctrine Sweeps America," the NRA's 2006 message said.
Since then, a host of other states have passed various laws expanding the Castle Doctrine. Among them: Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington and West Virginia.
To spread the word, the NRA said in an Aug. 12, 2005, website posting, it approached the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, which drafts legislation for like-minded state lawmakers. The council adopted model stand-your-ground legislative language in 2005 after Florida's top NRA representative made a presentation. http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/27/3517168/nra-helped-spread-stand-y
our-ground.html NRA came up with the idea (ostensibly to sell more guns). They went to ALEC, which is a known conservative organization. ALEC wrote the law and gave it to legislators whose campaigns they have helped finance. The legislators passed the law, pretty much word for word. This may be how it works now, but given the power of the NRA and ALEC, I don't believe it is either right or representative of the democracy we are supposed to be. None but those who had something to gain from it were involved.
I have no problem with the concept of self-defense. But there were concerns initially because of its broadness and the possible consequences.Quote:
From 2000-04 -- the five full years before "stand your ground" took effect -- law enforcement agencies in Florida reported an average of 12 justifiable homicides a year committed by civilians. From 2060-10 -- the first five full years after "stand your ground" became law -- law enforcement agencies reported an average of 36 justifiable homicides committed by civilians. Average to average, the number of justifiable homicides by civilians is now three times higher than it was in the years before 2005. That’s an increase of 200 percent. (We excluded 2005 from this calculation because the law went into effect part way through the year.) http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2012/mar/26/christopher-l
-smith/sen-chris-smith-claimed-deaths-due-self-defense-fl/
2000 12
2001 12
2002 12
2003 16
2004 8
2005 18
2006 12
2007 42
2008 41
2009 45
2010 40
First half of 2011 16
Obviously it's more complex than that, one would have to look at the circumstances of each case, but to me it's a
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Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
I'm afraid, given the state of our government, who writes laws as well as how they are written is important to me. As I see it, few people pay attention to laws until they impact THEM, but which time it is too late. To know that there is a group out there with an agenda which is writing laws to achieve their agendas, then influencing legislators with indoctrination, access to out-of-state donors, vacations and political pressure to pass those laws word for word as that group writes them, bothers me. A lot. That this same group has gathered together to spend millions to get candidates elected, then does the above with them, bothers me as well.
That's the rub, isn't it? Bad laws can get passed because not enough people pay attention. Many who do only pay half as much attention as they should. People go to media out lets in trying to find out what a bill says and does instead of doing what is hard, and right, and reading the bills.
...for this I have little sympathy.
In the end all the infulence and money only work when people are not paying attention and don't go out and get the facts for themsleves.
"Democracy is not a spectator sport." ~ Lotte E. Scharfman, League of Women Voters
I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.
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*sigh*
You all DO realize that the application of good judgement and common sense is WHY WE HAVE JURY TRIALS, right ?
At least, that was the intention...
I find it very telling that everyone here seems to finally acknowledge the assumption that if you are arrested and it goes to court you'll get rubber stamp railroaded, which is factually the case most of the time.
As Anthony points out, this isn't about laws, or the justice system, or even guns...
This is about our legal system NOT WORKING LIKE IT IS SUPPOSED TO, and in response to that, writing and re-writing more laws to work around rather than address a problem just makes it worse.
Stop hackin branches, strike for the root.
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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Hello Niki,
I used to live in Florida, and the training I received to get my concealed weapons permit was quite explicit about my 'duty to retreat.' In short- if a jury believed that there was any way to avoid the violence, and I didn't take it, I could be convicted of a crime. You *were* literally expected to retreat in the face of danger- or else explain to a jury why you could not- and hope they believed you. You were expected to use proportionate violence, and if your attacker came off worse than you did- to explain to a jury why.
Notably, this sort of explanation could come after you'd been economically and socially broken. It made victims of people who were already victims.
It has always been my philosophy to avoid violence whenever possible, and to use reasonable force, so you wouldn't think this would be a concern. My concern was being placed in the position of proving it to a skeptical audience, and possibly being ruined by the process of prosecution even if no conviction was attained.
Make no mistake that defending yourself was a crime under the law. The victim was often assumed guilty until proven innocent.
So please do not be so quick to dismiss the value of a law that allows a victim the dignity of fighting back without terrible fear of legal consequences. Under the new law, there must be something inherently suspicious about the encounter before a crime can be considered to have occurred.
And there IS such suspiciousness in this case.
However, if you want to amend the law to suggest that actively provoking a confrontation is off limits, I'd support that. Just don't swing the pendulum far the other way and make victims of crime also victims of the state- again.
--Anthony
_______________________________________________
Note to self: Mr. Raptor believes that women who want to control their reproductive processes are sluts.
Reference thread: http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=18&t=51196
Never forget what this man is. You keep forgiving him his trespasses and speak to him as though he is a reasonable human being. You keep forgetting the things he's advocated. If you respond to this man again, you are being foolish.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
*sigh*
You all DO realize that the application of good judgement and common sense is WHY WE HAVE JURY TRIALS, right ?
At least, that was the intention...
I find it very telling that everyone here seems to finally acknowledge the assumption that if you are arrested and it goes to court you'll get rubber stamp railroaded, which is factually the case most of the time.
As Anthony points out, this isn't about laws, or the justice system, or even guns...
This is about our legal system NOT WORKING LIKE IT IS SUPPOSED TO, and in response to that, writing and re-writing more laws to work around rather than address a problem just makes it worse.
Stop hackin branches, strike for the root.
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
A person might get railroaded, who's fault is that? Well who sits on Juries, those who can't get out of the duty. The vast majority of people see jury duty as a burden, not as a responciblity.
The root of all our problems is...us.
I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.
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