On February 26 2012, Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black male was gunned down near his home in his gated community of Florida by volunteer community watchmen George Zimmerman with his legal concealed handgun on the grounds of self-defense writes Matt Gertz in his commentary in the political blog Media Matters. Reports say that Zimmerman made a 911 call and reported "a real suspicious guy, a black male, with his hand in his waistband" and pursued the Teenager despite the advice of the dispatcher's recommendation. A struggle occurred which resulted and Martin was fatally shot. Zimmerman has not been arrested as he claims to have acted in self-defense in light of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" legislation, which allows for a hands-off policy of killing in claimed self-defense and vigilante activity in general.
What stood out in this article, was Gertz's straightforward facts of the event and the particular statements he used from the political blog, Mother Jones, the New York Times, and the Christian Science Monitor. It seems that Gertz, like myself, is asking less of how, but more why and is using this chance to take an event that stems from one of the most controversial national issues and put it into a different perspective. It's interesting to note how Gertz uses vague excerpts of the 911 as perhaps a means to discredit society's tendency to jump to conclusions, bias, and stereotypes. But perhaps his anger is justified.I get the idea that I also share with Gertz the idea that this was a result of the irresponsibility and blind eye actions of Florida's law makers to the reality of the current state of society.
In one statement from his article, he quotes from Mother Jones's blog stating, “defendant's only burden is to offer facts from which his resort to force could have been reasonable" while "the State has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act in self-defense." This has led to a legal situation wherein it is possible for someone to kill a member of a rival gang in a shootout, claim they were acting in self-defense, and avoid prosecution.” Here, I believe Gertz is doing more than just writing a statement that someone else made, he is attempting to get people to ask the right questions. How can this legislation work in the long-run when it is clear that it will just allow for more crime to happen in an already crime-ridden state? Aren't we just again, just focusing too much on the already beaten-to-death issue of gun control laws instead of what actually allowed for this legislation to happen and why it was allowed to happen? Are we actually taking responsibility or are we just quick to point the finger?
In the context of the national politics of safety, responsibility, justice, and gun control, it is more than likely that this event will be very influential in legislation for the next few years. I see this as a wake-up call for Americans to start looking at the underlying issues and see that the state of our current controversial, mainstream issues, in this case being gun-control, may not be a result of itself, but more of our own current actions to take responsibility of our own safety and rights that was established b y the Founding Fathers. Perhaps Gertz sees more to Zimmerman's current state of immunity to the courts as less of a matter of gun control laws but more to the blind eye that we turn to the current state of issues here on our own streets, in our own lives and little discrepancies in our laws that lead to such events. For instance, the loose laws that made it possible for Virginia Tech Massacre shooter Sueng-Hui Cho to acquire his firearms. He had been known to be clinically depressed and was even noted for abnormal behavior during his last two years at Virginia Tech. Yet, no action was taken and he was allowed to legally buy firearms. With these things in mind, who exactly is to blame here?
