Re: Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread Had they been drinking prior? Guys I know who just smoked and didn't touch booze were the most docile dudes you could imagine. Just don't fuck with the TV and don't break Wesley Pipes out without permission and they would chill all night.
My opinion (which means about dick, but whatever) is that Zimmerman shouldn't have confronted Martin in the first place. There is absolutely zero reason for Zimmerman to confront Martin. It all goes back to that decision. Had Zimmerman just backed the fuck off and kept an eye on Martin, rather than going up to him, none of this would have happened. Keeping an eye on him would've been fine. Following the directions of the dispatcher would have been the way to go. Wait for the police, they are trained to deal with that very situation. The only reason Zimmerman confronted Martin was because Zimmerman had a gun and knew, the second Martin so much as started some shit, he could just shoot him. Zimmerman knew the "Stand Your Ground" laws before he ever got out of that car (he has admitted as much), and he knew that if Martin started some physical shit, he could shoot him. He may not have meant to kill Martin (I'd argue Manslaughter is the way the verdict SHOULD go), but he damn sure initiated the situation and escalated it. He doesn't go after Martin, then there is no fight and no shooting. Period. My opinion (which, again, means nothing) was that Zimmerman was absolutely begging for a fight or confrontation, knowing he had a gun, knowing the stand your ground laws, and knowing damn well he could shoot the kid without (in his mind) consequence. He knew the law was on his side if Martin turned the confrontation physical. Was it racist? I don't know. If it were a white or Hispanic kid, Zimmerman might've done the same thing, because I think it was more about being a vigilante. He couldn't wait to shoot someone or catch the bad guy, and I'd bet anything that what was really going through Zimmerman's head was "I'm going to be a fucking hero!" He was probably shitting himself the next day when he realized he wasn't going to be hailed as a good and noble hero for killing an unarmed 17 year old kid, regardless of the reason. I think this is a case of a vigilante going way to far, and thinking he would be hailed as a hero. Of course, this is all my opinion based on media coverage and knowledge of Zimmerman, but it sure does seem like he just REALLY wanted to be seen as some kind of a hero, and shit went awry in a big bad way. Edit 2 to add: Holy shit, that is one of the most biased articles I have ever read in my life. How the hell can you not see that?
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread Are you retarded? That's a real question. Its the only way you could see this as well written. Do you also sympathize with Paula Dean? Have you ever considered getting a tattoo of the second ammendmant?
A letter from Bender, my good friend. Dear Dr. Jerkberg, if you're reading this, I'm already dead. The person who killed me was ... was-- My God! It can't be! The murderer, it was-- Fry: I'm bored. You're boring, Zoidberg. I'm gonna go watch TV. Oh shut up already. I'm tired of hearing about this shit from every asshole with a law degree and a microphone, so why do have I have to read every yokel's opinion.
Re: Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread Sometimes alcohol was involved, sometimes not. I've seen buddies get indignant over a perceived indiscretion and lose it when smoking dope. I agree that normally folks just want to kick back and eat some Fritos after smoking, but there is a small minority that gets aggressive over something mundane and acts completely stupid.
Funny story, true story... when I see a thread and think to myself "wow, that is some shit I don't care about," I generally don't click on said thread, read it, then make a post to say "wow, this thread is some shit I don't care about!" Mostly because it is a waste of my time and makes me seem like a real dick. No one is putting a concrete sidewalk to your head (see what I did there!) to read all these yokel's opinions. Nice Futurama quote, though. Props on that. And thanks for making me one of those jerks that has to pick on a lurker.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread Fuck the media indeed. I'm not saying for a minute that Zimmerman didn't pretty much bring this on himself and, more than likely instigated the situation. I'm not saying Travyon "deserved" what he got. However, it doesn't help when you have a president who gets unnecessarily involved by stating "If I had a son he would look like Travyon." How is that in any way helpful to race relations? How does that not put pressure on local authorities to take action even if no action should be taken? The prosecution's case was weak and ineffective because there WAS no case. It was all brought about because of bullshit political pressure, and not just from the president and his completely inappropriate comments. There is no way that any real justice can come out of this for anyone.
I will hop on the Fuck The Media bandwagon, especially for the way this trial has caused networks to syphon away attention from much more important stuff. Egypt? Syria? Quebec? Fuck them. Welcome to CNN YOUR ZIMMERMAN TRIAL HEADQUARTERS. Coming up is a Trial Expert with a Degree in art history to review our extensive coverage of the extensive coverage. Afterwards we will again review the best-worst Dressed at the Trayvon Martin funeral!
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread Is there a reason that this homicide is getting national coverage or is it just manufactured drama for the time in between the next school shooting since it's Summer vacation right now? Anyways, Zimmerman seems like a cunt, and he shouldn't have been chasing Trayvon around, but given the rest of the information of how that fight supposedly went down whoever escalated the situation to the physical level is the person who is at fault in my opinion. If it was Trayvon, then I think Zimmerman should be considered not guilty, if Zimmerman instigated the physical confrontation then he should be brought up on murder charges.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread This. I know your average fight might not be necessarily life threatening doesn't mean it can't at any moment. Getting your skull thumped against the concrete is an action again like I said before is a situation that can turn deadly at a moments notice. I also don't buy the prosecution's and some people's here theory that Zimmerman was a Death Wish like vigilante on the sole mission to gun down a black person that night and then used his community college criminal justice class knowledge to commit the perfect crime in lying to the police. Hearing the dude talk and his over personality seems like he's too dim of a bulb to be as cunning as the prosecutors would want you to believe. Some very big leaps in logic and the defense hammered it mercilessly yesterday. Zimmerman was in idiot for getting out of his car and the whole situation could have been avoided otherwise. If he did indeed start the physical confrontation with force, saying that the bump Jeantel heard was him hitting Martin, then it would be a lot easier for the law to see it as manslaughter and his claim of self defense, and even Stand Your Ground deadly force, is a LOT more difficult for him to argue successfully. Stand your ground laws usually put the burden of proof on the defendant which means he'd have had to prove he wasn't an instigator. I think since they thought the state didn't have enough proof to argue he was, why put the burden on Zimmerman in any way?
Every argument I've seen on here for convicting zim does not follow the law. Zim did nothing illegal even if he walked up to martin and confronted him head on. The facts show that martin was on top of zim amd beating him. The only question that matters is whether you feel that a person could reasonably fear for their life at that point. Disagree with the law all you want, its not a good one, but that doesn't mean he's guilty.
Putting a more drunk-threadedness slant on this: Am I the only one who literally did stock up on beer to watch the ensuing riots? I don't actually hope they happen, because it will destroy a lot of communities, but I'm about 95% they will. And for that, beer will always be appropriate with tv coverage.
This is the gorilla in the room. The prosecution tried to argue that Zim is a vigilante because he had a cursory knowledge of the law and he carried a legal concealed weapon. Come the fuck on. This is what you learn in a concealed carry course. The fact is, if Martin did attack Zim, he brought his own death on himself. Three rules for self defense with a firearm: Ability. Can the assailant kill you or inflict major bodily harm? Intent. Does the assailant intend to kill you or inflict major bodily harm? Threat. Is the assailant an immediate threat? I hope at this point, we can agree that Martin was way more adult than the news portrays. He wasn't his first grade graduation photo. He was a young man who was more than capable of hurting someone. If Zim's depiction of events is true, Martin covered all three qualifiers for self defense in spades. I hope Zim is ruled innocent. But one witness is dead and the other is on trial, so we'll probably never know what happened.
Re: 7/12/13 Weekend Drunk Thread More than likely? He 10000% initiated it. He aggressively followed a person, then got out of his car to approach him. Whatever reaction Trayvon Martin had, Zimmerman completely instigated the situation by intimidating the shit out of a person walking alone at night. Trayvon had even expressed his fear to his girlfriend on the phone and said that he was trying to walk quickly to lose Zimmerman. I am horrified at the prospect of Zimmerman getting off for this, just as I was horrified at the man in Texas walking away free after shooting a prostitute because she didn't have sex with him. Cases like this do a good job of highlighting the glaring issues with gun laws, not to mention that little problem our culture has with devaluing the lives of young black men.
Can we all agree regardless of our opinions on the case: That it is still fucked up that our legal system allows a man to follow another person in his vehicle based upon no tangible wrongdoing of the other person whatsoever, get out, confront the other person, and when the other person responds by beating his ass the guy responds by shooting the other person dead. That sickens me. Regardless, I still think Zimmerman is in the legal right by a wide margin (though the moral wrong), and should and will be found not guilty. But the fact that our justice system allows that... it's disgusting.
Its a fucked up situation that Zimmerman had a hand in creating. The law in Florida still says that he should be found not guilty based on all but the most out there fact patterns. Even if you assume Zimmerman knew the law, isn't it messed up to want to jail a guy who knew the law and acted within it? I agree the law sucks, but you don't get to jail the guy, you learn and then change the law.
That's a pretty big IF. There are serious inconsistencies in his story. I honestly don't think that Trayvon Martin would have purposely started a physical fight with someone who had been following and intimidating him, and outweighed him by 50 lbs, after he had been actively trying to get away from Zimmerman. But that is just my opinion and is all conjecture.
The rules for self-defense with a firearm were all written and codified into law under the (reasonable) assumption that the person defending their life wasn't an active aggressor in the situation that caused their life to be threatened. If I were simply to follow the three rules to self-defense with a firearm, I could hypothetically (and without prior planning or intent): 1. Walk up to an extremely mentally unstable person armed with a knife, stamp on their foot, hiss at them, and then fatally shoot them after they've stabbed me in the side once in retaliation for my unprovoked attack. 2. Lure a man into my home for anonymous rapeplay, then fatally shoot him after he crawls through my window and scares me when he starts to choke me and pull off my panties. 3. Stalk a black teenager in my neighborhood until the kid feels scared enough to turn around and act aggressively towards me, at which point I can escalate the altercation until I feel I have no way of emerging relatively unscathed unless I fatally shoot him. In all of those scenarios, I initiated a sequence of events that soon escalated beyond my control and put me in a position of certain bodily harm. When children do this during playground tussles, we call the outcome "the consequences of your actions." This usually results in bloody noses, broken fingers, black eyes, concussions, chipped teeth, busted lips, stitches, or even broken bones. Because that's what happens when you start shit. If you decide to aggressively approach another person, you need to be prepared for the consequences. Only...Zimmerman decided to carry a weapon that dissuades others from retaliating with any physical consequences because they'd suffer a fatal consequence in return. I disagree with the fairness of that equation, but it's legal so whatever. I don't buy any bullshit about Zimmerman not knowing how Trayvon would react. He's a grown-ass man. He presumably wasn't sheltered in an isolated chamber his entire life. These are lessons you learn before first grade. You bite someone, they bite back. You scare someone, and they punch you in the stomach before they realize you'd just been pranking them. Zimmerman intimidated the fuck out of a kid. So when Trayvon reacted, I just don't buy this HOLY SHIT I HAD NO IDEA HE WOULD INSTIGATE A FISTFIGHT GUYS SERIOUSLY NO IDEA line I'm seeing. No. He knew that was a distinct possibility and he pursued the kid anyways. Against the advice of the dispatcher, too. He knew that defending himself using deadly force was one potential outcome of his action to pursue.And he pursued the kid anyhow. That choice speaks volumes about the kind of person Zimmerman is, just as Trayvon's decision to continue fighting instead of attempting to flee (again) speaks volumes about the kind of person he was. For that alone, the dude deserves jail time. It's socially irresponsible and morally corrupt to goad innocent children into lethal altercations. Period.
Exactly. These laws are written for when someone shows up at your house with a gun trying to rob you, some guy mugging you in the streets with a knife, so you can shoot someone trying to rape you. The stand your ground law, any rights to self defense were not put forward into law so you could start a fight, and then once that fight gets too serious you're free to kill the other. I hope to see Zimmerman go down on the man slaughter charge. He didn't approach Martin planning to shoot him, but he did, and he killed a fucking teenager. Reading the far right articles about how Martin was some ghetto thug who had this coming is what really pisses me off. So he smoked weed and had aggression problems. That's so common among teens it could hardly even be called dysfunctional.
Wrote about it before, but I was robbed at knife point while I had my gun on me. Didn't shoot anyone. Thought killing someone over $75 in my wallet wasn't worth it, not was puting my girls life in more danger. Just because you can shoot someone, doesn't mean you should or need to.