It's About Guns, Again

I would be willing to say that the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman was not about race, although it was.  Based on his own utterings, I don't for one minute believe that Zimmerman would have stalked Martin if he had been a white teenager.  Because then he would have assumed that the boy belonged in that neighborhood.

If you recall Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, or Michael Caine in Harry Brown, there is also a fear in adults of teenage gangs.  But Trayvon was alone.

So there is George Zimmerman, a paranoid individual who perceives himself to be harassed by "those kids," and who really, really wants to be the enforcer, to put a stop to those kids that can get away with that stuff.

So he joins Neighborhood Watch.  He takes courses that talk about the "stand your ground" law.  He becomes in his mind the guy the police can count on to straighten out his neighborhood, to make it safe for people like him.

And the means by which he is able to do this is his weapon.

Had Zimmerman not been allowed to carry a gun, he may have stalked Martin, he no doubt would have called 911 to report a suspicious individual.  It is less likely that he would have continued to pursue Martin after he was told to back off, although he may have.

What I think we can safely say, however, is that neither of the two would have died in the altercation.

So what this comes down to is whether we are going to continue to let the NRA dictate to our state and congressional leaders the terms by which we will be able to walk our streets.  We don't need people like George Zimmerman protecting our community.  We don't need the kind of unstable men who feel strongly the need to walk among us armed to be encouraged to do so.

So let's not let this be about race, although it certainly was race that fueled the fire.  Let this be about the gun that George Zimmerman carried -- and carries once again -- that allowed him to choose his enemy and kill him.

Not MY Son

As I watch bits and pieces of the trial of George Zimmerman in the shooting and death of Trayvon Martin, I can't help but imagine what this case would be like if this 16-year-old had been a white boy.

Like my son.

Here is a boy dressed in a way that would be weird for an adult but not for a teenager.  He is walking around this neighborhood, and honestly, if he was not black, would anyone have questioned what he was doing there?  So let's supposed he is white and walking around at -- for god's sake, 7 p.m.

Enter George Zimmerman, a wannabe cop, who makes all those racial assumptions about a black boy in his neighborhood and decides he needs to be followed.

Again, imagine this is my white 16-year-old son.  He realizes he is being followed.  He keeps walking but becomes ever more conscious that that is indeed what is happening.  He begins to get scared.  Trayvon Martin knows what can happen to a young African-American male that has wandered into the path of an angry and/or paranoid white man.  My son might have been oblivious of being followed for some time.  He might have imagined that this couldn't be happening, that it was his imagination.

But at some point, when the unknown man continues to follow him, my son would become frightened.  He would try to contact someone.  He would almost certainly refer to the person following him as crazy, followed by any other descriptive obscenity, which would emphasize his fear.  When this nightmare continues, he realizes a full-blown panic and decides that he has to fight back.

In other words, my son, and Trayvon Martin, would stand their ground.  Unarmed, they would use the weapon they have, and physically attack the stalker.  And under Florida law, they would be in the right.

Unfortunately, he who carries the gun has lived to tell the tale.  And if Trayvon had been a white youth, it is unlikely that the defense attorney would be mocking the young black woman who was the nearest thing to a witness for Trayvon, and pretending not to understand what she is saying in an effort to emphasize that she -- and therefore Trayvon -- are not like the members of the jury.

Of course, had it been a white youth killed that day, it would not likely have taken nearly six weeks for his attacker to be charged.

But here we are.  The paranoid, angry and power hungry man who stalked an innocent young black boy, who refused to heed the police officer on the phone who told him to step down and stop his pursuit, is the one who is seen as "standing his ground."

Let's all step outside of the hype and media circus, and imagine this scenario with our own teenager, walking down the road, and being stalked by an unknown man.

I wonder if, in this angry and paranoid decade, the jury will be able to give, not Zimmerman, but Trayvon Martin, a fair trial.