So, you can ask as long as you are willing to forfeit a constitutional right? What other constitutional rights do you want someone to surrender?
You don't have to surrender the right to bear arms, but understand that if you do ask wile armed, and end up killing an unarmed person you should have to go to trial. Nothing in that expectation is unconstitutional.
Again, the home owner even under what I advocate could be legally entitled to kill the invader. He'll just have to go to trial to defend the action. He doesn't have to ask the home invader. He could order the invader out, he could call the police, he could have a guard dog, he could try to physically stop the invader without the use of a firearm, or he could shoot the invader and then defend that action in a court.
There isn't anything "risky" about asking someone what they are doing in the neighborhood. But that isn't all the info we have. We have Zimmerman on tape saying that he BELEIVES Martin is a criminal. If we didn't have that audio tape, then it would be hard to know what Zimmerman was thinking. In this instance, we know exactly what Zimmerman was thinking because he told the 911 operator exactly that. Zimmerman did approach what he thought was a criminal ...and Zimmerman was armed while doing so. Ergo, it's harder to justify the use of deadly force when you knowingly put yourself into a risky situation.
So every time one actually defends one's self, one has to go to trial? In effect, you have essentially rendered the second amendment functionally meaningless. It is exactly that kind of thinking that leads to Stand Your Ground and Castle Doctrine laws. Defending oneself (or others) should not be an automatic ticket to a criminal trial. And it does no good to say that one might be found innocent at trial. Even if acquitted, one has under gone a severe loss of freedom in having to defend oneself from the machinery of the state's prosecutors.
Without some mechanism to examine the situation . . . beyond some cop saying .. eh, look like he told it . . . . you basically saying some lives are not worth investigating their end. Rocket River
I understand. I'm familiar with disparity of force. I'm talking about what I advocate and believe. Not necessarily the law in each state or anything like that.
There is a problem if you think defending yourself means killing someone. Again whatever inconvenience a trial might be isn't too much to ask of an armed person who killed an unarmed person. I'd even be willing to make an exception if there were multiple unarmed attackers attacking a lone armed defendant. I'm sorry if you feel that defending your actions after taking the life of an unarmed person is such a burden. Again then maybe that might make people think twice before getting into a situation where they would "have" to kill a person.
Getting "into a situation"? So, you're now blaming the citizen? Would someone sleeping in their bed at 2am when a home invader breaks in be "getting into a situation"?
Why does it have to go to trial? Isn't the first defense made when responding to the investigators who may or may not decide to press charges?
The pictures shown by the media portray an overweight Zimmerman. That picture is 5 years old and his up to date picture he is much thinner. Martin's picture is a 12-yo boy. He was at least 6' tall, probably 150 lbs? And stop saying his self defense claim is invalidated. THE RECORDING DOES NOT VERIFY HE CONTINUED TO FOLLOW HIM. He was asked if he was following him. He says yes. They said don't. He said okay. They then asked him to get an address for the officer to meet him. He said okay, then asked if he could give him his number and the officer could call him when he was on scene. Stop assuming Zimmerman started the fight just because the media keeps repeating it.
Because I believe that in the cases where an armed person kills an unarmed person in a one on one confrontation then that loss of life is serious enough to put to a more thorough judgement than just investigators.
The video of Zimmerman taken the night he killed Martin, shows that he was over 170 pounds. Stop taking the word of Zimmerman's friend over the physical evidence that people can see with their own eyes. I've never said his self defense claim was invalidated. I've said it deserves to go trial. What we do know from Zimmerman's own words is that he was following Martin. That is reasonable grounds for Martin to be suspicious.
Who's going to make the decision? The system we have now makes that decision. Are you proposing a change in the law? Let's not forget that knowing Trayvon is/was unarmed is only true after-the-fact and so is really not relevant.... but it makes a great headline. Another thing I'm tired of is the constant railing about GZ killing a kid. GZ could barely distinguish the race of the kid. Wearing a hoodie, he probably could not tell if Trayvon was 16 or 29... up until the moment of confrontation and then it was probably too late and no one is processing that kind of information. But it too makes a great headline.
So, you want the following to go to trial. A 60 year old woman lives alone. A serial rapist breaks into her house and begins to beat her and attempts to rape her. During the attempted rape, the rapist turns aside just long enough to allow the woman to get her handgun out of a drawer in the nightstand next to the bed. She shoots and kills the intruder. The intruder does not have a gun or any other weapon. You want this lady to stand trial?
so where are they? I believe that what was reported was that (as spoken to one of the witnesses) "we thought it was not a case of self-defense." Sounds like he was trying to shape the evidence. Might he have been an over-zealous investigator? Wonder why we haven't been allowed to hear from him?
