Kinja reply list

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ratchedTom Scocca
7/12/13 5:34pm
Some of the comments on my local media: "Self-defense isn't a racial event. Zimmerman should go free and the community should be relieved that a 17 year old drug user won't ever threaten them."

"Typically, JC, the "rioting and looting" always takes place in their own (black) neighborhoods.
I regard the shooting of this piece of vermin as "crime prevention.""

"Zimmerman fired only ONE shot into his attacker and the fight was over. I personally would have emptied the magazine into my attacker."

"Zimmerman was a cop wannabe, and Martin was a thug/gangster wannabe.

Martin had left his gun and burglar tools at home but Zimmerman didn't know it. Martin was unarmed? Banks have been robbed with toy guns. Never bring a bag of Skittles to a gunfight."

"Zimmerman was doing his job as a concerned citizen. Martin (on the other hand) obviously was under the influence of THC, had been in fights before and was either planning on buying or selling a gun. Sounds like fate stepped in and removed a troublemaker from the planet while he was criminally using blunt force trauma on neighborhood watchman's face. God bless George Zimmerman."

Yeah, there's no racial aspect to this.
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  Dioderatched
  7/12/13 5:45pm
  Where the fuck do you live?? i want to know so i move 1000 miles away(no offense to you).
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  Dolemiteratched
  7/12/13 5:49pm
  Why would a 17 year old drug user threaten me? Almost 50% of Americans have tried/used drugs in their lifetime, and that's just illicit drugs. How many Americans are on corporate drugs that have very little discernible difference from the illicit drugs, as far as effect on the body? How many teens/young adults have not used any drugs/alcohol?
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ArdenTom Scocca
7/12/13 5:43pm
A lot of people are spouting that Zimmerman was "just defending himself"...but can you blame Trayvon for fighting? You're walking in your own neighborhood where you live and some creepy dude is stalking you in a car the way a predator stalks its prey. Then, just before you're about to get home, he leaps from his vehicle and charges you with a loaded gun.

Trayvon was the one who acted in self-defense here, and he didn't survive.

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  SetFiretoTheRoomArden
  7/12/13 5:58pm
  Trayvon was just standing his ground, a right afforded to him by the state of Florida.
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PoopiesAFTom Scocca
7/12/13 5:29pm
The undisputed facts say gross negligence, not murder. 10 years for Man 1.
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  FoxforcefourPoopiesAF
  7/12/13 5:33pm
  You missed the simplest terms: An unarmed 17-year-old is dead. George Zimmerman tracked him, got out of his truck, and shot the unarmed 17-year-old dead.
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  Chris MelonPoopiesAF
  7/12/13 5:33pm
  Actually, since a gun was used the penalty can be enhanced up to 30 years. Even for manslaughter.
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ratsarehotTom Scocca
7/12/13 7:26pm
To bad people aren't outrage over all the murders committed every hour in Chicago, Detroit, LA and all over the US. Yes this was awful, but if this was a another 17 yr. old or 25 yr. old killing another person nobody hear's about it. Fade in MSNBC and Rev. AL , all hell breaks loose. So Rev. what about those killing's everywhere else, were are those picture's. Your just a fucked up Racist yourself.
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  muffin_cupcakeratsarehot
  7/12/13 9:33pm
  I live in Chicago, and I agree that the murders here do not get enough attention. But to be fair, when young black men shoot each other, nobody argues that it was justified — that's one reason those cases aren't in the news for months. The fact that this man shot an unarmed kid and might get away with it makes this a newsworthy case because it's extremely fucked up, and it says a lot of ugly things about America that need to be addressed. When we fight about this case, we're fighting about something important and real. Of course it has been overdone, but I'm glad the case got attention. Zimmerman wouldn't have been charged with murder at all if it hadn't been for the publicity. And the point being made by Tom Scocca (and many others) is one that America needs to hear.
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  Cherith Cutestoryratsarehot
  7/12/13 11:15pm
  All of those deaths are terrible and Gawker does report it. But this case is about the fact that we have decided that it is OK to stalk black kids, confront them with weapons and then shoot them if they resist.
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destor23Tom Scocca
7/12/13 8:05pm
"Nobody but Zimmerman says that Zimmerman was losing the fight."

Not proud to say it, but I've lost a fight or two. Very humbling. A little scary. Never thought I was going to die.

Isn't Zimmerman's claimed experience just so uncommon as to be unbelievable?
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  No-Mi Skyedestor23
  7/13/13 7:36am
  Not when it comes to claiming defense. When playing the victim works in a persons favor, they don't have a problem pretending to be weak. That's the key to the defense. I was weaker, I didn't have a choice.
  
  It's not like he can say, Oh I was whooping that ass and the shot him anyway. He has to claim self defense to make his story at all plausible.
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  destor23No-Mi Skye
  7/13/13 9:55am
  Yeah, he does. It just doesn't make sense in context. Probably preaching to the choir here but: 1) Zimmerman created the encounter. 2) Zimmerman was an adult, fighting an adolescent. 3) Zimmerman was carrying a concealed "equalizer."
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effdotTom Scocca
7/12/13 5:49pm
The other key thing about this is that Zimmerman doesn't deny shooting him.

29 year old adult George Zimmerman shot 17 year old Trayvon Martin dead. Zimmerman shot this kid in the chest; there are lots of places you can aim, but he aimed for the chest.

There is no good outcome from this.
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  suckerborneveryminuteeffdot
  7/12/13 5:57pm
  Where are you supposed to aim when a dude is slamming your head into the road?
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  effdotsuckerborneveryminute
  7/12/13 6:19pm
  Knee. It'd be the closest thing, also most likely to stop the bashing. The person would fall at that point. Almost zero chance of missing, too. The distance, if he was being straddled, would've been closer.
  
  There's also rolling. Or grabbing a leg and rolling over, which would topple the person attacking you, especially if you outweighed them.
  
  That's, of course, assuming that George Zimmerman was being honest about what was happening, that he was on his back, and somehow got a gun from his back.
  
  That's one of the points in the article, that we only have the word of the person who has admitted to killing the only other witness.
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filmgirlTom Scocca
7/12/13 5:44pm
The fact is that they put Trayvon Martin on trial. He is the victim, he is the one who cannot defend himself. Zimmerman knowingly and unlawfully stalked this poor kid. He deserves jail time. He is someone who was out to cause harm, it just happened to be a kid.
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  nautgoodefilmgirl
  7/12/13 8:39pm
  "unlawfully stalked this poor kid"
  
  if it were unlawful, why aren't they charging him with stalking? in fact, following someone you find to be suspicious in public spaces is not unlawful, nor should it be. it was a shithead move, but not illegal.
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  filmgirlnautgoode
  7/12/13 9:24pm
  Personally if I was walking around and someone started following me, I would be a little scared and I would run through the bushes too, to lose him.
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Gabrielle CyniqueTom Scocca
7/12/13 5:44pm
If you want to get into a technical argument that it's only murder if it's "unlawful," and that if this trial by jury fails to produce a conviction, then the killing is not unlawful and therefore is not murder—well, presumably you also would argue that O.J. Simpson did not murder his wife.

If you want to get technical, your OJ analogy is off. George Zimmerman is making an affirmative defense; OJ didn't. OJ didn't admit to the killings or ask that that they be found justifiable. So OJ was found not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but he was certainly not found innocent, and he most certainly did murder his wife even if one agrees (as I do) that he was also certainly not proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. So I think your presumption is off.

But is George Zimmerman a murderer? Is water wet? Does the Pope shit in the woods? New Pope does, because he's humble. And George Zimmerman is a fucking scumbag murderer who I hope reaps karmic justice, even the law cannot reach him.

PS: I'd also be ok with mob justice.
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  TemperanceGabrielle Cynique
  7/12/13 7:33pm
  Thank you. His legal analysis is so ... wrong.
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  MulderLovesMeTemperance
  7/13/13 4:39am
  It's completely right and one of the best I've read.
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CavitySearchTom Scocca
7/12/13 5:44pm
Turn the case around: a black teenager goes out carrying a gun, gets in a fight with a Neighborhood Watch volunteer, and shoots him, claiming self-defense. We would not even be discussing the case. The cops would have arrested and charged him. He would already be in prison.

THAT to me the is most upsetting part of this. If this case was the other way around, Trayvon would have been in prison for life. Not a doubt in my mind. Armed man, follows unarmed teen, teen shot dead. When you take race out of it, it's a fucking CRIME. But I guess a black teen's life isn't worth as much as a white teen's life in these fucking racists minds. And people say we're a post-racial society. I have a horrible feeling that Zimmerman is going to walk away from this though.
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  ItsARampageLanaCavitySearch
  7/12/13 6:00pm
  Actually, if the case was the other way around, Trayvon would have been shot 20 times by the cops for "resisting arrest."
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  Myrna MinkoffCavitySearch
  7/12/13 6:24pm
  You're overlooking the fact that Trayvon smoked pot. And as we all know, pot immediately turns people into senselessly violent predators.
  
  Signed,
  
  Racist assholes of America
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rosiedublinTom Scocca
7/12/13 9:17pm
I'll say it. Much like homophobia, racism, at it's most virulent is about MASCULINITY. For the better part of 400 years in this country, whites enslaved blacks who at one point made up majorities in the south. That was a very scary thing for those who were white, especially men. We talk about the rapes of female slaves, but the emasculating of black males is usually never mentioned. Miscegenation laws weren't for white slave owners and white males who regularly raped black females, it was for black men and white women. We all know how thru the late 20th century, lynchings were common, and could occur basically on a whim of whatever white person felt like it (this is why this case resonates with blacks - as that is what it feels like). Emmet Till all over again. Emmet onm vacation in the south, supposedly whistled at a white woman, she told her husband, the husband and some buddies beat him unrecognizably and threw the 14 yr old in the river, after first weighing him down. I believe he was also castrated.

That history of white male feelings of inferiority continues to this day. Nabbing a black guy then becomes an auto-penis extender for cowardly wusses like George, he didn't care that Trayvon was a year or two past having hair 3 on his balls. Black males are daaaaaaangerous....oooooh......(except on the basketball court and football field, and baseball diamond...then you'll root for them and buy their jerseys for your kids eh? But I'm guessing a 17 year old Lebron James, or 17 yr old Charles Barkely, or 17 year old Victor Cruz, or 17 year old Hank Aaron or 17 year old Muhammed Ali, or 17 yr old Pele...would have all been killed in cold blood by George Zimmerman too.
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  Skoochrosiedublin
  7/12/13 11:27pm
  You mention white slave owners raping black female slaves.I understand this did occur,but it happened over 150 years ago.Do you care to talk about the overwhelming disparity in black male on white female rape as opposed to white male on black female rape?After all it's something that is happening now,not in the distant past.I'm sure you'll have some lame excuse that blames whitey,but i would love to hear it.
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  MizJenkinsrosiedublin
  7/13/13 3:13am
  PREACH.
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