Trayvon Martin

[iamshack]

As much as watching a kid in your neighborhood is "stalking" then I guess creating a presence in your neighborhood that you're armed and ready to defend yourself is "vigilantism," so sure.

Fine, call it that...

[StrangeSox]

According to that article it resulted in an arrest right? Didn't he call the cops as a kid was peeking into a window?

 

I don't know what article you're referring to. If someone had already been arrested, why was he still calling in suspicious black youths in his neighborhood? Is it justifiable for him to call in any black kid he doesn't know and to then follow that person while armed?

 

Is Martin's life the price we pay to deter would-be criminals, to show them that we're armed and ready to shoot?

[Jenksismyhero]

I don't know what article you're referring to. If someone had already been arrested, why was he still calling in suspicious black youths in his neighborhood? Is it justifiable for him to call in any black kid he doesn't know and to then follow that person while armed?

 

Is Martin's life the price we pay to deter would-be criminals, to show them that we're armed and ready to shoot?

 

The one Balta posted that started this whole argument - he was doing his thing, risking the lives of everyone on his street by being an armed vigilante, looking for an innocent black kid to shoot, when he happened upon a kid peeking into a window. He called the cops and the kid got arrested trying to rob the place.

 

And because one kid got arrested after a year's worth of crime he should stop calling the police?

[StrangeSox]

The one Balta posted that started this whole argument - he was doing his thing, risking the lives of everyone on his street by being an armed vigilante, looking for an innocent black kid to shoot, when he happened upon a kid peeking into a window. He called the cops and the kid got arrested trying to rob the place.

 

And because one kid got arrested after a year's worth of crime he should stop calling the police?

 

You can't complain about Balta distorting your argument and then say something like that.

 

I don't believe Zimmerman's suspicion is justified based on what he said to the operator. He should have stopped calling the police to report petty bulls*** and he shouldn't have called the police to report and young black guy he didn't know in the neighborhood. That doesn't mean he can't keep neighborhood watching (not neighborhood follow-confront-and-detain) and call in when he sees something actually suspicious, like someone peeping into windows.

 

edit: that suspect wasn't caught:

 

"I don't know what he's doing. I don't want to approach him, personally," Zimmerman said in the call, which was recorded. The dispatcher advised him that a patrol car was on the way. By the time police arrived, according to the dispatch report, the suspect had fled.

Edited April 26, 2012 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

From that article:

 

The Retreat at Twin Lakes e-newsletter for February 2012 noted: "The Sanford PD has announced an increased patrol within our neighborhood ... during peak crime hours.

 

"If you've been a victim of a crime in the community, after calling police, please contact our captain, George Zimmerman."

 

This is where the liability of the HOA may come into play.

[Balta1701]

I don't know what article you're referring to. If someone had already been arrested, why was he still calling in suspicious black youths in his neighborhood? Is it justifiable for him to call in any black kid he doesn't know and to then follow that person while armed?

 

Is Martin's life the price we pay to deter would-be criminals, to show them that we're armed and ready to shoot?

Some, including me, would say that a rash of 50 burglaries where no one is injured is a lot better than one dead, unarmed, innocent 17 year old kid, and if given the choice between those 2 situations I'd choose the burglaries, because I wouldn't want it to be my kid.

 

Obviously you can't simply make that choice, but if you're trying to justify having an armed man patrolling the streets because of burglaries...you're a lot closer to siding with the dead kid than you think.

[Texsox]

Call the police and don't follow someone 'suspicious' around your neighborhood with a gun. Do not take actions that overwhelmingly point to escalating the situation.

 

Citizens protect yourself. I just am not a fan of call the police and go hide while the criminals are allowed to walk anywhere.

[Texsox]

Some, including me, would say that a rash of 50 burglaries where no one is injured is a lot better than one dead, unarmed, innocent 17 year old kid, and if given the choice between those 2 situations I'd choose the burglaries, because I wouldn't want it to be my kid.

 

Obviously you can't simply make that choice, but if you're trying to justify having an armed man patrolling the streets because of burglaries...you're a lot closer to siding with the dead kid than you think.

 

Is there a number when it is ok to actually take back your neighborhood from criminals? You are painting this out as every time someone patrols their neighborhood something tragic happens. There are thousands of people p[atrolling their neighborhoods without problems. We hear of gang infested neighborhoods where people are afraid to be outside at night. People need to take back their homes and neighborhoods not hide like scared children.

[Balta1701]

Is there a number when it is ok to actually take back your neighborhood from criminals? You are painting this out as every time someone patrols their neighborhood something tragic happens. There are thousands of people p[atrolling their neighborhoods without problems. We hear of gang infested neighborhoods where people are afraid to be outside at night. People need to take back their homes and neighborhoods not hide like scared children.

Is there a number of kids that it's ok to kill to accomplish that goal?

[iamshack]

Is there a number when it is ok to actually take back your neighborhood from criminals? You are painting this out as every time someone patrols their neighborhood something tragic happens. There are thousands of people p[atrolling their neighborhoods without problems. We hear of gang infested neighborhoods where people are afraid to be outside at night. People need to take back their homes and neighborhoods not hide like scared children.

What exactly do you mean by "take back your neighborhood"? And how exactly are most untrained "neighborhood watch" members going to accomplish this, exactly?

[Balta1701]

What exactly do you mean by "take back your neighborhood"? And how exactly are most untrained "neighborhood watch" members going to accomplish this, exactly?

I actually get what he's trying to say here, if you have a crime riddled neighborhood and the police on their own aren't helping so you establish and push a hard watch program and really try to catch the people who are causing the problem. You might even have patrols, you might even come up with a way to have the patrols identifiable so that people on the streets know who it is who is following them.

 

I draw the line at having them armed. Once you arm them, you're setting up a situation with a disturbingly high probability of lethal force being employed if there ever is any sort of confrontation, and that event would be involving people who are, compared to police, almost completely untrained.

[iamshack]

I actually get what he's trying to say here, if you have a crime riddled neighborhood and the police on their own aren't helping so you establish and push a hard watch program and really try to catch the people who are causing the problem. You might even have patrols, you might even come up with a way to have the patrols identifiable so that people on the streets know who it is who is following them.

 

I draw the line at having them armed. Once you arm them, you're setting up a situation with a disturbingly high probability of lethal force being employed if there ever is any sort of confrontation, and that event would be involving people who are, compared to police, almost completely untrained.

I'm trying to get the Texas perspective, not the Pasadena, CA transplant to Knoxville, TN perspective.

 

The problem with people "taking back their neighborhood," especially one that is so crime ridden that police patrols and arrests are not having much effect, is the degree to which you now step up the potential of things like innocent people being shot and killed. I think you and I agree on that. I get the frustration. I get the desire to not rely on an ineffective police force. I get the desire to just do something different. But choosing an even worse alternative, which is inserting untrained or ill-trained civilians into high-danger situations, and adding weapons to that equation, does not strike me as something that has much potential to remedy the situation.

[Y2HH]

Is there a number of kids that it's ok to kill to accomplish that goal?

 

By that rational, is there a number of kids/people that it's okay for the criminals to kill or hold captive in their own neighborhoods like prisoners before it becomes okay to say enough is enough?

[BigSqwert]

By that rational, is there a number of kids/people that it's okay for the criminals to kill or hold captive in their own neighborhoods like prisoners before it becomes okay to say enough is enough?

LOL. Come on now. You don't seem to be painting an accurate picture of Sanford Florida. The ends did not justify the means in this scenario. This wasn't mid 80s Cabrini Green with Zimmerman being a self appointed Batman to save the day.

[Jenksismyhero]

I'm trying to get the Texas perspective, not the Pasadena, CA transplant to Knoxville, TN perspective.

 

The problem with people "taking back their neighborhood," especially one that is so crime ridden that police patrols and arrests are not having much effect, is the degree to which you now step up the potential of things like innocent people being shot and killed. I think you and I agree on that. I get the frustration. I get the desire to not rely on an ineffective police force. I get the desire to just do something different. But choosing an even worse alternative, which is inserting untrained or ill-trained civilians into high-danger situations, and adding weapons to that equation, does not strike me as something that has much potential to remedy the situation.

 

This is the first case of its kind that i've heard of. I'm sure there have been more, but I think it's safe to say it's rare. I think your guys' fear of vigilante watch captains shooting innocent people they think are criminals is a bit exaggerated.

[Balta1701]

This is the first case of its kind that i've heard of. I'm sure there have been more, but I think it's safe to say it's rare. I think your guys' fear of vigilante watch captains shooting innocent people they think are criminals is a bit exaggerated.

But the more expansive these concealed carry laws get, and the more expansive these "Self defense" laws get, the more they're going to happen. As we already noted, "Justified homicides" tripled in florida after passing of their version.

[Y2HH]

LOL. Come on now. You don't seem to be painting an accurate picture of Sanford Florida. The ends did not justify the means in this scenario. This wasn't mid 80s Cabrini Green with Zimmerman being a self appointed Batman to save the day.

 

I wasn't painting a picture of any specific area...but there ARE areas as I've described. So again, I ask, when does it comes too 'enough is enough'?

[Jenksismyhero]

But the more expansive these concealed carry laws get, and the more expansive these "Self defense" laws get, the more they're going to happen. As we already noted, "Justified homicides" tripled in florida after passing of their version.

 

Zero evidence to back that up, either from the perspective that CC laws are going to be more "expansive" (as I've said before, the SYG principle was just codified, it already existed in the common law in the vast majority of states as a defense) or that more killings of innocent people will happen.

 

And the triple homicides claim came from one article that simply posted a number. It didn't say how many cases actually applied the SYG law or how many were successful. It just means more people tried to use it. If you were a defendant that shot someone i'm pretty sure you'd try to throw it in your case as a possible defense too.

 

This entire issue comes down to a simple subset of people: people that are afraid of guns and people that aren't. For some reason people that are have this unrealistic expectation that having a gun means you're going to use it against another person. I'm guessing the statistics of that are incredibly low, like less than a percent or two.

[StrangeSox]

I'm not afraid of guns but I'm not in favor of concealed carry and armed neighborhood watches.

[Balta1701]

Zero evidence to back that up, either from the perspective that CC laws are going to be more "expansive" (as I've said before, the SYG principle was just codified, it already existed in the common law in the vast majority of states as a defense) or that more killings of innocent people will happen.

 

And the triple homicides claim came from one article that simply posted a number. It didn't say how many cases actually applied the SYG law or how many were successful. It just means more people tried to use it. If you were a defendant that shot someone i'm pretty sure you'd try to throw it in your case as a possible defense too.

 

This entire issue comes down to a simple subset of people: people that are afraid of guns and people that aren't. For some reason people that are have this unrealistic expectation that having a gun means you're going to use it against another person. I'm guessing the statistics of that are incredibly low, like less than a percent or two.

Well...first of all...when the purpose of a device is "To kill", and there are tens of millions of handguns and hundreds of millions of other guns in this country..."A percent or two" is a massacre.

 

And secondly, you've misread the article. The 288% increase was in deaths that were found to be justifiable. So that doesn't count any that were eventually deemed unjustified.

According to state crime stats, Florida averaged 12 “justifiable homicide” deaths a year from 2000-2004. After “Stand your Ground” was passed in 2005, the number of “justifiable” deaths has almost tripled to an average of 35 a year, an increase of 283% from 2005-2010.

[Jenksismyhero]

Well...first of all...when the purpose of a device is "To kill", and there are tens of millions of handguns and hundreds of millions of other guns in this country..."A percent or two" is a massacre.

 

And secondly, you've misread the article. The 288% increase was in deaths that were found to be justifiable. So that doesn't count any that were eventually deemed unjustified.

 

And what evidence do you have that those weren't justifiable killings? You're going from 12 to 35. That's not exactly a gigantic number. If it went from 12 to 300 you'd have a better argument. And btw I can easily spin that back on you and claim that this law just saved an extra 23 people from being innocently murdered.

 

 

[Balta1701]

I'm not afraid of guns but I'm not in favor of concealed carry and armed neighborhood watches.

I'm afraid of anyone who says they aren't afraid of guns.

[Jenksismyhero]

I'm afraid of anyone who says they aren't afraid of guns.

 

And that pretty much tells me everything I need to know about your stance on this issue. Guns are as dangerous as anything else - your car, a power tool, whatever. Are you afraid of your car too?

[Balta1701]

And that pretty much tells me everything I need to know about your stance on this issue. Guns are as dangerous as anything else - your car, a power tool, whatever. Are you afraid of your car too?

Yes.

 

More precisely, the thing that really scares me is people who tell you that they're fine with it and they're set.

 

Because, just like with guns, it's the ones who lose respect for the device, the ones who tell you they're not afraid of it, that are going to wind up hurting/killing people.

 

Damn well better be scared of power tools. That's why a smart person takes appropriate protective steps before using them...because they are scared.

[StrangeSox]

And that pretty much tells me everything I need to know about your stance on this issue. Guns are as dangerous as anything else - your car, a power tool, whatever. Are you afraid of your car too?

 

Guns are significantly more dangerous than my power tools by design.