<p>poetgirl, You’re right in regards to gun laws, but Z did have a gun/carry license so for him to carry the gun was not a crime.</p>
<p>The south has crappy gun laws. Here in NY, it’s not easy to get a LEGAL gun carry license.<br>
It is easy though to buy an illegal gun----one that was most likely brought up north from the south.</p>
<p>Personally, I think there should be a straight across the board federal set of gun laws.
The problem with different states having different laws is what you see now----legally bought guns in the south (easily bought) being brought up north and sold illegally (because the laws here are tougher). Again, this doesn’t have anything to do with the trial as Z’s gun was purchased legally and he was licensed.</p>
<p>I’m really not sure what is going to happen in this case. He deserves to be tried by a sequestered jury who isn’t out here discussing gun laws. I’m glad he is. The law is the law.</p>
<p>It is simply that it is the gun laws which I question in this case. I don’t think Trayvon is dead or GZ on trial for Murder 2 without these laws, personally.</p>
<p>Background checks would need to address domestic violence history, and anger management history, along with mental illness. We tend to focus on mentally ill when discussing restricting access to guns, but we leave out the important issue of these other groups who may not be in the mental illness group. (obviously there is sometimes overlap but not always)</p>
<p>Frankly, poetgrl, there’s been nothing posted here which does anything but reinforce my opinion that a person’s fervent desire to carry a gun in public in the absence of specific circumstances which provide an individual reason for doing so is prima facie evidence of lack of appropriate mental and emotional maturity to do so.</p>
<p>"… Z did have a gun/carry license so for him to carry the gun was not a crime."</p>
<p>And even if the gun was illegal … or a legal gun he borrowed from a friend, or a piece he picked up from the sidewalk where someone inadvertently left it, or an antique flintlock handed to him by a passerby … it doesn’t change the dynamics of the trial. The Skittle-carrying criminal (if you believe GZ’s story) was beating him to death, making the shoot “righteous.”</p>
<p>As far as I know he is the only one who has been treated by a mental health profession in this situation?</p>
<p>No, I know, Kluge. I think it’s a particular mindset to want to carry. It’s a huge responsibility most people don’t want to have to deal with on a day to day basis. Too much worry about the things that can go wrong.</p>
<p>“If there’s one thing for sure, keeping guns around the house when you have kids is dangerous.”</p>
<p>Poetgrl - I can understand your point. I will not allow my husband to have guns in our house either because we have kids. However I come from a hunting family and everyone including myself has been deer hunting. My parents had guns in the house but they were locked up in the gun cabinet and us kids were taught to respect guns at a very early age.
So I do think that people can have guns in their house and it not be a dangerous situation. I just prefer not have them in my house.</p>
<p>" my husband, who grew up hunting, agrees with me, as do his friends. Take your choice, lockers, gun clubs, whatnot. If there’s one thing for sure, keeping guns around the house when you have kids is dangerous. Anyone with half a brain and experience with guns knows this. Nobody I know who has guns argues with this or sees it as anything other than logical."</p>
<p>When your well-regulated militia calls you out to battle against the state wielding nuclear weapons, you go to your locker at the local gun club and get your Bambi Killer. No big deal.</p>
<p>kluge - but what if GZ had seen something awful at Target … some grandma trying on bras right there in the aisle, or something similar. Wasn’t GZ obligated to have the ability to hold the offender until police arrived? We already know he was inept at hand-to-hand stuff … and most grandmas can sense that in a male. What else but a firearm would allow him to detain the perp?</p>
But the ones who want to do it don’t see it that way. They minimize the risks, oversell the potential benefits, and wander along in their wishful-thinking cloud of “It’s all about me, and I’m special.”</p>
<p>The regular, responsible gun owners I know keep their firearms in a safe place, like you. They see the risks and deal with them appropriately. But the wannabes only see themselves being heroes, because… well, because “It’s all about me. And I’m special.”</p>
<p>But not having guns in your house for safety reasons does not make you anti gun, just pro safety and pro responsibility.</p>
<p>There are different ways to deal with this, but responsible gun owners respect the position I have on this, and none of them question the validity of not wanting guns in the house.</p>
<p>None of them are going to be leaving the guns out at their house, anyway.</p>
<p>A good friend of ours moved his guns when he came down one night to see a visiting teenager staring at the cabinet with interest. He decided, “I don’t need to be thinking about this and I can’t stop thinking about this.”</p>
<p>With rights come responsibilities. Simple as that.</p>
<p>“When your well-regulated militia calls you out to battle against the state wielding nuclear weapons, you go to your locker at the local gun club and get your Bambi Killer. No big deal.”</p>
<p>mini - There’s a posted schedule for the use of sarcasm on CC, and this ISN’T your period. Consider your wrist slapped. Ow! That wrist-slap left a small abrasion on my off-hand ring finger. PLEASE DON’T SHOOT ME!</p>
<p>lindtz, I never said shoving a police officer is not concerning. What I did say was that it was reduced to resisting arrest without violence which was then agreed to be erased on the completion of an alcohol program. He completed the program. Legally, his record now is clean regarding the use of violence “shoving” against a police officer. </p>
<p>newhope, You can’t use that argument. You can’t use one’s distain for a law (self defense or SYG) to judge a person guilty. The law isn’t on trial right now. Perhaps because of this case, the law will be more fine tuned.</p>
<p>newhope, You can be as mad as you want about this case, but you shouldn’t make up imaginary stories and scenarios with imaginary outcomes and use them to analyze a court case or to support your opinion on the case.</p>
<p>Being for the right to do something (e.g. keep guns) does not mean that the person is for the obligation to do the same thing, or personally wishes to do the same thing.</p>
<p>What “imaginary story”? Everyone here is trying to fill in the blanks to make the evening’s events make sense. GZ has a history of lying, so his story needs to be examined very closely. It is full of inconsistencies, and would be stupid to take at face value without corroboration. The issues of the location of the body, the detail of the bush TM apparently popped out of, and other things GZ seems to have conveniently forgotten should concern everybody. And, significantly, no one who is defending GZ has been able to offer one iota of explanation as to why TM had NONE of GZ’s DNA on his knuckles or palms.</p>
<p>I am also surprised no one has commented on how he told Sean Hannity it was “all God’s plan” to kill Trayvon Martin. This from someone with an anger-management problem who may very well walk and retain his license to carry firearms. It astonishes me that people seem so willing to vindicate him without insisting on a complete understanding of the facts.</p>
<p>Mini - My grandparents owned a small farm with some woods. The deer ate part of the corn every year. The deer that we killed helped feed our family. While I think shooting animals in order to mount their head on a wall is wrong. Killing deer to eat is no different than buying a chicken the local grocery store.</p>
<p>^ Re: #1595 - I’m on record as saying that I don’t know whether GZ is guilty or not guilty, and that I trust the Jury to render an appropriate decision. I’m ALSO on record as saying this was a tragedy that needn’t have occurred, and that “blame the victim” makes a mockery of Justice (whatever one believes that to be). I’m also not a big believer “Hey I’m the Good Guy with the gun here … when I shoot it’s legit.” </p>
<p>BTW, well-considered positions are generally immune from sarcasm. Just say’n.</p>
<p>Over one million people have Florida concealed weapon/firearm licenses, including 570 Florida judges. Odds are the judge at Zimmerman trial is carrying a gun and also I’ll guarantee the bench she is sitting at has bulletproof screen shield built into it she could get behind for protection if gunfire started up in the courtroom…Florida is gun crazy.</p>