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Given the ease with which this extra contrary info has come out , one has to at least consider that this was a trap for the anti-gun lobby in the form of an invitation to speak out , and be proven to be wrong in the most absolute way .Quote:
Originally Posted by zako85
There are clever minds on both sides of the gun debate .
You don't have to shoot'em if you can get them to shoot themselves .
"Stand your ground" justifies gun sales . Gun guys win .
More gun crimes create more paranoia , and the public buys more guns .
Inject a little race tension , and guns sell again . The gun guys win again .
And , of course , the street cop needs to be armed to be able to meet the challenge of outgunning the common criminal , the innocent kid turned bad . The gun guys again .
Maybe the neighbourhood watch is past it's prime and there should be talk of uniformed police officers instead .
Those guys that supply the cops with all those weapons also supply the army with all theirs as well , so why not just supply the cops with the same weapons and gear ?
Hell , why not just use the army ?
Now , to be clear , I'm not suggesting this route , but merely trying to show it's not that many steps .
It perhaps shows that , what I understand as the original reasoning behind the second amendment in your constitution , the proliferation of arms is , in part , a protection against a government that is seen as moving against it's own people , as much of protection of the individual .
I hope I'm right about that , but one thing that I am pretty sure I am right about , is that the second amendment guarantees that the gun guys win every time .
The tax to support that would be unacceptable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bagwan
Well , yeah , I know that .Quote:
Originally Posted by Starter
It was just an illustration of steps towards a police state .
I was listening to CBC radio the other day(most CBC stuff in on NPR) , and they were talking about a recent long weekend where there were , I think , thirty-seven killings over a long weekend in Chicago .
Presumably , this Martin/Zimmerman thing was more sexy on the surface for the press to grab on , than the choice of one of the Chicago 37 .
Hold on a moment , Starter , but , that was the only aspect on which you chose to comment ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Starter
I hope that doesn't mean you would accept the statement , "Hell , why not just use the army ?" , as less than it was -ie , an extreme degree .
I didn't say it because the tax for that would also be unacceptable. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Bagwan
I thought I was pretty clear back in post #247 of the closed thread:Quote:
Originally Posted by Bagwan
I find it very difficult to have a lot of sympathy for the rantings of some of the black leaders (at least the ones who love the camera) who blame everything on the whites. If they spent half as much time tending to the issues in the black community, there would be a lot more black kids still alive now.Quote:
That's the part which I find most interesting. It's a true statement and has been true for many years. The same can not be said of the Asian, Hispanic, white or even indian populations. Why is that? And when are many of the so called black leaders going to wake up to the fact instead of blaming their woes on whites? It was said best in an old Pogo cartoon - "We have met the enemy and he is us.".
Even after watching the video, the most important point to stress is that there were only two direct eye witnesses to the beginning of the incident - Zimmerman and Martin. That's it. Every other witness brought into the case either did not directly see the beginning of the incident or was a character witness.Quote:
Originally Posted by zako85
It's entirely possible that Zimmerman attacked first and that Martin could have been standing his ground. The thing is that Martin couldn't have mounted such a defence in court, owing to the fact that he is dead. However, no charges were brought against Marton because he is dead.
I still stand behind what I said in the first thread.
It was Mark O'Mara who summed up the crux of this the most succinctly:Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/12/ju...html?hpt=hp_t1
"How many 'coulda beens' have you heard from the state in this case, How many 'what ifs' have you heard from the state in this case?"
- via CNN, 12th July 2013
"Onus probandi" of the burden of proof rests on the prosecution and because this was a criminal and not a civil case, 'coulda beens' and 'what ifs' although they might be reasonable where the standard is only on balance of probabilities, they are most certainly not in this case.
Personally I think that the law in question is stupid and the fact that there even was a gun probably added to the temperature of the climate of the incident but the law is as it stands and courts must apply laws as they stand, nothing more and nothing less.
The jury came up with the verdict , having seen loads of info on Zimmerman , but not having seen the info in the video about Martin .
Pretty much all of that info about Martin seems pretty pertinent to the issue , and since it wasn't used , we should be able to assume it wasn't admissible in court .
The video tosses rocks in many directions over the fact that those facts weren't used , not over the issue of whether they would have changed the verdict .
Whittle agrees with the verdict , but hints at a bigger picture .
The video is actually largely irrelevant , in regards to the trial , but , important for the general public to understand .
I recall many years ago being told by a young lawyer that "We have courts of law, not courts of justice". I think I'm beginning to understand what he meant (based on this and other cases).