How many times have self-defense advocates joked about the “he was good boy that wasn’t doing anything!” stories the families of recently-deceased criminals always seem to tell? Or that they were “trying to turn their life around” when they were shot while trying to rob/rape/assault someone? Hell, we call them choirboys on a regular basis.
The only* difference between those stories and George Zimmerman’s story is that the family of Trayvon Martin got traction in the media. And they did that by being dishonest about Trayvon (using old pictures, etc) and flat out making things up about Zimmerman. The local and national media were all to eager to help.
What’s to stop that sort of thing from happening again? Do you think it is less likely to happen in the future, based on the media reaction? Media loves a narrative. They also hate gun owners generally, and permit holders specifically. Expect to see a lot of “Echoes of Trayvon Martin seen in [local self-defense shooting]” stories over the next year or two.
When it’s all said and done, Zimmerman will be this decade’s Richard Jewell (you mean the guy who bombed the Olympics?) or Bernie Goetz (that’s the guy who opened fire on a bunch of guys on a subway because they were black, right?). I just hope he gets to live to sue Al Sharpton.
*Now, you can argue that Martin would still be alive if Zimmerman hadn’t gotten out of his car, and that’s probably true. But Martin would still be alive if he hadn’t attacked Zimmerman. Any of the stories in The Dead Goblin Count could be framed in such a way.
I have to admit, I was certainly suspicious of a certain amount of ‘death by mall ninja’ when the story first broke. Further, I have no clear information on either party involved. That being said, I make this observation: My wife and I recently moved from Phoenix AZ, in part because we are concerned about the rising crime level there. For a portion of time, I was unemployed in that city (I’m in residential construction, and we all know how well THAT industry is doing). If, in the middle of the day when no one else was around the complex we lived in, I interrupted some young hoodlum with ill intent, and being armed, acquitted myself to my survival, there is at least some likelihood that a headline would have read “Unemployed right wing activist kills local teen.” And there’s nothing I could say to that because it would be, although misleading, true. I find that thought tempers my reaction to the story, although many others do not possess my restraint.
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