Florida stand Your ground law?

Maybe Zimmerman has learned why it's not advisable to carry a gun while on neighborhood watch.

The homeowners association had to settle with the Martin family over this issue.

Lake Mary police officers were still investigating the encounter as a domestic dispute, but no charges had been filed Monday afternoon. Shellie Zimmerman left the house after being questioned by police. George Zimmerman remained there into early evening and his attorney denied any wrongdoing by his client. He was not arrested.

It's true! They find the most hysterical, sensationalist broadcasts/articles they can find that reinforce the worldview of their audience and then re-headline them in a manner that redoubles the hysteria!

Seems entirely reasonable to me. If someone is forceably entering my house or car I'm gonna be afraid for my life. If I had a gun, I wouldn't think twice about it. If I am elsewhere and someone attacks me, I'm gonna be afraid in that situation, too. People need to act civilly to one another. Breaking into my place or attacking me when I'm out isn't civil behavior. It's hostile aggression, plain and simple. The consequences become their problem. What wrong with that?

**Standing your ground? Black woman shot in head seeking help in white neighborhood
The family of Renisha McBride, 19, seeks answers after she was shot in the head and the shooter may avoid charges**

“You see a young black lady on your porch and you shoot?” demanded Bernita Sparks, the aunt of slain Detroit 19-year-old Renisha McBride. McBride was shot in the head and killed when, according to her family, she was seeking help, knocking on doors in a white neighborhood after her car crashed.

McBride’s family is asking prosecutors for information on the incident that left the unarmed young woman dead. Scant details have been provided. As the Detroit News reported “Dearborn Heights [Police Department has] identified the person who fired the shot and killed the woman.” However, police have claimed that the shooter believed McBride to be an intruder and shot in self-defense. Initial police reports that described the 19-year-old’s body as having been “dumped” have been amended to state that she was found on the shooter’s porch.

Self-defense gone wrong is not a sufficient excuse for a bullet in the head, McBride’s family has stressed. “He shot her in the head … for what? For knocking on his door,” said Spinks. “If he felt scared or threatened, he should have called 911.”

Police have now asked that charges be brought against the shooter. But since a “stand your ground” law applies in Michigan, the charges may not stick. As Rania Khalek has rightly pointed out on her blog, “The problem with a law like Stand Your Ground is that it excuses and encourages deadly force against ‘perceived’ threats. In the United States, where implicit and structural racism persists on a vast scale, is it wise to empower people who almost certainly have irrational and racist fears.”

And as Khalek notes in the case of McBride’s shooting, “She is after all a black woman from Detroit, which is 82 percent black, whereas Dearborn Heights, the area she was shot in, is 86 percent white … Regardless of your position on Stand Your Ground, one thing is for sure. The family of 19-year-old Renisha McBride deserves answers.”

Police are State and County funded, not Federal. Nice try though, Gary.

Dipshit!

Because the number of deputies at Josephine County's Sheriff's Department had been cut following the expiration of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act - a multimillion- dollar annual federal aid payment for timber-producing counties – the remaining officers were only available 8am to 4pm Monday through Friday.

Because the number of deputies at Josephine County’s Sheriff’s Department had been cut following the expiration of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act – a multimillion- dollar annual federal aid payment for timber-producing counties – the remaining officers were only available 8am to 4pm Monday through Friday.

The levy defeat and subsequent dismantling of the sheriff's office, district attorney's staff and juvenile justice program have put Josephine County in a harsh light. Longtime residents say it exposed an anti-government negativity in a place victimized by economic factors it can't control. For decades, Josephine and other Oregon timber counties relied on millions in federal timber sales to pay for sheriff's deputies, jails, roads, prosecutors, health clinics and other services. It seemed a fair deal. Federal land makes up 60 percent of the landbase in some counties, but isn't subject to property taxes. So the feds shared harvest revenue with the counties. They were bound tight. In Josephine County, the shoulder patch on sheriff's uniforms features a loaded log truck. But the near shut-down of logging on federal forests cost the counties dearly. Congress in 2000 approved a payment program to replace the timber money, and extended it twice, but it ended this past year. A proposal to extend the payments once again is stalled in a deadlocked Congress, leaving 33 Oregon counties with combined revenue losses of $215 million annually.

Last year, the Josephine County sheriff’s department lost a multi-million dollar federal subsidy for timber dependent counties.

2. He was so stressed out from the trial (which probably never should have happened--as virtually all the commentators agreed that the state fell woefully short of proving its case) that he's now "acting out," and he's really another victim here.