Here are things Zimmerman could have done, if he thought Martin was suspicious:
1. Stayed in his car and followed him, with the windows rolled up.
2. Got down and shouted at him from a distance that he was the neighborhood watch and he was armed. That would have alerted Martin not to get belligerent and get into a fight.
3. Even after the first punch, and even if Martin was the aggressor, he could have fired into the air or into the boy’s leg or arm, or could have just run away firing randomly. That would have alerted Martin and scared him off and it would have resulted in no one being seriously injured.
The idea that the only way he could have saved himself is by killing an unarmed person is simply misleading.
Killing a burglar who enters your home at night is one thing, although even there, if you know the other person doesn’t have a gun, aim for the leg or arm.
Avoiding confrontation is the smartest thing to do when no one is being directly threatened.
Vigilante posturing ends up harming someone, either the vigilante or his target.
The first law of any kind of activity is FIRST DO NO HARM.
You do realize that ‘shooting to wound’ is not legally permissible and would serve to open up the shooter to not only legal culpability, but civil liability as well regardless of the underlying circumstances?
The law is crystal clear (regardless of stand-your-ground/castle doctrine type laws) that deadly force is only permissible when you reasonably and in good faith believe your life (or of those around you) to be in jeopardy enough to justify the use of immediate and decisive force to end said threat. So by shooting to wound a perpetrator, you would immediately undermine the entire basis of the legal justification you invoked to defend yourself in the first place.
Regardless if you view this as fair, or even sane, it is nevertheless the reality of the situation in the litigation-happy and criminality-enabling American ‘justice’ system.
Really? Then the law is an ass.
And if shooting to wound is wrong, then punching to wound is equally wrong, so I imagine the civil suits on either side would cancel each other?
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/Homeowner-Walked-in-on-Burglars-Shot-Suspects-Miami-Police-191426281.html
And the person in the article cited above will doubtlessly be sued in civil court by another random headline-hungry scumbag criminal-enabling attorney….
Again the law regarding use of deadly force is clear and unambiguous – if you shoot to wound, you have undermined your entire basis for using deadly force in the first place. You must SHOOT TO STOP the threat or you will be held legally culpable for using deadly force when it was not warranted! In other words – if you merely shoot to wound, it will be argued in court that you truly were not in immediate fear for your life or of those around you – there is a mountain of prior caselaw to back this assertion up (again thanks largely to degenerate criminal attorneys aka criminal-enablers).
Never mind the fact that if you ever are unlucky enough to find yourself in a firefight, getting *any* hit is difficult enough due to your own adrenalin and the completely chaotic nature of said situation. The vast majority of the public are not trained sharpshooters – trying to play one is a good way to get yourself or an innocent bystander hurt or killed.
Now I certainly do agree Zimmerman made some foolish decisions and probably escalated this situation, but Martin was obviously no angel as well. Regardless of the respective characters of those directly involved, none of us were present to witness the event first hand. Yes, even those with the most inflamed passions absolutely DO NOT KNOW with any degree of certainly what really and truly occurred that tragic night – this fact is indisputable!
A jury (of all women mind you) could not remove all reasonable doubt that Zimmerman did not act in self defense regardless of who started the altercation… (The fact that Zimmerman discharged his weapon while laying on his back indicates to me that he most likely was in imminent fear of having his head stomped on – which *absolutely* is grounds for the use of deadly force regardless of who started the altercation)
Whats more, every sane non-biased legal expert agreed that there was *NEVER* any chance whatsoever of securing a 2nd degree murder conviction in this case! This was an purely an exercise in political theater in further inflame the elite\’s favorite social memes – racial hatred and hoplophobia. This much is obvious to all but the most agenda-driven ideologues and their major media spokes-puppets.