Stand your ground on Stand Your Ground

The second, and arguably more important, problem with critics’ conjecture is that what they claim might happen, well, just doesn’t. There is no question in my mind that in a system that honors the rule of law, presumption of innocence, and reasonable doubt, George Zimmerman should not have been found guilty. But I dissent somewhat from many of his apologists in that I do think that the defendant acted stupidly. A neighborhood “watchman” is not the same thing as a neighborhood cop, and at least from what we can know there was no clear-cut reason for Zimmerman to take it upon himself to make the transition from one to the other. To draw on Florida’s own legal language, at no point was Zimmerman compelled to get out of his car in order to “prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.” Whatever his legal liability, Zimmerman’s choices created a situation that led to the death of another man. That much is indisputable.

This behavior, however, had pretty much nothing to do with the principle behind Stand Your Ground. In no reasonable universe can George Zimmerman be painted as a Dexter-esque vigilante, and attempts to cast him as an example of what “might happen” under such laws smack of political exploitation. Indeed, it is telling that such charges emanate primarily from those who objected to broad self-defense laws and permissive gun laws long before anybody knew Trayvon Martin’s name. And telling, too, that they are struggling to find other poster children for a problem that their rhetoric implies is widespread.