Justified?

By Capt. Fogg

A lot of people are very angry about the shooting of Treyvon Martin last month in the old North Florida town of Sanford. I'm one of them.

Florida, as you may know has been a model of old South attitudes toward black people, but was the incident racially motivated as is being loudly asserted or is there racism involved in interpreting what happened?

As you might suspect from his name, Martin was black. He was only 17 years old and when he was accosted one night, dressed as many 17 year old males are, in a hoodie and sneakers and baggy pants; the kind of costume that produces unease and possibly is designed to produce unease, after dark, when worn by someone strolling through your neighborhood.

Young Martin was shot by a "neighborhood watch" volunteer - one of those people who lurk about neighborhoods at night looking for people who don't 'belong' there, but although such groups are often encouraged by local police and like any citizen who qualifies, is allowed to bear arms for the sole purpose of protecting themselves, these volunteers are not and are not allowed to be policemen. Indeed the concealed weapons license course stresses that fact repeatedly.

If you've ever lived in a community that has rules, you've probably chuckled about "Condo Commandos" who delight in the feeling of power they get from reporting you for having your garage door open for more than 5 minutes or failing to take in your garbage can by the required time. I would imagine that such folks would delight even more in taking on the role of protector while walking a beat at night. Does that describe George Zimmerman? Not having all the facts and being unlikely ever to have all of them, I can only speculate.

Mr. Zimmerman, 28 years of age, is being accused by the family of Treyvon Martin of a hate crime and a racially motivated killing. Of course I can't know what was on Zimmerman's mind, but I do read that he is of Hispanic origin and comes from a racially diverse family. There may be many reasons having nothing to do with race for Zimmerman to have accosted the young man and shot him. And of course it's inevitable that Florida gun laws will be blamed for this sad event by those who haven't read them and I despair when thinking about any lesson we should be learning here.

The laws governing concealed weapons here in Florida are rather clear about the right to defend your life when a person has reasonable fear of a lethal attack and it's rather clear about one's right to defend against someone trying to forceably remove you from a place you have a right to be, such as your house or your car. I'm no lawyer, yet I can speculate that a public sidewalk is one of those places one has a right to be. The law is equally clear about your right to use a weapon being severely undermined in a situation where the attack was provoked or 'escalated' by you. In other words, should I draw a weapon and shoot someone I picked an avoidable fight with, or made it worse by remaining when I should have walked away, I won't get away so easily with a self-defense plea as Zimmerman inexplicably seems to have done. The law is also clear about using a weapon to gain advantage in a dispute or as a threat. Simply showing it or even mentioning that you have one is a serious offense in many cases. "Get off my block kid, I've got a gun" is one of those cases.

The rights of a neighborhood watch volunteer extend as far as observing and using a telephone to call the police. They do not include provoking a fight, attempting to chase someone out of a neighborhood, shoving, pushing or physically engaging anyone. From the testimony of Martin's girlfriend who had been talking with him on the phone when Zimmerman 'went after' him and allegedly pushed him to the ground, that may be just what happened and if so, Zimmerman had long since transgressed and his right to use lethal force against an unarmed person had long since departed, at least in my non-lawyer opinion -- yet Zimmerman has not been charged.

Somehow, in the city of Sanford, this possibly unjustifiable use of force seems to have been ignored. I suspect that if there's racism lurking in this case, we'll find it in uniform or carrying a briefcase. Attempts to get around the apparent lapse by law enforcement people by framing the incident as a civil rights violation or a hate crime are not likely to be successful and any chance for justice drowned in the storm of predictable and formulaic accusations.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Newtopia: freedom with guns

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As Michelle Goldberg (michelleinbklyn) tweeted:

Newt says US should have goal to "teach people around the world why right to bear arms is central to their liberty."

Yes, because if there's one big takeaway from world history, from the invention of gunpowder to the present day, it's that everyone would have been a lot better off with guns in their hands.

And certainly the world would be a much better place today, freedom triumphant, if only everyone had a gun.

Nothing like living in fear, nothing like a fearful, fully-armed populace threatening the veneer of civility that already barely keeps society together.

So obvious, yet so not. Thanks, Newt!

All hail America!

Peace... out.

A culture of fear, a culture of violence

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I live in the Toronto area, and am a Canadian, but, as you may know, I lived in the U.S. for a long time. (I can prove it with my high school and college diplomas.) And while I love Canada, I wanted to stay in the U.S. after graduating college. ('Twas grad school that brought me to Toronto.) If not a citizen, I was still very American -- and I remain so still.

Like many Canadians, and like many around the world, I have mixed feelings about the U.S. It's hard not to. It's a force for good in so many ways but also an arrogant, bullying empire. But I certainly still love America a great deal, in spite of its massive flaws, and, needless to say, I spend a great deal of time thinking about, and blogging about, American politics and culture. This blog, after all, is almost entirely focused on the U.S.

But things have changed. I used to think seriously about going back. Now, not so much. (Not unless, say, Obama offered me a job.) It's partly nostalgia on my part, but America just isn't what it was as recently as 15-20 years ago. There was a period of optimism and hope following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, when I was in high school and college, but that quickly came to an end. Basically, what I sense whenever I go down to the States now is not hope and optimism but fear.

Simply put, the American Empire is collapsing. The manufacturing economy, long the engine of geopolitical supremacy, is struggling and not about to improve. Ever. The political system, both because of its structure (thanks to Madison) and because one of the two major parties, the GOP, has descended into madness, is unable to respond, paralyzed. Income inequality continues to worsen, while a plethora of social problems, including poverty, are tearing the country apart. And the celebrity-entertainment culture has proved to be a narcotic that distracts from meaningful civic engagement.

At some level, I think, Americans know this. They know, if only vaguely, that their time is up, that it will never be the same, that the glory years of the last century will recede further and further into the mists of time. All the flag-waving nationalism, all the stupid talk of exceptionalism, is just denial. You can say you're the greatest country in the world and you can strut around like an unrivaled hegemon, but you can't escape the truth, the force of history that is leaving you behind. It happens to every empire. America is no exception. Like Rome, like Britain, America is crumbling. The gap between perception and reality is growing. And there's no turning back.

Of course, 9/11 only made this worse. It brought Americans' long-percolating fears to the surface. Instead of compelling them to confront who they are and to think seriously about what they're doing around the world, it truly and utterly terrorized them. The mythology built up quickly: They hate us and our freedom. They're out to get us. And so America responded, as you know, by turning itself into a sort of police state. It responded to an act of terror by constructing an infrastructure of terror, both domestic and international, based on, and then perpetuating, the terror that was felt on and after 9/11 and that, more broadly, was an core component of the American psyche long before that fateful day. The Patriot Act, the Iraq War, domestic surveillance, torture -- you know what happened. America decided to defend its freedom by becoming decidedly less free.

That's a long and overly general introduction, perhaps, but I think it helps explain this:

According to the FBI, over 1.5 million background checks on customers were requested by gun dealers to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System in December. Nearly 500,000 of those were in the six days before Christmas.

It was the highest number ever in a single month, surpassing the previous record set in November.

On Dec 23 alone there were 102,222 background checks, making it the second busiest single day for buying guns in history.

The actual number of guns bought may have been even higher if individual customers took home more than one each.

Explanations for America's surge in gun buying include that it is a response to the stalled economy with people fearing crime waves. Another theory is that buyers are rushing to gun shops because they believe tighter firearms laws will be introduced in the future. 

There is no doubt some truth to these surface explanations, but I don't think they hit at the underlying problem. Americans are scared. Understandably, perhaps, but scared nonetheless. Their world is collapsing all around them. The comfort and security of the world they knew is no more. And 9/11 terrified them.

And when you add all that to a violent and gun-loving culture, well, is it really any wonder they're buying up all the guns they can get their hands on?