Of Trayvon, George, Rodney, concealed carry and me!
We don’t think of the O.J. Simpson trial when we think about Trayvon Martin , we think about the late Rodney King and how his police tormentors were acquitted by an all white jury in Los Angeles a number of years ago. President George H.W. Bush immediately stepped in after the rioting in Los Angles as a result of that verdict and some justice was meted out for those so apparently guilty of what had been recorded for the world to see. We aren’t so fortunate in the Martin affair. We have only the 911 recordings of what transpired that rainy night in Florida.
O.J.’s trial was a spectacle but he later got what was coming to him on another matter, whether he deserved it or not. Rodney King lived out the rest of his life in the shadows of what had happened to him and died in his swimming pool not all that long ago. George Zimmerman now has the shadow of what he did hanging over him for the rest of his life and he can do nothing at all about that. We, as the on looking public, will know just about anything of importance about him, including when he finally passes away. Perhaps that is punishment enough for him as he joins the legions of others who have escaped what many consider the hand of justice. When we think of George Zimmerman, we also must think of people like another Florida citizen, Casey Anthony, whom so many were sure was guilty of what she supposedly did to her young child who was so beautiful in the photos that still haunt our memories.
All of these people may have escaped justice, but they will not escape the hand of the press who will haunt them until the day that they die.
President Obama brings up a valid point when he notes that the way we should try to honor Trayvon Martin is to prevent the type of gun violence that so needlessly took his life. The obvious way to do this is to enact some sensible gun laws that restrain those like George Zimmerman from having the false courage that a pop gun concealed on their person affords them as they act out their fantasies in life and death situations that only the rule of the gun provides for them. We have just seen the rule of law protect a person who did not have the good sense to do what so many police cars have written on them--To protect and to serve! The police are there for a reason and they wear badges and do not have concealed weapons in most cases just so that people like Trayvon Martin will know that they mean them no harm as long as they do not intend harm others, despite what we saw in the Rodney King case. No one has ever made the case for police brutality being a reason for things like stand your ground laws and concealed carry permits because most people would not want to take the armed and trained police on in any instance. Most people. Not all because there will always be the crazies out there who will take on anybody. The police can tell you that.
I now live in the fiftieth state in the nation to allow concealed carry--Illinois--and I am not sure exactly how I feel about that at the moment. I own no fire arms but I do realize that, like most other citizens, I now have the right to carry one when this new law comes into force, whenever that might be. The federal judiciary finally forced Illinois to enact concealed carry when they said that the state’s refusal to do so violated the second amendment to the federal constitution. Illinois enacted a law around the first of July of this year but delayed the implementation of it for 270 days and the National Rifle Association has already filed an action in the courts to make conceal carry the law in Illinois right now. We suppose that they could not just glory in their victory but must also rub it in everyone’s noses just as well.
Trayvon Martin is dead and no one or any law or the lack of one is going to bring him back. We just wonder how many other young black kids may die because of what that jury and those wonderful defense attorneys who made a name for themselves down in Florida did. I do not feel suddenly safer because Illinois has now extended the right to keep and bear arms to those who want to hide one on their person for what ever reason that they do that. Instead of concealed carry why don’t we go all the way and allow every citizen who wants to, to simply be allowed to wear a holstered gun visible to all just like they used to do out in the old west of not all that long ago. During those times, there was supposedly a code that prevented an armed gun slinger from killing an obviously unarmed man and Trayvon Martin would almost certainly be alive today if he had know in his juvenile naiveté that the person who was stalking him had a visible gun. We could also lessen the load on the court system by allowing people to simply meet out in the street like Matt Dillon and decide justice by whom had the faster draw. We would bet just about anybody that if Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman had met that way on an equal footing that George Zimmerman would not have gone to trial nor would he be alive today. We can either have the law of the land or we can have the law of the gun and it would appear to us that the law of the gun is winning as we speak. And we would just about bet you that if prior generations who went through the trials by fire that ended frontier justice could speak to us today, they would tell us all that we were just about as crazy as hell. Every fourth of July season we hear the pop, pop, pop of the firecrackers going off. Just as well make it year around as we hear the pop, pop, pop, of those settling their disputes down the barrel of a gun. And the National Rifle Association could make even more money selling courses in how to draw and kill the fastest with that straight, true aim to the heart. And they could include in their newsletters a list of who had the most kills as we create a new generation of Billy the Kid’s and Frank and Jesse James’.
It is interesting to note that there is a campaign in this nation against bullying in schools and we wonder if those same individuals who bully that way would also carry that forward to include the use of guns later in their lives. We have noted out here in Illinois that among the issues that have come up is how colleges are going to implement this new concealed carry law on their campuses. We are so lucky here in Illinois because we have the rest of the nation to look to in order to see how to put teeth into this new law as we move into this new era in our collective lives. We’ve been so backward up until now!
IOVHO,
Regards,
Joe
To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.
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