hi tkc,
a person is actually presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
there is no doubt zimmerman killed martin.
we know there was a fight and much of what occurred during it. zimmerman was losing it big time.
there was eyewitness testimony that martin was beating up zimmerman.
so the only question is zimmerman's state of mind. did he reasonably believe he was in danger of serious bodily harm? well. he had already experienced it in the form of a broken nose and various head wacks which might have resulted in trauma to his brain (but did not).
i don't have a doubt it was a case of self-defence under the law.
that doesn't make me think arming people with guns is a good idea. but i don't blame a person who acted lawfully for the law he operated under.
it wasn't murder. it was a lawful killing. people in their wisdom decided folks should be able to carry concealed guns with which to defend themselves. i would rather they carried pepper spray.
the gun law's absolutely nuts. but it's also an output of democracy. democracy put a gun in zimmerman's hand and said he could use it under certain conditions. it might have done otherwise. but it did not.
folks in some states think it is okay to do things others find repellant. you arm people. you end up with dead people.
i don't suppose it could be more obvious that there's a difficulty with changing things that don't work.
that's the issue here in my view.