A Little Off Topic: Trayvon Martin

I just got home with my wife and daughter.  We were playing at a local park here in Orlando.  I sat down at a table and began reading the newspaper that my wife gets, so she can coupon.  On the front page of the paper today was a headline that said, “Gun owners debate shooting, law.”  It was correct.  Gun owners are debating the shooting of Travon Martin.  I wasn’t really intending on writing about this topic, but looking around at this playground gave me some perspective.  I have been around guns my entire life.  I have been following several forums concerning guns for about two years now.  We are discussing this case.  But then I had a different thought after reading that article in the paper.

   
I looked up and it occurred to me that I was sitting next to a Hispanic man.  We had already laughed together about his kids while I was reading my paper.  I looked at my daughter playing there in the park.  I noticed that there was only one little curly blonde girl, with blue eyes on the playground.  She was mine.  There were about twenty different Hispanic kids and their parents.  Then I noticed three different groups of Asian families.  All of these families, and my little girl were playing on the playground together.  I moved close to where my wife and daughter had wandered off to, and I found another bench to sit on.  I watched them play for a little while, and a Caucasian man came and sat down beside me.  I noticed his child on the slide too.   He spoke to me about how the park gets more crowded when the weather gets warm like this.  I replied about the weather in a pretty stereotypical way, as I noticed his accent.  I believe it was eastern European.  What brings all of these families to this playground?  They are all playing together and having a good time.  My frustration became focused.  This is not the community or the America portrayed by the news.   This is a meeting of some seventy-five Americans on a playground.  They are from all over the world.  Why are they here?  If the news reports were right about America being a racist nation, then these people should be hiding in their homes.  Yet they come out here and play…and they bring their children.  Teeny-tiny ones.  One little boy and his parents were most likely from Pakistan.  They stuck out in my mind.  They brought their one year-old boy out to play at this playground.   Will he ever have to worry about being the wrong type of Muslim here in Orlando?  They’re killing each other by the truck load in Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, etc.  These are all countries overwhelmed by sectarian violence.  Our new foreign policies are a driving force behind changing these countries.  We are taking advantage of the racial and ethnic divides in these countries, and encouraging them to radically change in a short period of time, without really defining what the result should look like.  They are being

manipulated by opportunists here in America.

     With the recent shooting of Trayvon Martin, it’s easy to see the usual opportunists attempting to take advantage and hijack this situation.  In America, the shooting of an African American boy is a tragedy.  It creates such outrage that we all take notice.  It’s so unacceptable that it causes all of us to question our identity as Americans, and shakes our core identity.  It does this to us because it is a rare exception, and we do not intend, or desire for it to go unpunished.  It is not the norm when compared to the rest of the world.  This is because we are a nation that makes laws, which are designed to promote good intentions and morality.  But the opportunists know that we are a nation of good people and of laws.  They want to take advantage of our good intentions, by labeling the lawful society as the problem.  We are not the problem.  We are the reason why people come to this country from all over the world.  People know that they can escape their oppressive regimes and come play in my playground, ten miles from where Trayvon Martin was shot, and be safe.  They know that the laws exist here to deter people from targeting their families.  They know that America is not perfect.  But they are willing to overlook the imperfection, because they can easily see that the intent of the nation is to do what is right.  Which makes me beg the question, why do we want to fundamentally transform America?

     Stories of violence make the news every day.  Sometimes people in America get killed.  That’s because evil exists.  Evil is not a respecter of race.  It doesn’t care what race you are.  Yes, you may hear about violence every week.  We have constant news coverage all over the country.  There are over three hundred million of us.  (We had violence in the group home where I worked, and there were only twelve kids in the entire population.) 

     How many people are killed per day in the Middle-East by religious sectarian violence?  There’s at least one truck bombing per month on a mosque that kills upwards of fifty people.  Yet the people still go to the mosques.  Our news media does not actually process these reports.  Where is the media outrage for those people’s families?  How many people die in foreign elections, yet they still vote.  Where is the media outrage?  These things happen in other countries, because there are no laws to prevent them from happening, and no punishments for those who commit the atrocities.   The fear of racism may be justified in America, and I freely admit that I have never had to worry about being profiled due to my race.  But I still have to do what is right.   The structure of the law punishes those who do harm.  If the laws were silent about this type of incident, there would indeed be reason to riot in the street when a boy is killed in cold blood.  But a man who made an idiotic choice to ignore law enforcement is an exception to the norm.  He is not a reason to disassemble the laws that allow people to come here.  What country will build a playground where minority families can play together?  What country will provide an environment without the fear of a truck bomb taking out an entire playground of minority children playing together?  Will a fundamentally transformed America provide a better place for my child to play with minority kids?  If so, why do the usual opportunists flock to this episode and try to dig up old racial profiling arguments.  Those arguments do not seem to reflect reality on my playground.     

     The real aim of this movement is to remove the ability that you and I have at the moment to own a weapon in our home.  They want to be able to remove your right to own a gun, and to rely upon the government to keep you safe.  They know they have to do it in progressive steps.  The easiest step is to attack Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law.  This case is not a stand your ground case.  You cannot pursue someone and claim that you were lawfully standing your ground.  All of the self-defense instructors teach that getting away from danger is the obvious best defense.  Standing your ground makes sense, because you should not have to prove that you ran away from danger in a self-defense scenario.  Image being mugged at gun-point and having to prove in court that you tried to run from the mugger.  He would have just shot you for running.  In other states you have to run from your house before you are allowed to defend yourself from your home being invaded.  Stand your ground is intended to prevent law-abiding citizens from being convicted for defending themselves against bad guys.  It is intended to allow you to defend yourself from attackers engaged in armed felonies.  It is enforced in your home as you defend your “Castle” and on the street if someone uses deadly force against you.  But it must be a threat of deadly force.  Being African American, or wearing a hoodie is not a deadly threat.  Nor does it warrant pursuit by an armed citizen.  Nothing warrants pursuit by an armed citizen unless they are a police officer.

     The usual opportunists desire to bring the lack of awareness on the part of the rest of the country in to Florida, to cast doubt upon our law.  The law is designed to allow law-abiding citizens to keep the burden of guilt upon the felon engaged in felony.  Not on the attacked victim.  In this case, the media is using “Stand Your Ground” as the first progressive step in eliminating the Florida law.  They want lots of gun control language encased in racial violence, on the public airwaves.  They want to bring as many social questions to this case so they can generalize it to their efforts of enforcing gun control nation wide.  It will be a tragic day if someone breaks in to your home, and you do not have the right to own a gun.  When criminals can be criminals without fear of retaliation, the government will know that they can govern without fear of retaliation.  This is why we have the Second Amendment.  It gives a healthy dose of fear to bad guys, regardless of their party affiliation.