Why not?

Reading thru Weerd's writing about the police report from the Martin-Zimmerman case, I thought I'd help by trying to paint a picture without getting into a guilty/not guilty area. I'm doing this merely to try and give an overall picture of things that can help get you into the situation as we know it. EDIT: Proceed through page break to read. The post got a little longer than I intended.



Martin:

Age 17
Height est. 6'00"
Weight est. 160#

Zimmerman:

Age: reports say 25 so we'll go with that.
Height 5'09"
Weight N/A but some reports have said he looks to outweigh Martin by 100 so lets say 250#

Now for the translation to my own life. We do have to enter the wayback machine for this so bear with me.

Me: Age 17, weight 195#, height 6'03". Sr. year of HS, (umm, carry the one) about 13 years ago.

My BIL: Age 25, weight 235#, height 5'10". 6 years ago.

Now to the finer points. When I was 17, I played 2nd string defensive tackle for my varsity football team. I ran my 40yd dash in 4.9 seconds (pretty fast for a big guy) and lifted weights regularly due to the fact that a) I liked it and b) it was required of the football players. But as they say, "the devil is in the details." Okaybe baby. I bench pressed 275#, dead lifted 550# and could squat 400# to say nothing of the 1100# I could leg press. Anyway you look at it, that's pretty damn good shape, but, we had guys on the team that were the same size as me (or smaller in some cases) that could out do that by a fair margin. BUT, these were the stats I posted toward the end of the year after I got the hernia, yeah you read that right, I did all that with a hernia, the very same one that later ended up getting me medically discharged from the Army for being a pre-existing condition.

   Now to look at my BIL 6 years ago. Wife, kid, 2 jobs and an ass load of housework. Not in as good of shape but he has the advantage in weight. Equal footing? Not quite. I have speed and agility to spare, if I wanted to get out of a bad situation I could have out run him in the first few yards and never even had to look back to see if he was there. However if I wanted to confront him I still have those advantages of height, reach and power, particularly if I attack his strengths directly. Weight in the wrong places makes you slower to move around and makes it harder to keep track of an opponent that moves constantly. Unless you devote a good deal of time and effort into doing that very thing, IE: professional fighters and football players, for this case the heavier of the two is neither. In this case lets also say my BIL has the gun and I'm currently stomping a mud hole in his a** and walking it dry...I still lose because a bullet to the brisket trumps speed and agility.

   For another visual image lets conflict the above a bit and look at the American P-51D Mustang against the Fw-190 of WWII. The heavier and bigger P-51 would constantly knock the snot out of the highly experienced German pilots in the slightly smaller Wulf. Despite the Wulf having a bigger edge in firepower with two 13mm machine guns and four 20mm cannon VS the P-51 having 6 .50 cal machine guns which could hit faster but not quite as hard. Speed and agility tends to trump firepower since, as the Air Force now says "getting warheads on foreheads" is more important than how big the warheads are. However, where the Mustang paid a price was when it tangled with more than the pilot could safely handle or was caught unaware. IE: Waltzing into a situation where it was unwelcome. Such as a gaggle of 190's and 109's circling like buzzards just waiting to pounce on something. All while your nearest support is 30 minutes away and drinking coffee. In this case being a cocky son gets you dead. Simply put, don't be a dick and keep your nose out of other peoples' business. That gaggle will take care of itself quite well thank you very much, once the next flight of 1000 bombers and 100 escorts come along. All you gotta do is observe and report. They're getting paid to tangle with em, you're not. Thus ends the lesson in advanced-visuals 101.

   The point I want to make is this: If you find yourself in a bad situation then the thing to do is get out of it, the "how" is entirely up to you. However if you got yourself into the situation then you can't claim to be innocent after things have gone all pear shaped. No matter who started the confrontation in this case it was pooched from the git-go.

   Was it Zimmerman who followed, confronted and then shot Martin? Or was it Martin for upon seeing Zimmerman watching him decided to go have a word or a punch or two to settle the matter? We may never know since only one of them walked away to tell the story. Also remember that he didn't walk away without injury both physically and to his reputation, and a possible murder trial. Now that the media has done its convicting it will be hard to say what might happen considering the US "Justice" Dept.* has gotten involved.

   This is why we have several steps on the road to Justice, first you must investigate, then upon finding evidence of a crime you must present it to the prosecution. Who then determines if enough exists to bring before a judge. Who, in some cases, convenes a grand jury to review the evidence again to see if it merits an indictment, otherwise the prosecutor files formal charges. Then if enough evidence is presented and it is strong enough to warrant a trial we begin that stage by gathering an IMPARTIAL jury. This is what we call "innocent until PROVEN guilty." Sadly that can no longer be found anywhere in the world since the media decided to stick their collective noses into the case and tamper with any potential jurors.

   I don't like seeing justice undone because the media has made up its mind first. No matter who made the mistake in this case, justice will never be done. We can't be sure that even if Zimmerman was found guilty if it was because he really was or if that was just what the jury thought when they showed up to perform their civic duty. Or if he walks free if maybe he really was guilty but because of all the attention being drawn to the case no one wanted to muck up their re-election campaign by filing charges and losing. Both voters that support him (think LA and the OJ trial for a visual of this scenario) and the case in general.

   This is one reason that just like the Second Amendment the First is also a slippery slope that must be used with caution. We have every right to carry a gun or to print the news but we have to use our own judgment as to if it will help or hurt our future. I support and would die to defend your ability to exercise both rights, just think before you act is all I ask. Common sense is a long forgotten relic of a bygone age when people actually thought for themselves and dealt with the consequences, rather than following a path set for them by someone else. Like a train on a track it is only going where the track leads it. As I alluded to, there will be no winners in this case.



*Most of us already know that when you stick the .gov into a situation it goes from bad to worse at greased-light-speed. A speed not found anywhere in nature. So fast it CAN escape a black hole and give it the finger at the same time. All while sipping a latte' and trying to figure out the best way to cause the biggest cluster-f**k the planet has ever seen. We'll have to wait and see.