Someone Got Shot

One dark, ambiguous evening, a black youth was shot under circumstances that, to the local media, were confusing. Not much information was available; the youth was shot by a citizen with a legal handgun.  The citizen claimed self-defense.

So the local media did what they always do on big stories – shootings! – when not much information is available, as they waited for the details of the investigation to go public.  They found stuff  to write about.

They interviewed the deceased’s mother and family – who, stricken with grief, demanded justice.  They talked with friends of the deceased, and community leaders, many of whom wondered why the law allowed mere citizens to use lethal force, or to be able to claim “self-defense” with such seeming impunity.

Some of the media’s learned observers scratched their furrowed brows and pondered aloud (or in print) whether the changes the legislature had made in 2005 to the state’s laws regarding self-defense were wise – repeating things many of them had written at the time.

I am of course, not talking about the Trayvon Martin case.  I’m talking the Evanovich case in Minneapolis last fall.  You had the family.  You had the friends and community leaders.  Furrowed learned brows?  Check .

You had everything you have today in the Martin case, with one exception; a resolution.  Media caterwauling notwithstanding, it was a legitimate enough case of self-defense to prompt the frothingly anti-gun, anti-Second-Amendment, anti-law-abiding-citizens-with-guns Hennepin County attorney Mike Freeman to praise the shooter.

The point of this post is not to try to compare the Evanovich and  Martin cases; in terms of the factual and legal specifics, it’d be stupid to try, since we, the non-investigators, know nothing about the facts of the case.

Well, almost nothing; we know what the local Florida and national media have told us about the case.

And if there are any lessons from the Evanovich shooting to apply to the Martin case, they are…:

  1. When it comes to emotionally-charged cases, the media is no better off at getting the facts than we are.  And that’s a best case.  Because…
  2. …whether they will admit it or not, the media has a narrative; the higher up the media food chain you go, the worse it gets.  The law-abiding gun owner, the bitter, gun-clinging Jebus freak, is a powder keg just waiting to blow.  They’ve been saying it, one way or another – if not in their editorial stances, then via their editorial selection bias – since 1983, when Florida passed its “Shall Issue” law.  They did it with each of the 30+ states that have passed similar laws in the past 29 years.  They did it when Florida passed “Stand Your Ground” seven years ago, and in each of the dozens of states that have some combination of “Stand Your Ground” and “Castle” laws.   They’re still predicting it.  We’re still waiting for it to happen.  But hey, it’s only been almost thirty years; one of these days, the powder keg’s just gotta blow, right?

On gun issues even more than most others when it comes to the mainstream media; distrust, then verify.  Then, almost invariably, distrust some more.

That’s not to say the Martin case might very well not be a legitimate shooting.

We don’t know.

And when I say “we”, I mean “especially those of you who get your information on the case from the mainstream media”.

More later.

16 thoughts on “Someone Got Shot

  1. At this point now we have reports that an eye witness saw the larger Trayvon beating Zimmerman on the ground as Zimmerman screamed for help. We have physical confrimation with grass stains on Zimmerman’s shirt back and bleeding from Zimmerman’s head. It isn’t a stunner that with evidence like that the police didn’t immediately arrest Zimmerman.

  2. Then we had our two national race baiting hucksters and left wing opportunists, Al Sharptoon and Jesse Jackass decrying the violence of a white thug against a black teenager, while completely ignoring the fact that Zimmerman was half Hispanic.

  3. I, like most, want to let the evidence speak for the case. A Grand Jury is warranted here – where the physical and eyewitness evidence can be sifted through. However – so many people have invested skin and reputations in the outcome, the evidence may be moot. My fear is the feds will come in and do what they do so well – look for a political and populist verdict and damn the evidence.

  4. You’d think these boobs would remember the Duke “rape” fiasco, but poverty pimps like Sharpton are never required to pay a price for their mendacity by the MSM or the left (pardon my redundancy).

    I also heard there is mitigating evidence starting to be leaked.
    One thing I am not completely clear on though is the status of the neighborhood where this occured. I’ve heard it described as a “gated community” which, if true, would make it private property. Castle docterine is implied everywhere on private property.

    I’m still not convinced Zimmerman conducted himself properly (the 911 operator explicitly tells him to disengage), but it’s becoming clear that this kid contributed to his own demise and that all is not as it’s being painted by the MSM, the left and the Obama corps.

  5. I have been following this story in the National media and have been amazed at the one sided reporting. From the pictures of a much younger trayvon, to the lack of coverage on the “bounty” being placed on Zimmerman by the New Black Panthers and Spike Lee tweeting the home address of the shooter.

    Lynch mobs are being formed, both literally and figuratively.

  6. If anyone takes action against Zimmerman or his family as a result of Spike Lee’s actions, he should be arrested and tried as an accessory to the crime. He’s just as big a race baiter as the previously mentioned attention whores.

  7. Swiftee,

    I don’t disagree. I think Zimmerman’s behavior was, at the very least, not the kind of thing that’d discourage scrutiny. Some of it – his large number of police calls – are being portrayed to make him look like a sort of Dwight Schrute lawman-wannabe (although I have no idea how many police calls are “normal” for a dedicated neighborhood-watcher).

    Although…:

    the 911 operator explicitly tells him to disengage

    911 operators don’t give “lawful orders”, like cops do. But given that there was no felony in progress, it would have been a good idea to hang back and wait for the cops, no doubt about it.

  8. The media is calling the shooter “half Hispanic” meaning half White so they can claim this isn’t Brown-On-Black, this is a White-On-Black Hate Crime.

    Odd, I don’t recall the media describing President Obama’s racial heritage that way.

  9. he’s half white you know, and I like what Carlos Mencia said about him in his latest stand up, “The only part of Obama that’s black is that *he(not what he ACTUALLY said there, starts with n and ends with r) didn’t know his real father growing up!” so funny because its so true.

  10. The phrase “fog of war” can now be replaced by “fog of MSM.”
    The facts about the shooting are appearing as fast as crap from a constipated ant.
    One thing I’m sure of: church congregations showing up dressed in hoodies remind me of a fraternal organization called the KKK. I’m sure everybody’s heard about it. What people may not know is that the re-organization of the Klan in 1915 was stimulated by a notorious crime in Atlanta: the rape of murder of a young woman named Mary Fagan. A man named Leo Frank, white and Jewish, was convicted and sentenced to death but the governor commuted it to life in prison. A mob, unhappy about the outcome, took Frank from his prison cell and hanged him. Can’t happen here? Don’t be too sure. Maybe not George Zimmerman, but some suitable facsimile will be selected at random and murdered in “protest.” We can thank Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and the Prevaricator in Chief if it happens.

  11. Ben and nate; Kevin Jackson made a similar observation on his Black Sphere blog post:

    “As it turns out the “white” man who shot the kid was actually half-white and half-Hispanic man. Funny how the media considers a half-white half-Hispanic man white, but a half-white half-black president black. Since Hispanics are technically “Caucasians,” it’s only a slight stretch. Journalistic integrity intact.”

  12. Yea. That’s Kevin Jackson’s style. He has that part in bold, italicized letters. He was obviously taking a shot at the left wing media morons.

  13. Pingback: Waiting, As Always, For The Facts | Shot in the Dark

  14. Pingback: The War On The Good Guys | Shot in the Dark

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.