{"id":37291,"date":"2013-07-15T12:30:23","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T17:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=37291"},"modified":"2013-07-14T18:02:25","modified_gmt":"2013-07-14T23:02:25","slug":"full-of-fail-and-aids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=37291","title":{"rendered":"Orc See, Orc Do"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whatever you thought about the Martin\/Zimmerman case, the big loser was the American media. They – and their leftyblog camp followers – did, almost to a fault, an unforgiveably bad job of covering the case – from NBC’s editing Zimmerman’s 911 call to try to make him sound racist to their seeming unwillingness to get even the most basic facts straigth. (Classic example: how many of you read media accounts that said Zimmerman has “a round in the chamber, his hammer cocked and his safety off?” For starters, virtually every person who carries a firearm for self-defense, including every cop you see on the street, has a “round in the chamber”. Beyond that, Zimmerman’s pistol was a KelTec 9mm, a type I’m intimately familiar with; it’s what’s called a “double action only” pistol; there is no safety, and you can’t “cock” the hammer except by squeezing the trigger<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I know. Technicalities. But it’s not just the gun-geek stuff that the media bobbles.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the Zimmerman verdict over the weekend, an insufficiently bright liberal on Twitter issued a tweet <\/a>that included a link to this deeply ignorant hit piece from CBS last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s just as wrong this year as it was last; I’ll emphasize the :<\/p>\n

(CBSMiami.com) \u2013 As some state lawmakers are calling for a re-thinking of Florida\u2019s \u201cStand Your Ground\u201d law, which allows people to defend themselves from danger without the need to first try to get away, an analysis of state data shows deaths due to self defense are up over 200 percent since the law took effect.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Up over 200 percent”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That sounds like a big number.\u00a0 Especially as against the fact that murder in general, nationwide, is down nearly half in the past 20 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seems like a…disconnect?<\/p>\n

We’ll come back to that.<\/p>\n

The shooting death of Trayvon Martin by an armed, self-appointed Central Florida crime watch volunteer who claimed he shot in self defense has sparked a national debate about Florida\u2019s law, technically known as the Castle doctrine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No.\u00a0 No, it is not “technically known” as “Castle Doctrine”, which relates to removing the “duty to retreat”while you’re in your home.\u00a0 Which was the law in Minnesota until the mid-2000s, by the way, but no longer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Until 2005, it was generally considered self defense if someone tried to get into your home or invade your property, so long as you could show deadly force was the last resort. In 2005, the \u201cStand your Ground\u201d law removed the need to retreat before using force, even in public.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And there you go.\u00a0 One of the reasons people on the left are so ignorant about Second Amendment issues is that the people they get their information from are, in fact, crushingly ignorant on the subject.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Castle” referred to\u00a0 in your home.\u00a0 “<\/em>Stand your Ground” was elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to state crime stats, Florida averaged 12 \u201cjustifiable homicide\u201d deaths a year from 2000-2004. After \u201cStand your Ground\u201d was passed in 2005, the number of \u201cjustifiable\u201d deaths has almost tripled to an average of 35 a year, an increase of 283% from 2005-2010.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what?\u00a0<\/p>\n

If all of those shootings – 12 or 35 – were people shooting because they were in legitimate fear of death or great bodily harm, and where lethal force was appropriate, and the intended victim wasn’t a willing participant, then that means there are 35 rapists, stalkers, robbers and thugs off the street.<\/p>\n

Each death is a tragedy, sure.\u00a0 But so would be the deaths of those shooting in self-defense – and in every case, as a matter of law<\/em> , that was the alternative with all 35 of those shootings; death, mutilation, kidnapping, rape.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Don’t they matter?<\/p>\n

Minnesota needs a Stand your Ground law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whatever you thought about the Martin\/Zimmerman case, the big loser was the American media. They – and their leftyblog camp followers – did, almost to a fault, an unforgiveably bad job of covering the case – from NBC’s editing Zimmerman’s 911 call to try to make him sound racist to their seeming unwillingness to get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,30,130,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-and-punishment","category-liberty","category-tc-media-bias","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37291"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37296,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37291\/revisions\/37296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}