Mike Luckovich for July 17, 2013

So you think a jury trial that finds a person innocent is somehow wrong? What evidence do you subscribe to?

So long, Mike. You obviously don’t know the facts of the State of Florida vs. George Zimmerman case, but that didn’t stop you from injecting your uninformed opinion.

Never viewing your strip again.

…it’s the stand your ground law that’s ruined the concept of self-defense.

I agree. Those laws need to be rewritten or done away with.

What bothers me about these “well beyond ignorant” cartoons is plenty of honest, hard working minorities are murdered and yet the only thing that matters to these pimps is the color of the guy behind the trigger and if they can tag “white-something” to it..You should be ashamed of yourself.

florida is always been screwed up. they couldn’t convict casey anthony for killing her kid.

Gore Bane says “neither side claimed self defense”, but DaSharkie says “self defense was what was claimed by Mr. Zimmerman.” Get your stories straight, please.

“…he had no chance to retreat…” But he could have acted like an adult and not stupidly chased someone down to begin with. Was he not comforted by the fact he was carrying a gun its likely he wouldn’t have recklessly pursued.

florida also has weird laws. to combat online gambling and internet cafes, they passed a law to ban all smartphones and computers. a woman who fired warning shots against her ex boyfriend, tried stand your ground, but was convicted for 20 years, jury took 12 minutes to find her guilty. so, if people are afraid of other people, they should go to other people’s neighborhoods, and kill them and use stand their ground law, because they fear for their lives.

The sad State of Florida

Ah. So if a person minding his own business alone at night is confronted by an angry, adrenaline-pumped, and much-larger person carrying a handgun and has no choice but to stand his ground with his fists, it’s fair for the guy with the gun to shoot him dead. And I’d say that Trayvon’s wounds also include the giant bullet hole through his chest, which you’ve somehow overlooked mentioning. I don’t know if Zimmerman provoked this fight – pushing Trayvon repeatedly, grabbing him to hold him until TRAINED help arrived, or hitting him – or not and neither do you. No one does. We have ONLY Zimmerman’s account to go by, one that was NOT testified to in open court by Zimmerman and therefore subject to cross-examination.

Gore Bane: Not per se, but the judge sure did in the instructions. Southern justice is still an oxymoron. I am in one of those states which loves ritual murder.

Yeah, 17 year old teens are all innocent and incapable of killing an adult?.“Teen accused in El Paso police officer’s death charged with capital murder.The 17-year-old arrested in the violent beating death of an El Paso police officer last month is now charged with capital murder, court records show.

A state district court grand jury indicted Juan Antonio Gonzalez on Tuesday in connection with the brutal beating of Officer Jonathan Molina, 29, on Sept. 25 on a Central El Paso street. Molina died nine days after the attack.".

http://www.elpasotimes.com/tablehome/ci_21843760/teen-accused-el-paso-officers-fatal-beating-indicted

Luck-o has never let facts get in the way of his adherence to the left wing talking points.

The “Stand Your Ground” law was invoked in the instructions to the jury. Given that unethical law, they made the only decision they could have.

As to the wounds on Martin vs. those on Zimmerman, it may have been that Zimmerman was the only one who got punched. But that is irrelevant. If you approach someone and initial a confrontation, you are the responsible party. You don’t get to start a fight and then claim self-defense.

Wow! I’ve touched a nerve, have I? I think the truth is that you have no intelligent, fact-based response to what I said beyond telling me to “shut up”. The reality is: you feel threatened by anyone who uses simple truths to counter your wild, racist, reactionary imaginings. I suppose if you continue to feel threatened by me, you can always gun me down and claim self-defense.

Exactly. Glad to see some intelligent life here.

The truth never hurts. What hurts is that your post is conclusive proof that our educational system has failed you.

And YOU, just like Lukovich, decided to weigh in on something that you know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about.

Stand Your Ground had nothing to do with O’Mara’s arguments. (Yes, O’Mara was Zimmerman’s attorney. Since you know nothing about the case, it’s safe to assume you didn’t know who Zimmerman’s attorney was.)

O’Mara based his arguments ENTIRELY upon self-defense. Stand Your Ground had NOTHING to do with Zimmerman’s defense.

Embarrassed now? You should be. You claimed the SYG laws are the problem when they had NOTHING to do with the defense. And now you’re getting all worked up and blaming the Florida justice system and SYG laws for acquitting Zimmerman. When, in fact, Zimmerman should have never been arrested in the first place. It’s as clear a case of self-defense as ever existed.

But of course, since Trayvon is black and Zimmerman is white Hispanic, that means that the self-defense laws don’t apply.

Warning shots are illegal in Florida. Whether you consider the punishment for them to be excessive is another discussion, but it has nothing to do with this case.

The judge explained in the instructions that Zimmerman had no obligation to retreat from an area, but since you don’t know the facts of this case, and pretend you do, you obviously aren’t aware that George Zimmerman had been knocked down and therefore retreat was not an option. SYG, present or not in Florida’s laws, had no bearing on the outcome. Mark O’Mara had not resorted to arguing that Zimmerman had the right to stand his ground, since he could not have retreated, even if he wanted to. Again, he argued self-defense, and got his client acquitted.

You don’t know the facts of this case, and you refuse to learn them. You simply have an obsessive hatred of the SYG laws, for no reason, and you are claiming that SYG is what gave Zimmerman his acquittal, when in fact, SYG does not apply.

As I said, you should be embarrassed. And if you had any decency at all, you would be.

Can you NOT tell the truth about ANYTHING? Zimmerman was NOT told or ordered not to follow Trayvon Martin. As testified in court, the dispatcher would be in violation of the policy had they “told” Zimmerman to do anything.

They said, “We don’t need you to do that.” If that looks like TELLING someone to do anything, to you, I submit you have no idea what telling someone what to do even looks like.

Moreover, Zimmerman had the RIGHT to exit his car. It’s a public street, in his own neighborhood.

And, no, that is not what happened. You’ve now been caught in SEVERAL lies.

Zimmerman left his car to keep the police apprised of Trayvon’s whereabouts. Seems reasonable. You’re on neighborhood watch, you see someone you don’t know who appears to be casing houses, you call the police.

Should the person step out of view, you’d want to keep the police apprised of this suspicious person’s whereabouts. So, Zimmerman stepped out of his car to see if he could find Trayvon. He lost track of him, and started to return to his truck. It was then that TRAYVON confronted HIM.

Zimmerman was knocked down and straddled, and the forensics experts and his own injuries confirm this.

Fleeing was not an option, therefore SYG does not apply.

He did what any reasonable armed person would do under such an assault. He shot his attacker.

You are what’s wrong with this country. You’ve obviously made NO EFFORT whatsoever to acquaint yourself with the facts, and you’ve just repeated propaganda, like a dutiful puppet.

You’ve been caught in at least three lies. But you blame SYG for something you know absolutely nothing about. Game over. You lose.

As I said, you need to be embarrassed. And perhaps that will serve to remind you to actually learn something before you shoot your mouth off.

Dude, you’re the voice of reason and common sense. Nice to see someone else here who actually decided to learn something about this case.

“That sidewalk you know for sure went to his father’s residence?”.Was there ever any indication in the trial that it didn’t? Surely that would have been brought up by the defense.

“Yes, and if Zimmerman hadn’t been following Trayvon with a gun, then ZIMMERMAN wouldn’t be alive today. Martin was bouncing his head on the sidewalk.”That’s a very long supposition, the difference between fighting with a guy and beating him to death. Zimmerman’s well-being might have been at risk, but I doubt his life was. The police arrived quite soon after the shooting.He was a panicky coward who wouldn’t have confronted Martin in the first place if he hadn’t had a gun, and then killed him when he was losing the fight.Martin (or at least his mourners) indeed have someone to blame; George Zimmerman.

I understand, from the media of course, that his parents either lived or were visiting in that gated community.

Please, if you’re going to argue, try try try to get your facts straight first. The “stand your ground” law in Florida removed the common-law obligation of a person under threat to try to retreat if that could be done safely. It had little relationship to an assertion of self defense, and by agreement was not, repeat not, in the Zimmerman trial. You might try reading something besides the posting on Faux News, as the cartoonist might as well.

All these people, who were not witnesses or jurors, and presumably didn’t bother reading any transcripts of the trial, are only advocating mob justice, the worse kind.

Truth.

While several of the thirty or so homicides in the U.S., EVERY DAY, probably deserve as much attention as did the Zimmerman/Martin conflict, this one certainly has drawn the “wannabe KKK” folks out of the woodwork!

Florida does pretty much suck, except the Glades, Big Cypress, and a couple good bars in South Beach (where diversity is on display every night), but bigotry has a long history there. Crazy is also long standing, like the “wet foot, dry foot” crowd that Rubio represents, that’s given us five decades of stupid policy toward Cuba.

What started as a simple case of a neighborhood watch idiot, doing what he shouldn’t, because he saw a black kid in “His” neighborhood has truly blossomed into stinkweed.

Actually, my husband is a fourth generation Floridian. We moved away because south Florida became too crowed and is home- mostly to New yorkers who moved down ( I 95 and US I ). The West coast is home to those from the Midwest who traveled down I 75 from the Chicago area. The mid part of the state is mostly tourist from US and other countries. So, if there are racist in FLorida, I think they came from other states.

You mean like George Zimmerman did Trayvon Martin? That wisdom of yours cuts both ways, you know. Except that Trayvon was convicted without a jury.

Big enough to kill him, wasn’t it? Blowing a hole into someone at point blank range with hollow point bullets would do serious damage, don’t you think. I mean, really – you say Trayvon only had minor injuries to his hands and a small WOUND?

I learned how from you.

Greetings, ypooons! Just so you know, if your source claimed that Zimmerman violated his office or the law by carrying a weapon, he’s completely wrong.

Yes, the Sheriff’s Office does DISCOURAGE participants from being armed; however, it is NOT a crime.

Neighborhood watch participants are NOT employees. They are volunteers. As such, they cannot be told that they can’t carry weapons.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-14/news/os-trayvon-martin-beth-kassab-031512-20120314_1_orlando-police-block-captains-zimmerman

Even the authorities knew that Zimmerman was not going to be found guilty. Remember how they warned about not getting carried away if the verdict did not go their way? Sure enough, the blacks torched those cities in CA. No one was arrested for fear of being called racist, more than likely.

Kit Walker: Yeah, Bonham. Sam Rayburn’s home town, now solid Republican, thanks to gerrymandering and corporate media.

Typically, you missed my point. If you’d scrape the wax off your eyeballs, you’d have read what I’d actually written and that I was making a completely different point: that whatever we think we know of what happened that night is based only on what Zimmerman told FOX News and on his videotaped walk-through of the crime scene. In essence Zimmerman was testifying about his role in the incident without ANY re-direct. Did Zimmerman grab Trayvon so he wouldn’t get away? We’ll never know. Did he push Trayvon and the boy retaliated? We don’t know if he did. Did Trayvon try to leave the scene? Zimmerman doesn’t say so – in his fantasy Trayvon wasn’t simply walking through the neighborhood, he was up to something. It was raining that night; and I’m assuming at some point and for some reason we might never know the two grappled. Maybe Zimmerman slipped on the grass and hit his head on the sidewalk; adrenaline pumping, Zimmerman sees that he’s failed to apprehend Trayvon and hold him for the police, so he shoots him. THAT scenario is a whole lot less far-fetched than the one Zimmerman came up with – that this suspicious character was doing surveillance of the neighborhood, preparing to burglarize someone’s home, when this wannabe cop confronts him with a gun, gets himself attacked and nearly murdered and has no other choice but to kill him. Not run away – KILL him. I think this guy was looking for an opportunity to play hero and wasn’t going to be disappointed again by someone he’s absolutely certain is up to no good.……….What’s worse is that you and Tigger and Flopsie and Mopsie and the others here who must have been home-schooled by dropouts don’t get: the outcome if the trial is only part of what’s got people so upset. Florida’s concealed weapon laws and “stand your ground” law will enable anyone – white, black, brown, yellow, orange – to legally carry a gun at night on a hunt for evildoers and use the slightest pretext whatsoever to discharge that weapon at another person, so long as there are no witnesses and the person with the gun can claim their life was in danger. But you’ll never get it. You won’t, not ever. You think this is about RACE? Wake up. This is about legalizing murder in Florida.

Your basic liberal cartoonist, feasting on weak minds.

Usually when you claim self defense the law requires you to run from your attacker (duty of retreat), have no other means to escape, have reasonable amounts of fear (like a guy with a hockey mask and machete), and lethal force is required to neutralize the threat. With stand your ground laws the retreating part is removed, which means that if someone is honking at me from behind and starts to curse at me for not turning on a green light, I could very well shoot that individual since I don’t have to retreat in addition to him being in a vehicle which could be used as a weapon. In the Zimmerman case the guy was chasing down the black teenager, confronted him, was beaten down for it, and then shot him while claiming self defense. This is why these laws don’t work: too much grey area. And what happens is that someone who should have gone to jail is out on the streets to do whatever he wants.

That’s very true. Mike Lyingbitch is paid to stoke the liberal fires of outrage, and he isn’t about to let a petty consideration like the truth stop him from doing that.