Originally Posted by signupdamnit

The reasonable person test helps but it's not perfect. People have different ideas of what is and is not reasonable. The way I see it Zimmerman was acting as if he were a law enforcement officer. He put himself in the situation on common access property which he did not own and Trayvon Martin had a legal right to be there. At some point we need to limit this.

For example now in Florida as I understand it I can walk up to someone I don't like on public property with a bad temper and start insulting their mother. Once they punch me and especially if they get on top of me I can then pull out a handgun and blow them away while claiming "self defense". This is even more true if it's at night or if they are significantly larger than I.

We can't have a thousand Zimmerman's running around with 38s shooting every young black kid they see walking home from the store at night because they didn't say drop to the ground and roll over the first time the unidentified neighborhood watch guy demanded it. And I sure as hell do not want to be hassled myself. If I'm walking home and I see some guy following me around without identifying himself I'm going to be ready to fight too. If he walks up to me or touches me and it's the middle of the night I might punch him and take him to the ground too. I have no idea what he wants. It's self defense.

Let's switch it around. If you are walking through your neighborhood at night and a middle aged black man starts following you around to the point where you start running away what are you going to do if he finally catches up to you and without identifying who he is or what he wants he demands you "Stop!" or "freeze!" ? What would you do if he touches you or tries to grab you?

Now let's say your son or daughter was in the above situation. What would you tell them to do? Now imagine how Trayvon Martin felt.