Peter Z. Scheer — MoveOn Calls for Florida Tourism Boycott Because Gun Law Makes State Unsafe to Visit

Escalation.

Truthdig

MoveOn Calls for Florida Tourism Boycott Because Gun Law Makes State Unsafe to Visit

Peter Z. Scheer

Jonathan Turley — Separating Law And Legend In The Zimmerman Verdict

Below is a slightly expanded version of today’s column in USA Today on the Zimmerman verdict. As I wrote before the case was sent to the jury, I saw no alternative to acquittal even on manslaughter and expected the jury to render a full acquittal. I respect the conflicting views of many on this blog on the case and how it was charged and handled. We will now have to wait to see if the Justice Department will re-try Zimmerman as a civil rights matter. I have serious reservations about such an effort, but that can be for a later discussion. For now, a few observations on the verdict can serve to as a foundation for our own discussion.

Separating Law And Legend In The Zimmerman Verdict
Jonathan Turley | Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law, George Washington University

Be this as it may legally, the Zimmerman-Martin case will be read side-by-side with the Marissa Alexander case.

Marissa Alexander had never been arrested before she fired a bullet at a wall one day in 2010 to scare off her husband when she felt he was threatening her. Nobody got hurt, but this month a northeast Florida judge was bound by state law to sentence her to 20 years in prison.

Alexander, a 31-year-old mother of a toddler and 11-year-old twins, knew it was coming. She had claimed self-defense, tried to invoke Florida's "stand your ground" law and rejected plea deals that could have gotten her a much shorter sentence. A jury found her guilty as charged: aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Because she fired a gun while committing a felony, Florida's mandatory-minimum gun law dictated the 20-year sentence.

The Huffington Post
Marissa Alexander Gets 20 Years For Firing Warning Shot
Mitch Stacy

Comparing these cases in which a black youth is shot by a stalker and a Black woman sent to prison for defending herself against domestic violence, the conclusion seems to be that it is OK to kill Blacks in the United States and not OK for them to defend themselves.

While one can argue with the logic, this is the impression that a lot of people are going to take away from this both domestically and globally, creating Black fear of disempowerment and further erosion of American soft power as the myth of American exceptionalism is shown up as hypocritical. The lights are going out in "the shining city on a hill".

This is not a healthy direction to be heading.