Why do you people think I have some need to "track" people? Just because I want to know if my neighbor is a convicted rapist doesn't mean I need to follow him around to make sure he isn't raping someone. If my kid wants to spend the night at a friends house and i know there father has been convicted of touching little kids it's not going to happen. I suppose you'd rather be ignorant of the situation?
Wouldn't you normally find this out through the grapevine? I guess I can see the point of doing a search on everybody you associate with. I mean if you don't know everything about them then they are a risk at some level or another. My basic point is that having a list of sex offenders in the absence of other similar lists for offenses that are actually as or more likely to touch on your life is a wasted exercise. It just focuses you on one thing that might impact your life (the bushes) while the thing that is actually going to get you (the river) goes unaddressed.
maybe? The reason I brought I the sex offender to begin with was to make the simple point that bad people are all over the place. They're likely on your street and mine. By no means do I go look at that list on a regular basis to see if anyone new is on it. I might do it if I'm bored. The guy I did find near me was actually by accident searching for a local place to deliver a pizza! I also don't believe it's some kind of comprehensive list of people to be concerned with. It would be nice to be able to look people up if I wanted though.
Having thought about it I think allowing the Manslaughter count at this late date was unjust. Zimmerman's defense would have likely been very different if he was at jeopardy for Manslaughter as well as 2nd Degree Murder. Among other things the pressure on him to testify would have been greater since Manslaughter is not about intent but about circumstances. Allowing the Manslaughter count after Zimmerman had decided not to testify was an error in the spirit of good jurisprudence if not the actual codes in place.
The local Police Chief in charge of the investigation at the start said Manslaughter was what his investigation suggested. Given that the prosecution chose not to accept that recommendation I think Zimmerman might have a valid claim that he was prosecuted unjustly on the 2nd Degree Murder charge which caused him to take a certain defense path and that the justice system then baited and switched at the end, crippling the defense strategy that had been formulated based on the original charges. Whether that claim turns into a valid appeal is beyond me because I'm not a Florida lawyer and do not know what the rules are down there.
If your kid's friend's father was convicted of touching little kids, your kid's friend would not be in the same house as the father for a sleepover in the first place. You really do seem rather paranoid.
My point on defense strategy is that Manslaughter might have required a much more aggressive defense strategy to stave off a conviction. 2nd Degree Murder may have been so over-charged that the defense could afford to take a different route, saving both money and time spent on strategy in the process. The state already holds most of the cards. It's important not to give them easy outs when they have misplayed those cards badly.
I have not been paying that much attention here, but to me this guy, Zimmerman is being attacked by all angles with stupid theories and ridiculous accusations. These witnesses are all over the place too. He should be acquitted...I am tired of people playing the race-card for every death between two different people from varying races
take the race of the two away, and what you have is a man whos story has tons of holes in it. the only things we do know, is that zimmerman was following trayvon, and then trayvon ended up dead. there is not enough to prove murder i dont think, but his story just does not line up.
is there a general feeling how the case will play out? I mean after Casey Anthony, I can't tell anymore with jury's
Gun crime is down 50% from 10 years ago and the anti-gun guys who are afraid they're going to walk out their door and get shot because the media told them to be scared are calling me the paranoid one. Awesome. They support new laws that make law abiding citizens criminals by criminalizing their firearms. They may also support publicizing information about gun owners as if they're criminals. At the same time they seem to be against publicizing information about actual criminals. :up:
Don't project your fears. Own them. You're the one who feels there's a need to have a gun for self-defense. I'm not scared I'm going to walk outside and get shot. I don't own a gun for self-defense because I don't think there's a need. If I want to shoot something, I go to a shooting range. I think people who own guns for self-defense (and give the types of reasons you have given) are irrational. Seems a sad way to go through life. You probably worry far more about this kind of sensationalized stuff than you do about the things that are far more likely to kill you. Guns don't work against heart disease, strokes, car accidents, diabetes, or cancer. How's your cholesterol? But damned if you won't be able to protect your family should that child molester decide to break into your house one dark and stormy night. Incidentally, just because I think you are irrational doesn't mean I want to criminalize gun ownership.
No, I think you're paranoid because you have stated that you need your guns to protect your family from the imminent threat presented by the preponderance of registered sex offenders in your neighborhood.
No, I never said there was an imminent threat. I used the registered sex offender as an example of a bad guy that one would need a gun to protect themselves and their family against. I don't lay in bed at night worried that the big bad wolf is coming and itching to jump up and open the safe and grab a gun. I believe it is a smart thing to be prepared in the unfortunate event that one of many bad people in this world do happen to show up at your house wanting to do bad things. Shit happens and bad guys DO show up sometimes (I'll clarify that this is a general statement so that you don't confuse this as me saying it's a specific imminent threat). Assuming that bad guys will never show up and being unprepared for that isn't a good idea IMO. Relying on the cops to show up and handle them is not reasonable where I live. Maybe you live next to a police station, I don't know, but I do know there are many people in similar situations as me. And FTR, I take several other measures to help secure my home - the guns are there as a last resort and for hunting. In any event, the point I was trying to make is that I don't believe that the security of the homes of responsible law abiding citizens should be compromised because we have idiots in this country who aren't responsible. Don't punish us because a bunch of gang bangers in Chicago (example metro area - who has some of the most strict gun control in the country btw) kill each other. Don't punish us because some dumb rednecks don't secure their weapons when they have children in the house. Let the idiots and gang bangers die. I don't care about them and my security shouldn't be weakened because of them.
Totally agree with this. A co-worker asked me today if it was legal to add lesser charges in a homicide case after the defense has already rested, and I asked her if she was talking about the Zimmerman case, already knowing she was for some reason. I couldn't believe this was legal, but apparently some fuckhead judge somewhere allowed it at some point and created precedent. This is amazing to me. The prosecution levels charges at a defendant. Ignoring the recommendations of the investigators. They fail terribly to prove their case. The defense rests. The prosecution, knowing they failed, asks the judge and jury to consider lesser charges that were never made, and that completely screw the defense's tactics. The judge accepts. That is dirty pool and should be illegal. It also proves that the prosecutor is a fucking moron. I'd say Welcome To Florida if I didn't think it happened in other states, but I am not a lawyer and there are only three of them in this country that I trust, so I will just say that the legal system is shameless in this country.
Let LTJF alone already. He is more the Devils Advocate in this argument than anything else. Paranoid either means a mental condition or an irrational fear of something. Owning a gun in a place where you may be robbed, murdered or both is not irrational. I will freely admit that my idea and possibility of martial law seems irrational on the surface, given what we are led to believe in our current society. And if I am wrong about it, I will freely admit that I was irrational. What will you be if I am right?
Okay, I'll buy that, but the way you define a "place where you may be robbed, murdered or both" is pretty relevant, no? He apparently defines that as every street corner, which we'll need to station police on after his guns are pried out of his cold dead hands. The possibility of martial law doesn't seem irrational at all to me. The police locked down an entire city of 11 million people an hour south of here a couple months ago for the whole day. Television shows about real life law enforcement are apparently very popular. When it happens it isn't going to take much of a crackdown.
I suppose it depends on where you live. I can't speak for him, but I live reasonably close to the border of some very violent activities in Mexico. There are people doing business in this area that also are guilty of slicing the heads off of rival cartel members. There are people that want to be associated with those guys. There are people that want people to think they are associated with those guys. And then there are the random, everyday assholes. I have only shot one person in the past five years. It was in self defense, when a guy tried to take my phone, and then chased me back to my truck with a knife. I kicked him in the nuts twice while I was trying to get my piece out of the lock box under my driver seat. Thankfully, I had illegally kept the clip loaded. I was able to send him running after putting a hole in his shoulder. But I have scars to prove that I needed that gun. Some places are more dangerous than others.
