“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
-- Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
It is hard to imagine that Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Hamilton or the other founders would imagine a United States where bearing arms meant everything from AK-47s, high-capacity magazines, Uzis and almost as many guns as people. (A 2004 Harvard School of Public Health study estimated that there were 283 million guns in the United States.)
Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American high school student, died Feb. 26, 2012. Trayvon was walking from a convenience store, where he had bought iced tea and Skittles, to his father’s girlfriend’s home in Sanford, Fla., just north of Orlando, when he was shot and killed.
Trayvon’s killer: the 28-year-old neighborhood watch captain and local criminal-justice student, George Zimmerman.
Many have cited the racial undertones of the death of Trayvon Martin. He was black; the watch captain was Hispanic.
Fox News’s Geraldo Rivera has moronically weighed in, commenting, “No one black, brown or white can honestly tell me that seeing a kid of color with a hood pulled over his head doesn’t generate a certain reaction – sometimes scorn, often menace.”
Yet, while the explicit racism in this case cannot be forgotten — Zimmerman described Trayvon as “a guy who looks like he is up to no good or he’s on drugs or something” — it was not the assumption that a young black male out at night is likely committing a crime that killed Trayvon Martin. It was a 9mm handgun.
Florida is one of 34 states that have a “Stand Your Ground Law,” which means private citizens can use deadly force in any instance or place where they feel there is a reasonable threat. There is no obligation to retreat first, essentially condoning citizens to escalate a situation instead of fleeing it.
These types of laws, which have been pushed by groups like the National Rifle Association, extend the ability to use deadly force in parks, bars and, in the case of Trayvon Martin, a neighborhood.
Florida’s “Stand Your Ground Law” went into effect in 2005.
From 2000 to 2006, there was an average of 34 reports of justifiable homicides each year, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. In 2007, the number skyrocketed to 102. There were 93 reports in 2008 and 105 in 2009. Some of the justifiable homicides have included a father playing basketball with his daughter, an Army Helicopter Pilot and Trayvon Martin.
This case exemplifies the fundamental flaw in the myth perpetuated by the NRA that a gun-bearing population somehow protects society.
The fact overlooked by the NRA is that people rarely know how to act in confrontational situations. Laypeople are not trained in de-escalation like law-enforcement officers, and the result has been a gun-wielding vigilante population that is enabled by laws that say, “shoot first and ask questions later.”
Yet the NRA does not want to stop at “Stand Your Ground.” It opposes laws that mandate guns remained locked and secure in homes, prevent gun shops within five-miles of a school or park, and any restriction on what type of weapon you can carry and where.
In an ideal world for the NRA, I could go to my Introduction to IR Research class carrying a concealed handgun (or an unconcealed handgun for that matter). A well-regulated militia of well-armed RA’s would certainly help enforce quiet hours.
Maybe the NRA will argue that 17-year-old Trayvon Martin should be allowed to carry a gun, and that would have ensured an peaceful end to the rainy night of Feb. 26.
However, when you put a device whose sole purpose is to inflict as much bodily harm as possible in the hands of people, bad things will happen. When people use machines not designed to kill (cars, boats, buses, trains) thousands of people die, yet we assume that somehow, when given a gun, people try simply to protect themselves as victims in a dangerous world.
One thing is certain: if George Zimmerman didn’t have a gun, Trayvon Martin would have made it to his father’s girlfriend’s house and enjoyed an iced tea and Skittles.
Mendelson is a freshman in SIS.
edpage@theeagleonline.com
