Armed Neighborhood Watch scares me as much as criminals…

The shooting death of a black teenager in Florida brings forth the issues of black people being suspect for just being black or racial profiling, stand your ground gun laws that give citizens wider leeway is shooting people and race relations in general, but it seems to me one of the more pressing issues is self-appointed, armed citizen cops.

The only people who really know or knew what happened in the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida are him (but he is dead) and George Zimmerman, the shooter.

There is a lot of conjecture, much based on racial prejudice and animosity on both sides.

And on the web you can find character assassinations (based on truth or not) on both characters.

The victim was a black teenager and the shooter is described as being of Peruvian and white descent, 29 years or so old.

The truth likely is that there was blame on both sides, although since Martin was reportedly unarmed, the weight falls heavily on Zimmerman. Zimmerman claims he was attacked and was acting in self defense. But some of what has come out so far makes it appear that it was not as simple as that or at least complicated by the fact he may (or not) have provoked the attack.

But what bothers me in all of this is that besides the worst thing, a teenager is shot to death walking down a street, is the idea of vigilantism — a Neighborhood Watch commander, as Zimmerman is described as being, carrying a gun and going after someone. While he claims he was attacked, I believe it has also been established that he took it upon himself to follow young Martin and bug him about what he was doing at night in the neighborhood.

Excuse me. I think Neighborhood Watch people are just supposed to observe and report things to the authorities. In fact, I heard part of a 911 tape and the person representing authority on the other end was telling Zimmerman to stay put and not follow. Zimmerman complained that “they always get away…” and did not follow that instruction.

Supposedly Young Martin was doing nothing more than carrying back snacks from a store to where he was staying. Zimmerman claimed the young man was poking around the area, which in and of itself, depending on what he meant, is not illegal (unless you’re trespassing, I guess), but at night is not a good thing to do — you might get bit by someone’s dog at the least or killed at the most (even if shooting you is not legal).

I won’t even go into the subject of a hoodie, the garment that Martin was wearing, and which some contend led Zimmerman to rightly surmise the young man was up to no good because some so-called “ganstas” wear them, except to say I wear a kind of light sweat jacket with a hood in my work (a kind of hoodie, I guess). Oh, and I am white and I am not a gangsta.

Okay, I will say something more on that. If you dress like a bad guy (or gal) you might be taken for one. But that has nothing to do with whether Zimmerman or anyone else in his position should have shot someone. Again, what bothers me is regular citizens acting like the police or for that matter self-appointed militias. I’m no more afraid of bad guys or big government than I am of so-called citizens committees (or I guess Neighborhood Watch in the Zimmerman manner) or militias.

As far as the Stand Your Ground doctrine that allows citizens to use deadly force in some jurisdictions, to include Florida, and in some situations, I think the burden has to weigh somewhat heavier on the shooter and should only hold in clear self-defense situations, if not we have a shooting free for all with a lot of innocent victims.

P.s.

But in cases where there is an intruder into or onto someone’s private domain (to include inside and outside) and such person can show that he or she logically feared for his or her life, I think that should be seriously considered in exonerating the shooter — but of course that has nothing to do with the Trayvon Martin case.

Despite Tucson tragedy, gun ownership defines our American culture and our unique freedom in the world

I finally got time to watch President Obama’s speech at the Tucson shooting memorial on my computer and now see why he got such rave reviews, even by many, not all, of his detractors.

He is an excellent speaker and he took the high ground, unlike the ultra defensive and shrill crowd on what is often referred to as the hard right (and they really give well meaning conservatives a bad name they don’t totally deserve, except for the fact that they have not stood up often enough to the rabble rousers).

Meanwhile, despite the shooting rampage a week ago Saturday that saw a U.S. congresswoman gravely wounded and a federal judge killed along with five others, to include a nine-year-old girl, who by all reports could have been a future leader, and still many more wounded, a gun show went on as scheduled this weekend in Tucson. And even though they were reportedly taking up collections for the victims there, there were also bumper stickers critical of Obama (the implied threat: guns/Obama) available there, as well.

So Okay. I really don’t see anything wrong with holding the gun show as planned way previous to the tragedy, not really. And I am a supporter of the Second Amendment (right to keep and bear arms), even if I don’t completely understand its meaning — and if you are really honest with yourself, without some large amount of research, you could not either — I mean it defies literal translation in modern terms — it‘s kind of like the Holy Bible.

But the right to keep and bear arms is ingrained in our American society and culture (even though some people do not necessarily support it). And perhaps it does define us. It sets us apart, I think, from the rest of the world, and I mean that in a positive way.

The people in the United States of America are not granted power from the government, they have granted some powers to the government.

And even though the government is supposed to simply be made up of people holding proxies for us, not a separate entity of its own really, there is always the danger of any government assuming more control than it is supposed to. As a partial remedy to that, the people are able to keep and bear arms in their own defense. This can be debated, but I think it is understood to be at least one element of the Second Amendment, some, in fact, would say the only element.

But here lies the paradox. Even though I support the Second Amendment and I generally go along with the idea that the populace could in an extreme circumstance rise up against authoritarianism, I think that is the only cause for rebellion, that is an extreme circumstance. We have never gotten there and have not even come close, as far as I can see, but of course there is always the danger (the American Civil War is another subject, let’s don’t go there now, and really fighting for the right to own other people, c’mon). And get this: the danger of authoritarianism is no less a threat from the left (or liberal) side of the political equation than the right (conservative) side.

Tell me, what is the difference between Stalin (on the left) and Hitler (supposedly on the right)?

In our own nation, liberals might support laws against hate speech, thus endangering our First Amendment free speech rights. In the past conservatives pushed through the Alien and Sedition acts (I believe on at least two occasions), which banned speech against the government (strangely, conservatives don’t mind speaking against the government when they are out of power), and that certainly violates free speech protections.

While I heard about it, I think I must have been too busy working at the time to blog much about it (or maybe I did), but I find it reprehensible and quite alarming that people were urged to and did bring guns several months ago to congressional town hall meetings when the bane of ultra conservatives, the new health care law, was being discussed.

The gun-toters would defend their actions by saying they were sending a message to the government that the people have a right to keep and bear arms and to overthrow authoritarian rule. But like I always say, I am no more fearful of the government than I am of some self-appointed militia.

THE END

P.s.

I decided to end this post where I did because it seemed to have become an attempt to analyze the Second Amendment, and I am not prepared to do so any further than I already have at this time (and I also want to make myself breakfast). I will only add that my general understanding of this most ambiguous element of our constitution seems to grant gun ownership rights to the people (the Supreme Court seems to recognize this, with only a little qualification). But it also deals with the idea that the government’s military should not be wholly separate from the people, such as the King’s army of old. I’ll leave it there.

ADD 1:

The following is not meant to give ammunition, so to speak, to the gun-toting crowd, but quite by accident I ran across this after posting my latest blog and I think it sums up the sometimes seeming futility of legislating civility and responsible behavior: “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.” Plato (427-327 B.C.)

Sarah Palin: you have a right to free speech, but have you no shame?

It’s too bad someone could not stand up to Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and Rush Limburger Cheese and their ilk and say to them what that Army counsel said to Sen. Joseph McCarthy all those years ago: “… Have you no shame? Have you no sense of decency?…”

(Okay, I’ve now read the actual quote was, in part: “… Have you no sense of decency…? At long last have you no sense of decency?”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_N._Welch )

Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, whose head was made a symbolic target by Palin, darling of the Tea Party set, is critically wounded, a federal judge and several others, six in all, dead and some 20 people in all shot and all they can think to do is circle the wagons around their constant inflammatory rhetoric — and it is just that, rhetoric with little to no substance — and use the whole tragic event to continue to charge that people want to take guns away from American citizens, violating their Second Amendment rights, and to prevent Tea Partiers and others from exercising free speech.

It is not Sarah Palin’s fault that a deranged young man who had reportedly spouted off incomprehensible statements and posted disturbing stuff online took it upon himself to be an assassin. But certainly if she had any decency she would be contrite and publicly express some contrition (or at least shut up) about her own actions.

As everyone who follows such stuff knows, Palin had before the last election posted maps of various congressional districts with the cross hairs of gun sights overlaying the heads of various office holders, including Giffords, she felt the Republicans and Tea Party should go after (bring down in electoral defeat).

Because the issue of gun rights is such a hot button and such a draw, particularly among the far right, she used the analogy of the target range or hunting or war in her call for political victory over said opponents.

In a most tragic irony, the gravely wounded Tucson, Arizona area congresswoman, Giffords, was one of those with the Palin target on her head.

Then last Saturday (Jan. 8, 2011) one Jared Lee Loughner, 22, of Tucson, without warning, shot Congresswoman Giffords and the others in a shopping mall parking lot near a Safeway store while the congresswoman was meeting with constituents.

So does Palin lay low or offer quiet and circumspect apology? Well, she did lay low for a few days, but then in the modern, and particularly Palin style, she posted a video response where she can talk and not have to respond in person to any troubling questions.

I watched the video (as much as I could stomach). She seemed to be charging that her opponents were using the incident to stifle her — and to a limited extent she might be correct.

(In a New York Times article and elsewhere she was sniped at for using the term “blood libel” (you can look that one up), which she claimed described what she was being subjected to. On that I just felt she or her script writers were just using a little acceptable license in a kind of analogistic word play. But the disturbing thing is the fact either Palin or her detractors might see it appropriate to dwell on the ongoing political tug of war rather than the tragedy itself and how to prevent such things from happening, to the extent they can be prevented in a free and gun-toting society.

I think she could have defended her free speech rights and at the same time expressed sorrow that she had ever used the device of the targets, while assuring everyone she in no way meant it literally.

While I doubt Palin’s actions, or her actions alone at least, are what incited the nut case to act, it’s those type of actions that create an atmosphere in which certain nutcases are prompted to act. And it sets an evil, ugly tone in society that we would not want the younger and future generations to emulate or adopt. (And even though the nut case seemed to have been following  Palin’s right-wing-driven lead, some have described his rantings as left wing — but really there is not much difference between rants from the extremes.

P.s.

In a bizarre twist to this whole thing, the suspect in last Saturday’s shooting tragedy in Tucson had been pulled over for running a red light, I understand, just before the incident. Kind of similar to the Oklahoma federal building bomber being pulled over for a traffic violation after the fact with no immediate connection made by law enforcement, which is all meaningless, except that it goes to show the police are not all-knowing — would you want them to be? We don’t want the police state.

On one extreme all would carry guns and be shooting it out with each other and in the other extreme the black helicopters would be circling and all citizens would be stripped of their weapons and personal rights. It’s extremism from all the political angles that is the danger.

When you think you have it bad, you don’t, but others do…

Sometimes when things are not going right and the whole world seems to be falling apart around you, what you may not realize is that somewhere else people have it a lot worse. And once you are made aware of that you may feel kind of foolish or small (but maybe not better).

I think such was the case ten years ago, April 20, 1999.

It was a hot day in Los Angeles. That’s the way detective Joe Friday of the old Dragnet show might have put it.

I was a long haul truck driver. Among other things that day, I had a tough time backing in at a super crowded and narrow dock with all kinds of obstacles, such as a fire hydrant. No damage and no one hurt, but it took awhile. And then I had to wait a long time to simply pick up one pallet of organic bananas that had been sitting out on a hot loading dock (they were rejected at the other end). Finally I got out of there (and technically this was in Fullerton, but the whole LA basin, which is virtually all paved over, is all LA to me) but something was wrong. My refrigeration unit on my trailer was not working and I had much more produce to pick up (Oxnard and Salinas, probably, I don’t recall that for sure). So, the powers that be sent me to Vernon (still LA to me) to a refer repair shop. Glad I wasn’t paying the bill. At the time is was $100 just to have them look at it (wonder why your food costs so much?). I was there for a couple of hours at least (I don’t remember what the total bill was, but it was big). They tore apart the whole refer motor, literally. The guy had it in small pieces all neatly laid out. Now the computer built into the unit tells them what is wrong before they do anything. I can read the computer. It said a switch was defective. The switch was on the outside of the unit. When I swung by my home terminal in Northern California later, a refer mechanic there shook his head. He said the job should have taken all of but five minutes (breaking down on the road is costly).

While I was waiting at the LA refer repair place I could not help but think, being a long-haul trucker I was not making any money. I only got paid by the mile.

The customer waiting room was a cubby hole with a ratty chair and a TV set and, as I recall, it did not have air conditioning. It was at least in the high 90s outside. A truck driver was sitting in the chair and seemed to be mesmerized by what was on the television screen. I asked him what it was. He said there was some kind of shooting incident or attack on a high school.

Well of course that turned out to be the infamous Columbine High School shootings at Littleton, Colorado, where two teenage boys went on a rampage and shot 12 of their classmates and one teacher and wounded 23 others.

The thing that stuck out in my mind out of all of that was how long the police waited to go in. I know this ground has been covered by me and others, but that still bothers me. According to the reports I have read it took more than an hour and a half for the police to move in. The perpetrators had already killed themselves sometime before.

Of course had the police rushed in like the Russians do in hostage situations and killed innocent people in the process they would have become the villains.

But there has to be some type of compromise and tactic worked out to save innocent lives. In light of recent incidents, it does not seem that has been worked out.

But the theme of this post is when you think you have it bad, others have it far worse. Certainly in my case what I was going through that day was trivial.

And knowing that someone has it worse than you do may not always make you feel better. I was just making an observation.

P.s.

I just read an article that says there were many myths built up by various news reports. It claimed that there was no evidence that the Columbine murderers were outcasts or that they were picked on at school. It said that actually no one really knows why they did what they did. I have no real idea myself. I can only conclude that the two were psychopaths and did not separate the make believe world of things like video games and and cartoons and TV dramas from real life. Unfortunately on that dark day back in 1999 they made an unbelievable horror come painfully true.