Deceptive Trayvon Martin Shooting Reenactment Video Released
Via Amanda Turkel at Huffington Post comes news that The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has released a video “reenactment” of the shooting of Trayvon Martin in order to encourage people to oppose “Stand Your Ground Laws”:
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has released a chilling new online ad reenacting the night Travyon Martin was killed, in an effort to stop the controversial Stand Your Ground laws nationwide.
The nonprofit group uses actual audio from the 911 calls that shooter George Zimmerman and a witness made that night in Sanford, Fla. After the sound of a gunshot, people in hoodies are seen lying on the ground, and the names are displayed of the more than 20 states that have Stand Your Ground laws in place.
The group has also launched a website and a petition asking people to urge their state lawmakers to “oppose this immoral legislation.”
“‘Stand Your Ground’ laws have essentially legalized murder. With this PSA, we hope to add to the nationwide push to repeal these immoral laws,” said CSGV Communications Director Ladd Everitt.
The video is highly deceptive, and nothing more than a continuation of the propaganda campaign about the case.
Had they felt any affinity for the truth, they might have mentioned Martin’s emerging from the darkness to fell Zimmerman with a blow the neighborhood watch volunteer never saw coming, a blow that hit with such force that it broke Zimmerman’s nose, and which he described to police that same night as feeling as if he had been hit by a brick.
Had they felt any affinity for the truth, they might have mentioned Zimmerman’s many and numerous injuries about the head and face, especially those caused by Martin striking Zimmerman’s head on a cement sidewalk, with any single blow capable of being the one that turned Zimmerman into a drooling vegetable or simply taking his life.
Had they felt any affinity for the truth, they might have mentioned Martin’s long record of school violence, his engagement in street fighting, his apparent drug use, his apparent gun dealing, and his self-expressed desire to beat his victims until they had suffered “enough”.
Had they felt any affinity for the truth, they might have mentioned Zimmerman’s long history of affectionate and communal relationship with black neighbors throughout his life, from his childhood to the present day, or indeed Zimmerman’s own mixed-race background.
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence tried for decades, under various guises and name changes, to seize the guns of law-abiding citizens. They failed. They tried to limit the right of the citizenry to carry arms for personal protection, they failed.
By demanding a legal duty to retreat from a felonious attacker they weaken the position of the law-abiding armed citizen who sought no fight and strengthen the hand of the felony criminal who possessed all the power to choose when, where, and how to launch his vicious attack, robbery, or rape of his intended victim.
Here is a screenshot from the video, purporting to show that the law should protect victims.
In fact, the law does protect victims. Victims like George Zimmerman, who didn’t have to suffer brain injury or death before he could defend himself with deadly force.
–Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
Andrew F. Branca is an MA lawyer in his third decade of practice, an attorney member of the Armed Citizen Legal Defense Network, and a Guest Instructor on the Law of Self Defense at the Sig Sauer Academy. He is the author of the seminal book “The Law of Self Defense, 2nd Edition”.
Andrew conducts Law of Self Defense Seminars all around the country, and he has also launched a series of LOSD State-Specific Supplements that dive deep into every relevant statute, jury instruction, and court case that defines the law of self-defense in a particular state.
You can follow Andrew on Twitter on @LawSelfDefense and using #LOSD2, on Facebook, and at his blog, The Law of Self Defense.













Comments
Branca
I’m curious on your take on a facet of this story.
Is it better for this guy that his wife called 911 or for him to have done it?
[hoping it’s not a “it depends” answer]
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/08/21/homeowner-shoots-escaped-prisoner-in-southwest-iowa/
It would seem to me- the less of your voice and interactions a prosecutor has to work with, the better. However I get that there is an upside in self defense of having the state of mind to call it in.
…and I get that in this case, defending his home and family is a no-brainer…in most states.
Well, it depends. (Ha-ha.)
Really any benefits one way or the other are incidental to the vital point that SOMEONE actually called promptly.
It’s kind of like asking if it’s better to shoot someone (in self-defense) with a 45 or 9 or 22–far more important than the caliber is the shot placement. A .22 is arguably more lethal than either of the two larger calibers–eventually. But when the point is to stop the bad guy NOW! there’s something to be said for a bigger hole . . . in the right place.
If the user of defensive force limits himself to the 5 key things to say to the police following a defensive force shooting, it really doesn’t matter all that much if it’s him or his wife who makes the call.
In any case, as you say, a shooting of this type in one’s own home by an escaped prisoner, no racial element, no “yute” element, for an aggressive prosecutor to latch onto, there’s little they could have done to put themselves in legal jeopardy.
Oh, I suppose if they’d merely wounded and incapacitated the intruder, then admitted to having “finished him off” after he was no longer a threat, that would make things awkward, but I suspect any such admission would fail to find itself into the responding officers’ notes, and would be unlikely to be repeated after they were appropriately admonished.
–Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
[…] a more detailed takedown of the video, see Legal Insurrection (h/t […]
[…] IT’S FOR A GOOD CAUSE, SO WHAT THE HECK: LETS LIE OUR ASSES OFF! The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has never allowed the truth to stop them in their efforts to deprive the law-abiding of the Second Amendment rights, and like carrion eaters everywhere (see Rahm Emmanuel and Barack Obama), they see the Zimmerman case as just such an opportunity. Legal Insurrection has the embedded video. […]