Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is among the most aggressive groups in seeking to limit, if not eliminate, the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear Arms. CSGV also attacks so-called Stand Your Ground laws through misleading accounts of what happened in the Trayvon Martin shooting by George Zimmerman.  This CSGV video released about a month after the Not Guilty verdict, received a lot of attention: The video was highly misleading as it related to the actual facts of the case.  One of the harshest critics was Andrew Branca, a contributor at Legal Insurrection and author of The Law of Self Defense. Branca, whose extensive coverage of the Zimmerman trial received national attention, wrote a blistering critique of the video, Deceptive Trayvon Martin Shooting Reenactment Video Released (emphasis added):

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.