George Zimmerman Explodes the NRA Fantasy of the Armed Citizen

[krispos42]

87. In this case?

Probably not.


If Zimmerman had not been armed with a pistol, he probably would not have been able to kill Martin.


The converse, though... if Zimmerman did not have a pistol, would Zimmerman still be alive?


Maybe. Maybe even "probably".



This case is a single data point, though. The country is littered with people that are alive to day because they had gun when badness found them, and people that are dead because they didn't.




There is a line of argument made that guns "escalate" situations, but this is not qualified, so it is assumed to be automatically bad. That is a bad assumption to make.

Let me give an example:

Older man is walking to his car in a parking garage. Young man jumps him to steal his wallet and other valuables. The older man tries to defend himself but it unable to, and is left beaten and his valuable stolen. The condition of the older man may be anything from roughed up to badly injured to permanently disabled to dead.

Now, let's say the older man had a pistol. Young man jumps him intending to steal his wallet and other valuables, but the older man manages to draw and shoot the assailant. The assailant's injuries can range from slightly injured to badly injured to permanently disabled to dead, but, let's face it, it's more likely to lie on the serious side of the scale.

So, because gunshot wounds are more serious, generally speaking, than a beating, we can safely say that the gun introduced into the situation did indeed escalate the violence.

AND, we can also say that the innocent party was unharmed and the guilty party was stopped and, presumably, worked through the justice system.

So which outcome is better? Which is fairer?

Very few people will say that it would be better for the older man to have been beaten than for him to have shot his assailant. That, while being attacked, the older man should have realized that his assailant's live was just as valuable as his own and not done anything to risk harming his attacker.

There is a sense of justice involved.