Sean Hayden wrote:He was following the kid. That changes everything and you know it.
No, actually, it does not. If a person is following behind you in community, you do not then have the right to turn and attack him. Folks object to "stand your ground" and want to advocate THAT sort of self defense? No "stand your ground" but if someone is following behind you you can attack them?
Doing away with stand your ground would make Martin have to wait even longer before taking that kind of defensive measure. If we do away with stand your ground he'd not only have to wait until he was in fear of his life or great bodily harm, he'd have to make sure he couldn't reasonably run away.
Sean Hayden wrote:
I'm not sure what the law says, maybe it is okay to follow people around like that. But I'm not going to defend just anyone's right to follow strangers with guns.
It doesn't matter if Zimmerman had his gun drawn. As someone being followed you can assume the person following you intends to harm you and may be armed.
You can assume that someone following you intends to harm you? Have you ever walked down a city street before? Plenty of people are "following" you for all you know.
And, again, if you grant Martin the right to defend himself because he thinks someone following him has ill-intent, you're giving people MORE leeway than even stand your ground presently allows! Don't you see that? You want to extend to people the right to attack people who have not attacked them because they may have ill-intent -- that's not allowed even in states with stand your ground.