If I'd been in Zimmerman's shoes, I'd be in prison today

This is an unlikely scenario, because I’m not civic-minded enough to join a neighborhood watch like Zimmerman did, but:  Had I been in George Zimmerman’s place on that rainy night in Sanford, Florida, there’s zero chance that I get the acquittal he did.  Facts in evidence:

 

1)  Just look at me, for fuck’s sake.

 

2)  I would have shot Martin before he ever reached me.

 
And no, I'm not a bloodthirsty racist.  Hear me out, goddammit.

Had I had time, and an inkling of the fact that Martin was going to start a physical fight, I would have announced “I have a weapon”, or maybe “I’m armed, stay back.”  If he kept coming, I would have had reasonable fear of death or serious bodily harm.  The last thing someone who’s carrying concealed wants to do is get into a wrestling match, particularly with someone younger and faster than them.

Maybe you think that’s chicken-shit.  Maybe you think I should try a flying backheel, like Jackie Chan.  That’s pretty retarded, sir.  If you’re carrying, you have a responsibility to your family, if no one else, to prevent someone from taking your weapon from you and killing you with it.  If you don’t like that line of reasoning, I recommend taking it up with Roderick Scott, and listening to some of these 15minute seminars.

So there would be no wounds, no recordings of screams, no debate over whose screams they were and who was punching whom in the nose.  These were points that the entire Zimmerman case hinged upon, and I would have had recourse to none of them.

3)  I’m neither white-Hispanic (like Zimmerman) nor African American (like Roderick Scott).  Well, I suppose I am African American, but my ancestors were in the first wave of emigration out of Africa – the group that interbred with Neanderthal.  I’m Neanderthal-American.

4)  I would have used something that would have punched bigger holes in the target.

5)  I probably would have fired multiple times, not just once.

 

People don’t just fall over, or fly backward, when shot, Bruce Willis movies notwithstanding.  I once shot a deer that continued to run for over half a mile, only to find that I’d hit it in the heart – right in the *%$#ing heart – with a 12 gauge slug.  So chances are Martin would have kept on coming, and I would have kept on shooting.

If you take a concealed carry course (and you would have to have taken one to be in Zimmerman’s situation), they’ll tell you that anything worth shooting once is worth shooting twice.

 

6)  I’m 6 foot 2 and 210 pounds.  (And no, this doesn’t mean I’d like to wrestle random strangers for my firearm.)

So there I’d stand, a hulking 210 pound white-Neanderthal man with a gun, standing over a dead young man of color with 2 rather large holes in his chest, and not a mark on me.  I’d be trying to sharpen my toothbrush into a shiv right now in the hopes of surviving my next trip to the yard.

That’s why I’ll never join a neighborhood watch.  I don’t care so much for my neighborhood that I’d risk putting my family through years of hell, and risking their lives for years afterward at the hands of a mob.  It's good that we have men like Zimmerman -- he's a better citizen than I am.