And no, I wasn’t taking anything for granted. That’s why I include so many caveats in my comments. For example, if someone is in a bad mood and shoves me out of their way while I’m walking down the street it wouldn’t be justified legally or ethically if I shot them, but blocking their hands and sweeping their feet out of under them would be because shoving is an assault. If they drew a weapon, there was more than one attacker, or if the attack is intended to severely injure or kill me regardless of the presence of a weapon and I could not avoid the confrontation then in any US state I’d be legally justified to use lethal force to defend myself (and ethically justified anywhere).

In some states it’s legal to use lethal force in those situations even if I had a good chance I could successfully flee to a safer place, and part of the reason for those Castle Doctrine/ Stand-Your-Ground laws is that in any violent encounter there are no absolutes, only probabilities and so there is no guarantee that someone will actually be able to reach a place of safety if they flee regardless of a legal duty to do so. And in attempting to flee but failing, the victim has probably placed themselves into an even more vulnerable tactical position.

There are people in this world who do not value your or anyone else’s life at all, and would not hesitate to end it for all sorts of reasons. Some people even kill or brutalize others simply for amusement, and upholding some abstract concept of absolute pacifism in a context of that kind of malevolence is suicidal, which you’re free to be if you like.

And if you are attacked and refuse to defend yourself, do you call the police instead? Aren’t they supposed to show up to defend you (ideally) and use violence to do so if necessary? Isn’t that simply sub-contracting the dirty work, assuming they arrive while the attack is in progress and not afterward when all they could do is investigate your probable murder? 

What if one person besides Anders Breivik had a firearm on that island where he killed 77 people? There’s no guarantee it would’ve changed anything, but the probability that it would’ve ended with fewer victims would be high.

With regard to Zimmerman, U.S. cultural perceptions and laws are sympathetic towards self defense measures, but my understanding is that he wouldn’t have a very strong case without “stand your ground”.  That law is an extreme manifestation of the right to self defense, and is controversial even within the U.S.  

And from everything I’ve read about it, even prior to the Martin shooting…self defense, schmelf defense. “Stand your ground” creates an environment for cold-blooded murder.

Oh, that happens a lot in the U.S. so we’re used to hearing about it and therefore it’s not very common for it to make the news. We in the U.S. understand that to be tough on crime and help our private prison industry meet its earning forecasts, some innocent blood has to be spilled (can’t be helped, or else a criminal might escape justice somewhere; better we kill a few innocents than let any of the guilty go free). It’s not an “official” stance any authorities will admit to supporting, but no other attitude adequately explains this map: http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

The fact that there are laws that mute and/or defend Zimmerman’s actions
points to the travesty of a gun culture that permits him to be
considered partially or wholly innocent.

Innocent of defending himself? Because that may be exactly what he did, and if so he should be released without charges.

At this point there’s no way to make any absolute determinations one way or the other about what happened, and if I seem to be biased in favor of the self defense argument it’s because I see the discussions in the media being extremely biased in the other direction.

 If (and I try to take care to say “if” a lot regarding this case) your head was being smacked onto the sidewalk late at night and someone slipped a gun into your hand during the attack then your choice is between suffering further injury (possibly causing permanent damage or even proving fatal) or shooting the assailant. And you only have maybe 3 seconds at the very most to make that decision… So, what do you do?

A lot of people die in plain ol’ fistfights, so being attacked is being attacked and the whole point of a firearm is to make the physical distinctions of the parties involved moot since there are no guarantees in any fight no matter anyone’s intentions (which are rather hard to discern at night in any case).

I can say with confidence however that if there was an incident of an unarmed person being shot by a person of the law, the incident would receive a huge amount of attention in these outlets, and the public outcry would be immense.  (See the 2008 Alexis Gigoropoulos shooting in Greece for a similar example of an unarmed teenager being shot dead by an authority figure, in this case a policeman.)  

Now, the issue of race in the Martin case is extremely important, and I don’t mean to take away from its importance.  But an incident of an unarmed person being shot dead – from an authority figure no less!! – is a social tragedy in and of itself. The fact that there are laws that mute and/or defend Zimmerman’s actions points to the travesty of a gun culture that permits him to be considered partially or wholly innocent.

Careful there. We don’t *know* jack about what happened between the end of 911 call and the final scuffle that ended in the shooting. 

I carry a concealed weapon. Technically, every time I run up after  someone to say “hi” I am “stalking them with a gun.” The key thing there is “concealed.” Which for all intents and purposes for everyone I talk to during a normal day, is the same as not having a gun.

*Having a gun on you* and *drawing and threatening someone with a gun* are two incredibly distinct actions. It is entirely possible that Martin did not know that Zimmerman was armed until he drew the weapon and fired. He could have gotten into a fight because he was pissed off at him for being suspicious, or because Zimmerman said something insulting or accused him of being thief.

Or Zimmerman could have drawn the gun and tried to citizen’s arrest him or some stupid bullshit, in which case Martin would be entirely justified in kicking his ass in self defense.

The thing is, we don’t know, and we shouldn’t say things like “100% certainty” about how any of it went.