Vigilantes: Trayvon Martins beware

I lived in a well-planned community in Florida with two sets of gates and a host of homeowners' associations for 10 years.  It was horribly pleasant.  Neighbours didn't speak to each other generally and most people were self-absorbed.  I went to work and spent most of the remainder of my time away from home.

I remember a particular woman and her housemate who moved into the neighbourhood.  She refused to speak and walked as though she had a stick up her ass.  She put her recycling bins in their driveway to keep other people from using it, though I never saw anyone unrelated to a house try to use a driveway.  She became president of the homeowners' association and nit-picked the rest of the neighbourhood.

It's little people like this who want control, probably because they've never had any.  Is George Zimmerman any different?  He killed another person who was unarmed but with a bag of Skittles.  Those are deadly, yes?  How afraid could a person be to shoot someone who only inflicted minor injuries that would come from an grade school brawl on the playground?  Wouldn't you fight with your fists first before considering killing someone?  (Update: I didn't think that Trayvon Martin was some innocent child, but he also wasn't the one with the gun.  In the past, I've had two people hold guns on me but wasn't afraid and no one was shot.  However, when you have a gun pointed at someone, you've decided to kill them.  As far as I'm concerned, the police and the military should be in those situations on the street, not ordinary citizens.)

Florida passed a law years ago that you could protect yourself.  It was meant to be used in the case of someone trying to break into your house.  You didn't have to wait to be attacked to defend yourself and your property.  Despite the backing of the NRA, I thought that it was a good law, though you could end up shooting Girl Scouts trying to sell cookies.

However, the way that George Zimmerman was the aggressor in the initial contact, I can't see how he could be claiming self-defense.  He was following Trayvon Martin, who was walking, in his vehicle.  He called 911, and they told him to leave it alone, that the police would handle it.  I can only imagine this scared, little individual had been watching too many CBS crime series and thought himself a heroic type, the Captain of the Neighbourhood Watch.

Well, Captain, you've killed someone who probably didn't deserve it.

Knowing how death and justice work only for the poor in Seminole County, I fully expect that George Zimmerman won't suffer the law.  Mary Hill knows that.  She wrecked her BMW backwards into a tree at such a force that they were claiming 75 mph or some such.  She killed her daughter, one of the daughter's friends, and her daughter's other friend was left with brain damage.  I don't think she's served more than a few months of imprisonment, even though she was given two, concurrent 15 year sentences.

These little people need help.  They need to stop being afraid, so that they can join the rest of us.  Seminole County needs help too.  I can't imagine that area just off Rinehart Road has become so crime-infested that you need to brandish arms in order to survive.  After all, there are several strip malls along the road, and Seminole Town Center.  It's not the Bronx or Oakland.