Holy crap - I have no issue with ideological disagreements, I am a libertarian and therefore agree and disagree with many folks here on many things.
pansies, girlymen all flailing away at him with their purses.
But please take your small-minded pathetic misogyny elsewhere.
In my opinion, if a human being is slamming another human being's head into the concrete, they are attempting murder.
The whole thing is we don't know HOW that conflict started - and that is critical. Look at the *reality* - who started the entire thing? Zimmerman. Who was the pursuer? Zimmerman. Who continued pursuit even getting out of his car to chase the other one? Again, Zimmerman.
So up to this point Zimmerman is entirely 100% the aggressor. These are objective truths, and are documented. What we do NOT know is what happened next - did Zimmerman touch Martin to force him to talk and identify? Or did Martin initiate contact? We don't know ... but it DOES matter.
Why? Because based on the events thus far - and remembering that Zimmerman has NO special standing legally - Zimmerman is the aggressor and if he also initiated contact then Martin has every reason to feel that HIS life is in danger and certainly you would then be fully supportive of him taking whatever means are necessary to DEFEND himself against someone who has chased him by car and on foot across an entire development and then initiates a physical confrontation.
Why do I think you'd support it? Because it is the entire basis of 'stand your ground' laws and particularly self-defense, which is the entirety of the Zimmerman defense.
Of course, if Martin was the initiator of physical attacks that is a very different thing, because in that case Zimmerman would be in his rights to defend himself. My point in that case is it is a reminder of why we need sensible gun control - because a taser would have stopped Martin and had he attacked Zimmerman he would have been arrested for assault and so on.
My entire problem has little to do with THAT situation - partly because we don't know and never will know exactly what happened.
However, I have a bigger issue with the fantasy land notion that race played no role in all of this - of COURSE it did. A white kid wearing a hoodie from the local football team wouldn't be pursued - hell, he could have shoplifted his soda and skittles from the 7-11 and the local sheriff would have convinced the owner that 'there was a misunderstanding'.
You don't have to believe in rampant racism and 'white privilege' ... be denying it is just a stark reminder of how pervasive it is ... and your language around these items makes it starkly obvious where you stand - racist, homophobic, and misogynist.