Prayer Vigil Today

Finally today I read a couple of articles sent to me stating how the Florida “Stand Your Ground” law played a major role in the non-guilty verdict in killing of Trevor Martin. In most states you are obliged to try to flee a dangerous situation but with this law, signed by Governor Bush in 2005, you can stand your ground and if you feel you are in danger kill the person threatening you. The media, pundits and many local leaders are presenting this as a racial case of white person shooting a young black man. This might have been true but in Florida and other states, where no matter what the race of the shooter and the race of the victim, you have a right to kill a person who you think might be in danger to you.

Today I went to a prayer vigil for a 20 year African America male in North Central Milwaukee. According to his aunt and guardian, who raised him, he was on his way to the store when he decided to visit his cousins. They were talking outside on the porch when a gun fight broke out. The story going around was that a girl and her boyfriend were walking down the street when another man smiled at the girl and said hello and the girl smiled back.

Supposedly the boyfriend got mad at the other guy for smiling and a fight broke out. With gun laws being as they are in Wisconsin the fight soon became a gun fight. One of the bullets struck down the young man who was watching the fight from the porch of his cousin’s house. The aunt spoke loving of the young man she had raised and how he was struggling in school to fight the right vocation to find a good job he enjoyed.

A white person shooting a black person or a black person shooting a black person there are still two dead victims of senseless violence made easier by our gun laws.

Comments

(:commentboxchrono:)