Guns Don't Kill People. People Do.

So say the gun rights advocates.  And of course they're right.  More specifically in this instance, people with guns kill people.

How to understand George Zimmerman.  Zimmerman, a concerned neighbor without a gun, sees an unfamiliar black kid with a hooded sweatshirt, calls police, and maybe hangs around, at a distance, to see what will happen, and what this unfamiliar black kid with the hooded sweatshirt will do, when the police arrive.  Or he contents himself that he has made the call, worries for his safety around this unfamiliar black kid with the hooded sweatshirt, and prudently goes home.  He'll call the police later, to find out if everything was OK.

Zimmerman with a gun is an entirely different animal.  He's fearless and cocky.  His gym trainer says Zimmerman is no kind of specimen.  But with a gun, he's a powerhouse.  With a gun, Zimmerman gets out of his car and confronts this kid.  The unfamiliar black kid, with the hooded sweatshirt.  The kid who might himself, for all Zimmerman knows, have a gun.  How is it Zimmerman isn't worried about this possibility?  Is that what carrying a gun does?  It makes you not only aggressive, but stupid?

He approaches the kid, demands to know who he is, what he's doing, where he's going.  He doesn't show his gun, though.  He's just at the kid.  He's pushy, insistent, unrelenting.  It's the kind of cockiness you have when you're carrying a gun.  The fact is, that gun divides Zimmerman into two people.  The unarmed Zimmerman calls the police again, three minutes after the first call, to see if they're on the way yet.  Ask his gym trainer.  Zimmerman with a gun is a vigilante, fierce, an army of one.  He's not at all the softie his gym trainer knows.

"Mind your own business," says the black kid with the hooded sweatshirt.  Maybe "leave me alone, Mister."  Or maybe "fuck you."  For all we know, it could even have been "I'm visiting my aunt."  But Zimmerman, the big shot with the gun, the wiseguy who's prepared to "stand [his] ground," or is maybe even looking for a fight, isn't satisfied.  It's not OK with him that this black kid, with a hooded sweatshirt, is there, on Zimmerman's turf.  It's not OK at all.  He knows all about black kids, especially the ones with the hooded sweatshirts.  "Punks," who "always get away."  And he, and that gun, aren't going to be side-stepped.

What does Trayvon Martin do with this interaction?  He wants to go home, and he's being accosted by some cracker who won't leave him alone.  Does the cracker get in his face?  Is there any contact from this fearless, cocky, (gun-toting) white dude?  Does Trayvon Martin feel threatened in any way?  Does he, by any chance, push back?  Why shouldn't he?  It's not like he has anything to fear. Zimmerman turns out to be easy to overpower.  There's a scuffle, and Martin, who's stronger, and maybe bigger, winds up on top.  He's scared, but he's proud to have defended himself.

As the gun people say, guns don't kill people.  People do.  Any time they want to, if they're carrying a gun.