this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
203 points (96.8% liked)

Asklemmy

43945 readers
634 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] buh@hexbear.net 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

what bothers me the most about the case is that conservatives often say one of the reasons they should have guns is "what if I'm out at night and someone starts following me, I have the right to have some way to defend myself" which, sure, I get it. but if you look at the details and evidence, trayvon was unarmed, and more or less keeping to himself, until george, who was armed, started following him. maybe it's true that trayvon attacked first (there's no hard evidence indicating this, only testimony from george), but would it be so unreasonable after being followed by some random stranger with a gun at night? why is it not seen as a case of trayvon defending his life using whatever means available in the moment? after all, defending yourself from potentially harmful strangers is so important to them that they believe it warrants having access to lethal weapons (which again, I don't really disagree with, I just think you need people need to be held responsible with how they use that, but I guess chuds are willing to make exceptions...)

[โ€“] maegul@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago

but would it be so unreasonable after being followed by some random stranger with a gun at night?

Yea, that's the thing about a gun, the escalation it causes is through the roof ... it's fatal, at a distance ... with that threat you both having nothing left to lose and also, in just about everyone's case, no experience in managing the emotions of that situation so of course you're going to react in some way that might be surprising, unpredictable or even arguably irrational. Merely carrying a gun, and posing the threat of immediate death, is an assault in itself.