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Being followed in car and then on foot by a stranger with a gun can just as easily be perceived as a deadly threat. You know what perception is, don't you....it is the reason this entire affair happened in the first place.
No, being followed by car and then on foot by a stranger can never be perceived as a deadly threat. There has to be more, something a reasonable person would believe indicates a deadly threat. Following doesn’t even come close.
Nice try sneaking the gun in your narrative but Zimmerman was carrying concealed and there is no evidence whatsoever that the gun was an issue prior to the scuffle. Furthermore there is plenty of evidence that the gun only became an issue after the fight exposed it.
“Being followed in car and then on foot by a stranger with a gun can just as easily be perceived as a deadly threat. You know what perception is, don’t you....it is the reason this entire affair happened in the first place.”
Actually, Martin was the stranger acting suspiciously. Zimmerman is a resident and Neighborhood Watch volunteer with the duty to keep his eyes on strangers acting suspiciously and to call police, which he did. GZ has every right to get out of his vehicle and walk around in his own neighborhood, so that cannot be claimed as the sole reason that this tragedy happened. You know that many other decisions by TM would have resulted in a much better outcome. One would have been for him to act with some common sense and talk civilly to GZ about why GZ was following him.
But, even if TM felt threatened by GZ following him, that does not give him the right to start assaulting GZ. If TM felt threatened, then he should have called 911 (instead of talking to his girlfriend on the phone) and/or went strait back to the residence where he and his father were visiting.
There is no evidence that TM saw GZ’s gun before the fight started. I really doubt that he would have engaged in a fight if he had seen the gun first.
He made it to the residence where he was staying and circled back.
He made it to the residence where he was staying and circled back.