Zimmermann acted in self-defense but is being accused of murder.
Smith committed murder, and confessed to murder, but confused posters are trying to shoehorn in a bogus claim of self-defense.
Conflating the two cases is promoting sloppy thinking and moral bankruptcy, as well as undermining 2A rights.
Permit me to preface my remarks with this: We don't know all the facts of the case, and guilt is for a jury to decide.
I have no sympathy for thieves of any stripe. I have lost thousands of dollars worth of stuff and cash to thieves, some government officials, some not. I'd just as soon see them all riding the stake like Vlad the Impaler would have had them do.
By any standard, since he has apparently confessed to the killings, and in such a manner it would indeed appear to be murder, it is difficult to defend Smith's actions, especially with a claim of self-defense. Administering a coup-de-grace to a wounded suspect is not an action excusable by law, nor is continuing wound disabled and unarmed suspects.
Most evident is the absence of any prompt call to authorities during or after the events which took place, perhaps the most damning aspect of all.
I'll grant the 'children' appeared by all accounts to be hooligans, with no respect for the property of others, but I cannot, once they had been wounded and it was ascertained they had no weapons, agree with killing them. We'll see what the autopsies reveal, there may have been more to this than meets the eye.
I didn't conflate the 2 cases, but you are. I simply used the word "Trayvon'ed" and you ran with it like a liberal, telling me what I "really meant". But since you went down that road, your 2 hoodlums, like young gentle Trayvon, started something they could not finish, and ended up like Trayvon.
The posters you dismiss as "confused" simply don't feel sorry for the 2 criminals, as if they were trick or treaters who got lost. Breaking into an inhabited house is an aggressive and threatening act, but I suspect you know that. The old man should never have been forced into in that situation by these two. Good riddance to rubbish.