I was in New York at that stage in my life and 18 was the drinking age, so I didn’t have a problem getting a beer if I wanted one, or going to work [OK after 16] if I felt like it. Of course I was related to about 10% of everyone in that area because my maternal grandfather was one of 18 kids, so I was in a privileged position, which Trayvon wasn’t.

But to your point about why teenage boys want to be men — well, if you’re a teenage boy, you have to go to school, can’t work a number of jobs, can’t drink a couple of Buds at the ballgame, have no legal right of contract, are often told no you can’t do such-and-such that seems perfectly reasonable to you just because (just because teenage boys are typically hormonal idiots and what seems reasonable to them often isn’t, but that’s not something a teenage boy actually hears even if someone says it). Why *wouldn’t* you want to be a man? Sure, most men are schmucks, but at least they’re schmucks who can drink a brewskie at the end of the day without having to use a fake ID to get past being carded.

If I were in Trayvon’s place, I would have assumed that Zimmerman was a mugger. If you aren’t doing anything and someone starts following you, that would be a reasonable assumption. He should have sprinted to where he was staying, but he decided to stand his ground because ‘that’s what a man would do’, and boys his age always want to be ‘men’. I don’t know why, a lot of men are smucks.

And unfortunately, a weenie with a gun too often means an innocent dead, as you pointed out :(.

Frightened people and firearms is not a good mix, and that’s what most people with concealed weapons permits are. They would be a lot safer if they just bought soft body armor and wore it. If you really have a need for a weapon, you have a need for the body armor, and should buy it first.

A really ‘bad’ person doesn’t need a gun, they can use whatever is around as weapon, and they always go for the kill, no stunning or wounding. That was one of the huge differences between urban and suburban bars – if you started a fight in a city bar, you were usually going to die because life or death were the only options if the people involved weren’t friends or family.

Like you say, it is all about attitude and the way you treat people. I was always polite, even to people I arrested. It didn’t cost anything and it made the bad guys nervous – they assumed I was some kind of psycho. There are a lot of ways to say ‘Sir’. The biggest benefit of being polite is that people would talk to you. They wouldn’t necessarily pass on useful information about criminals, but they gave you a better feel for what was happening. If there was a problem it was always easier to maintain the peace if you knew people’s names, and they knew who you were.

My former neighbor had four boys, and the oldest could have been Trayvon. We talked, mostly about computers, but I felt he was really happy to talk to an adult who wasn’t on his case over something and was willing to let him get the cheat codes for his computer games. He did stupid things and annoyed the hell out of his mother, but that is the basic function of teenagers in life. Being a teenager shouldn’t be a capital offense.

There are neighborhoods in this area where I don’t go after dark, because I have no business being there. But when I lived next door to the projects I thought nothing about walking around the block after dark, because I lived there and thus had business being there. I didn’t make trouble for anybody, they didn’t make trouble for me, I just walked around the people standing on the sidewalk doing whatever they were doing there, not ignoring them but not paying them any special attention either, and we all went our separate ways without any mayhem. I had no business asking them what they were doing, I’m not an officer of the law nor hold any other official position that would make it my business to interrogate them, so I didn’t, so we were all fine with each other.

Which is the problem with a weenie with a gun. The problem with a weenie with a gun, is that he doesn’t *know* he’s a weenie with a gun. He thinks the gun turns him into Superman and gives him the right to interrogate random people on the street just because he has a gun. But the gun doesn’t turn him into Superman. Nope, just turns him into a weenie with a gun. If Z-Man had really run up against a thug on that dark evening, he’d be dead, and a thug would be better armed. Because a thug wouldn’t have got into a shoving and wrestling match with Z-Man like Trayvon did. A thug would have simply killed Z-Man before Z-man could have even thought of pulling his gun. A thug would have done this the moment Z-man yelled at him “Hey you, what are you doing here?” That kind of disrespect, to a real thug, isn’t something to be solved by yelling and punching. It’s something to be solved by killing the person who’s dissing you. Z-man thought that his gun made him immune to thugs. But it really just made him immune to 16 year old kids sick of being racially profiled. A real thug would have shoved that gun up his ass after killing him for the crime of dissing him on the street.

Did I mention that I was *very* polite when dealing with real thugs? 🙂

After working an evening shift a friend and I would grab a couple of beers and then go to an all-night restaurant for what was literally called a “garbage plate”. It wasn’t unusual to see a chalk outline on the floor near the restrooms, but you ignored it because the food was good. The crowd was night people, and the chalk was the result of people not leaving their personal problems outside of what was a neutral zone. You couldn’t get away with killing someone in there because there were usually half dozen city cops who just got off their shift among the diners, as well as guys from other departments. It happened but the food was still good.

The really bad people recognize other really bad people and don’t start anything. It is the morons who think that a gun will make them invincible that cause problems. They are scared and armed, but they will often end up unconscious and unarmed if they get annoying. Then there are going to be a lot of questions to be answered when their gun is used in a crime.

These people rushing out to buy guns for self-protection are simply arming the criminals, and too often killing innocent people.

Funny thing, but I don’t remember too many ‘gun collectors’ among cops.

It doesn’t impress *sane* women. 😉 If they are from right-wing-nuttia… It impresses the hell out of them! Hell, most of them are proud to show the World they are themselves fully paid up NRA crazies!

Ahhh, is that what happened to the troll? 😆 Yeah, some really are quite insane, even more than usual. 😀

One thing I don’t usually mention about that altercation I and my two buddies had in that Texas bar all those years ago, is that it was the first and most definitely the last time something like that happened. Sure, we didn’t start it, and we didn’t hurt anyone too badly (or kill anyone), but it should never have happened in the first place. And I admit that. The evaluation and hearing we had to attend after was not at all pleasant! And I was about a mm from a dishonorable over it! Civilians don’t realise, but even today, I can still be held responsible and face a Military tribunal over an incident where someone is harmed or killed. Even if a Civilian court clears me! Just because I left the Military, doesn’t mean they have forgotten all the training and all the conditions that I agreed and signed for, and it doesn’t mean the military have left me! 🙂 So, I do my best to stay as far away from trouble as possible. It’s one of those things they forget to mention when you first sign up! 😉 The Military always takes care of their own, at least they do when you screw up!

Part of me is glad I served, but another part wishes to hell I hadn’t! which part win’s depends on the day. 😉 🙂

On the one hand, I never have any problems with anyone who wants to fight or prove how tough they are etc, etc. (I’ve been told it’s my eyes, and the slow crooked smile that I just can’t help having when someone tries to get tough with me!) 😆 And I also lapse into what a friend here calls my “Military posture”. My breathing slows, and my whole body relaxes and I straighten up but my eyes are steady and alert and that smile just forms. 😀 He said that the first time he saw it, he had to do a double-take because I suddenly looked like somebody had changed places with me. He said I radiated an aura of “You are about to die.” and there was no doubt at all. And he’s right. *shrug* We were actually trained that way, so that most reasonably sane people would back off, and they do.

People watch too much TV and take it as fact. *shrug*

I wouldn’t have done anything about him if he had at least pretended to stay in the same general planetary system of the conversions, and responded to issues. One day he just went overboard and I disappeared all traces of him.

I don’t care if people disagree with me, as should have been obvious given how long I put up with him, but you need to stay near the issues.

I have no idea what that guy’s problem was, maybe he thought I was giving him a hard time. I assumed that he didn’t know the specifics of the law, and provided a link to it. When you don’t provide any context for your claims, and anonymous posting certainly doesn’t, you can’t expect to be accepted as knowledgeable. That’s his problem, I was simply interested in accuracy, and now anyone who cares can read the appropriate law for themselves.

As we both have noted multiple times, carrying a weapon is a major hassle, and for people who have been trained to do it. you will automatically react as if you still had the right and responsibility to take action. The money for the rounds to maintain decent accuracy with a handgun is better spent on good coffee that makes your life better.

Carrying a weapon doesn’t make you taller, stronger, or better looking, and certainly doesn’t impress women, so what the hell is the point? The only thing carrying a weapon attracts is trouble.

and if you’ve ever carried a weapon as part of the military guardforce you damned well know that you are always, always, responsible for your actions

That is so true! The number of reports I had to file, and ‘after action’ (or incident) reviews and eval’s I and others of my team had to deal with during my service were several. And most people outside of the Military (any Military) have no clue because they get their info from TV, which like to leave out these details because they are boring. There is a reason why we have to do several courses for our specialties, and “close enough” does NOT get you a pass! When you are in a sudden life/death situation, you have to make the right decision fast! And the only way to do that is with intense training and practice. (and I am not just talking about the *physical* courses, such as weapons training. And it’s why many don’t make the cut.

To become a member of an SF unit here takes years. You first have to pass the SF Barrier Phase (50-60% make this), then there is the intense Cadre Phase, about 10-15% pass this, then you have a 3 week Candidate Selection Phase (you can only be selected if a position is available, and you have ‘something to offer’), and then an 18 mth Reinforcement Cycle (we called it REO), this included several basic physical & weapons training courses, but also legal, ethical/moral, psychological and basic medical courses. A candidate must pass ALL the courses in this cycle, and then they will join the SF unit as a junior and finally start the intensive 12 mth Unit Training Cycle (plus time for any extra specialties). During those two course cycles, you are constantly monitored by specially trained Sergeants and Patrol Commanders, and any hint of a problem has you facing an evaluation hearing pretty fast. There are other *tricks* the use to continuously evaluate a candidate, especially their mental state. There is a reason why there have been zero incidents of an Aussie SF personnel going postal, or even *accidentally* killing someone in a bar etc., in the past 50 years!

And if you are eventually chosen as a team leader (or squad leader or an officer candidate), you are not only responsible for *your* actions, but those of your team mates or men under your command. ALWAYS!

It’s one of the reasons when I left the Military/Intel services and worked in Civilian security, I refused to have a weapons permit or carry a weapon. Because I would have used it. I was trained that way. And part of my training for my specialty was “One shot, one kill”.

As my friend Bryan said on his blog, too many people watch CSI or those Police drama or military shows and think they are fact. It’s all fiction! If those shows were ‘real-to-life’, nobody would watch them! They would be mostly tedious and boring!

I’ve known Bryan Dumka (from the Why Now? blog) now for about 6 years, and I have a VERY high regard for his knowledge about things such as this tragedy, especially in Florida. I have no doubts he is correct in this case. I don’t know Jim Write well at all, but I have known WO’s (we have WO’s here as well). I knew a WO2 very well when I became team leader for my team. Because here the WO2 is the senior adviser to the Unit Commander, and he holds the power of your *life and death* in his hands! 😀 Here, they can have unassuming titles like… Chief Clerk, or Quarter Master and others, but woe betide anyone in that Unit that thinks they are lowly desk jockeys that can be taken for granted! That’s the fast-path to the end of your Military career! 😀

So, on that basis and on the whole, I think I will respect and believe both Bryan and Jim’s opinion’s in this matter.

Of course, everyone IS entitled to their opinion. Even if it is ill-conceived or based on ignorance and misconceptions. And even those who pretend to be something they are demonstrably not!

Sorry Jim that this is long-winded. But I felt it was necessary.

And of course, everyone can take it or leave it. *shrug*

I posted after Jim’s comment here: Jim’s comment