Licensed To Kill/ You or Your Child May Be Next

WARNING: This is a very personal article based upon recent events effecting the Black community in America and may not be consistent with other Christian commentaries usually associated with this blog. Most of the content of this article were ripped from the pages of Charleston City Paper. Not everyone is expected to relate of the plight expressed in this article. However, you are still welcomed to leave a comment and share your opinion.
The Stand Your Ground law in Florida has come under renewed scrutiny since the Feb. 26 shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. According to news reports, Martin, 17, was walking home in a gated community when he crossed paths with self-appointed neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman, who started following Martin through the neighborhood in his car. Eyewitness accounts vary, with some saying Martin tried to escape and others saying Martin attacked Zimmerman, but in the end, Zimmerman was seen standing over Martin’s dead body with a pistol in hand. Martin, who was unarmed, died of a single gunshot wound to the chest. When police arrived, Zimmerman claimed protection under the Stand Your Ground laws, and he was not arrested.

South Carolina’s Stand Your Ground law (Title 16, Article 6) is similar to Florida’s in that it allows people to use deadly force in self-defense in their home or vehicle (a special provision even guarantees the same right for people sleeping in tents). But whereas the Florida law includes the blanket provision for “any other place where he or she has a right to be,” South Carolina’s phrasing is slightly different: The castle defender can be “in another place where he has a right to be, including, but not limited to, his place of business.”

In the wake of Martin’s shooting, Florida’s broad Stand Your Ground law is being put to the test. Now that the 9-1-1 tapes has revealed that Zimmerman got out to confront Martin, against the advice of a 9-1-1 operator, some are questioning the intent of the law. When people are allowed to carry concealed weapons in a state with Stand Your Ground laws, exactly how far does the license to kill extend and to whom is it targeted to kill?

Don’t look now, but South Carolina along with other States have empowered the gun carrying racist to hunt African-Americans as prey under the disguise of a perceived threat—justifying their use of deadly force on unarmed and unsuspecting blacks.

I fear that this Stand Your Ground legislation has created further instability and distrust in a society that is only generations away from legalized slavery, hangings and human cruelties upon blacks. But maybe that is the clandestine purpose of this law.

Wake up people. We are under attack and our enemy has been licensed to kill us under protection of the law –without any fear of reprisals.

It is obvious that this law may backfire upon it creators. People like Zimmerman, who are known to carry guns and have a propensity to shot blacks, may readily become targets themselves since they have already proven themselves to be a threat. Wouldn’t that be interesting — to have the Stand Your Ground laws protect a black person for shooting and killing a perceived and verifiable threat to their person who happened to be white? Umm? However I don’t advocate for violence or revenge.

We need to revert back to the methods of self-preservation that our forefathers used in order to navigate in a world that they knew was hostile toward them while yet exercising our civil liberties,defining and expanding the boundaries of civil rights and fighting for moral and judicial integrity. We need to recapture the wisdom, insight and unity of the past.

I advise you to protect yourselves and families at all times.

Watch as well as pray my people. Watch as well as pray.

Don’t become the prey!

Watch as well as pray!

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