Trayvon Martin: Wrong Place, Wrong Time.

Trayvon Martin is that kid who got shot by the neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman, who is alive today because he had a gun, which was smart of him.  Guns don't kill people in much the same way that cigarettes don't kill people.  The only thing that can kill people is, of course, people.

Or maybe the flu.  I guess the flu can kill people, if it's Spanish or Swine or SARS, so I guess flus that start with 'S' are the most deadly.  Oh, and there's snakes of course, sometimes people can die at the hands of snakes, except snakes don't have hands, nor do they seem to need them. But it's clear that just because they can't handle guns doesn't mean snakes are safe, so clearly deadliness is not something we can strictly associate with guns, or cigarettes, really, since there are so many, many ways for people of frighteningly large minorities to die, and not just gunshot wounds.

So really it's more of a 'wrong place, wrong time' kind of thing, since in the right place at the right time everything would have been fine.  So Trayvon was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and it was dark, which is not surprising.  It could probably be proved that a lot of 'wrong place, wrong time' kinds of events happen when it's dark, and when seeing is clearly hard.

So the lighting could have been better, and if he was carrying skittles and ice tea it might have looked like a gun, which couldn't have killed people, but might have frightened George Zimmerman, and what if he was afraid?  It was dark, and Trayvon had dark skin so maybe it was harder to read his intentions, and if he didn't get a bag for his ice tea then probably he was grasping it and pointing it at George.

Nobody deserves to die, obviously, but just yesterday I was sitting at home and *bang* a bird flies into the living-room window and breaks it's neck, and so can we blame the window?  If the bird leaves it's nest it takes a chance, really, and hopes for the best for that day, like we all do.

To sum up, guns are a symbol of our freedom and our right to keep ourselves safe against--you know--the living-room windows that any of us might, and often do encounter on a dark night, or if it's so bright that you see a tree reflected in the window and you go to fly into that tree and *bang*.  Also, if I was Mr. Martin, I would think about carrying a gun in the future, not so much to hurt somebody, but so I could feel safer, and to exercise my inalienable second amendment rights.