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Here's a news conference with his former attorneys explaining why they have withdrawn:

http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/04/10/attorneys-for-martin-shooter-zimmerman-w?videoId=233102955&videoChannel=2602

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

I saw Trayvon's parents on Today this a.m and they were surprisingly non-inflammatory in their comments. His mother even used the word "accident" in talking about the shooting.

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"I hold that in this country there must be complete severance of Church and State;
Ronald Reagan

If she used the word "accident", I wonder if she could possibly be a defense witness since he will be on trial for second degree murder. I can see how the defense might pounce on that.

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Until He Returns (Rev. 2:17),
Travis

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. ~George Orwell

She isn't a "witness" to anything. It might be relevant in a sentencing hearing, perhaps.

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"I hold that in this country there must be complete severance of Church and State;
Ronald Reagan

Thank you, Bill Cosby:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NEIGHBORHOOD_WATCH_BILL_COSBY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-04-15-12-04-46

He says it doesn't matter whether George Zimmerman was a racist or not. Why did he even have a gun in the first place? I absolutely agree.

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

There's collateral damage to the American Legislative Exchange Council because of the boycotts in protest of the Stand Your Ground law it created. They've lost corporate sponsors and have announced a retrenchment in their activities (trying to preserve their remaining sponsors, no doubt). There's a separate thread for ALEC if anyone's interested.

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

I like Bill Cosby, but he evidently doesn't believe the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms should be in our Constitution. When you disarm law abiding citizens, then the only people with guns will be the government, criminals, and foreign enemies. That would make criminals, foreign enemies, and an autocratic government very happy, but it would not be good for the people. Our forebears recognized that, which is why they gave us the Second Amendment to preserve the people's right to own and carry weapons. Liberals, of course, don't like the Second Amendment and would like to disarm the citizenry (like Hitler did).

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Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!

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surprisingly, there are oodles of threads on craaazy things like prayer requests, doctrine, theology, etc too

I'm glad someone else is saying this, though (I would hate to be the only one).

We do need a vigorous discussion of HOW we will control gun possession, because IF we will control it should never have been made an open question. We are turning into the Wild, Wild West IMO and it is getting out of control. If anything, Mr. Cosby's remarks were remarkably restrained compared with my view of this situation. Mr. Zimmerman in particular should probably have been disqualified from owing a gun IMO because I do not think he is "all there." (You aren't supposed to be allowed to own a gun if you aren't "all there."

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

Gideon, don't forget Stalin did the same thing, and in fact decided not to attempt invading the U.S. because he feared catastrophic losses from armed citizens.
Then I'm glad you aren't in control of the government!

I think you are overstating what Mr Cosby said:

"Cosby says the bigger question is what Zimmerman was doing with a gun, and who taught him how to behave with it."

Frankly, it's too early to be implying whether or not Zimmerman was mentally fit to carry a weapon and whether he was using the weapon for anything other than self-defense. I expect that will get sorted out in the courts. However, Cosby did not say all law abiding citizens should be disarmed. Also, I would be interested to see what percentage of the American people are opposed to the Second Amendment. My hunch is the vast majority support it...

I think you are right that the vast majority supports the second amendment. But that doesn't mean that the majority is monolithic in its opinion about what the second amendment really means.

Let's take assault rifles as an example. There are people whose primary reason for supporting the second amendment has to do with sports and hunting. For those people a ban on assault rifles, or restricting them to carefully controlled rifle ranges is no big deal. They might worry about a slippery slope, but they don't worry directly about having to hunt without an assault rifle.

There are people whose primary support for the second amendment has to do with personal protection in situations where the police won't be on the scene until it's too late. This includes armed guards at a bank. It might also include George Zimmerman while he was out making his rounds. Those people don't need assault rifles either. In the context of this discussion, it's interesting to note that George Zimmerman had stepped outside the rules laid down by the neighborhood watch group he was supposedly acting with.

There are some people whose primary support of the second amendment is based in the idea that armed insurrection is the last line of defense for the people, if the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government all conspire to deprive people of their essential liberty. Insurrection is a lot like warfare, and an assult rifle might be exactly what's needed for this purpose.

Now this last reason for having a second amendment might seem truly outrageous to most readers. Indeed, I myself don't think we are anywhere near the kind of national crisis where armed insurrection is even remotely appropriate. But you have to take into account that the folks who passed the second amendment were thinking somewhat along these lines.

It's also worth recalling that, when the election of 1800 failed to produce a president, people began stockpiling weapons outside Washington DC, preparing for the eventuality that Congress would fail to resolve the cirsis. It's also worth noting that some "extreme preppers" include heavy weapons in their preparations.

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Not all those who wander are lost.

Wanted to post this article as an update to the discussion here. It is from ABC News.

Rather than quote from it, I'll just post the link to the whole article so you all can read it in its enirety.

Basically it is about Zimmerman's bond hearing, as well as a photo that has been released that shows cuts and blood on the back of Zimmerman's head, the photo supposedly taken minutes after the shooting occured.

ABC News

I want to read a little more on this before I comment any further.

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Until He Returns (Rev. 2:17),
Travis

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. ~George Orwell

I am nervous and angry about Zimmerman and his friends taking this precaution, rather than leaving it to the police to document evidence. It feels manipulative to me, and breathtakingly cold-hearted. He just killed someone, and he is worried about himself?

Really?!

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

Assured, I was thinking along the same lines, although not quite as strongly as you are. Now what I am interested in is the relationship between Zimmerman and the person who took the photo. Are they strangers, aquainted, or possibly even friends? If it is found that they are friends, I will be more suspicious. If they are complete strangers, Zimmerman's case will have a little more credibility. What kind of witness will guy provide for Zimmerman, as well as other potential witnesses that may come forward and/or become public. We will find out eventually. However the media may try to spin this story, we won't know a large percentage of the facts until we hear them presented in the courtroom.

_________________
Until He Returns (Rev. 2:17),
Travis

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. ~George Orwell