Last March I was called for jury duty for the she first time since I moved to California in 2010. Among the many things I learned as I listened to the judge question potential jurors was that California has a law that allows someone who is the victim of a crime to stand their ground and respond with a proportionate level of violence. It's the sort of thing some would counsel their children on a playground — don't let a bully push you around.
You can think of circumstances where such a rule makes sense for adults, too. That a woman being abused by her husband might lash back at the jerk with a frying pan in order to protect herself does not seem unreasonable.
The problem is, depending on a jury's judgment 'stand your ground' can go much farther than that. You hear what sounds like someone breaking into your house, you feel threatened, so you shoot that person dead. (There have been cases where people did that, only to discover that the 'intruder' was their spouse.) You see a bunch of blokes charging you, looking scary, so you pull a knife and stab them, but you are acquitted of any wrongdoing, even if they didn't have a weapon among them, and even if you completely misinterpreted what was going on.
That, in a nutshell, is how George Zimmerman got released on Saturday after shooting dead 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida two years ago. The circumstances of the case are astounding — Zimmerman, who had taken it upon himself to be a sort of neighbourhood security force of one, sees a black kid in a hoodie cutting through backyards and assumes the worst. (Which is what, one wonders? That the kid was going to bust into someone's house in the middle of the day?) Though the kid shows no signs of being dangerous, Zimmerman follows him.
The kid feels threatened — as he hurries on, he tells his girlfriend he's being followed by a creepy white guy. Eventually, some kind of physical confrontation ensues. What kind is almost impossible to say, as all we have is Zimmerman's point of view. Zimmerman shoots Martin, claiming he felt his life was being threatened.
And though that threat was entirely of his own making, and nowhere near the level he believed it to be, two years later, a jury of his peers agrees. It doesn't matter that he came into the situation already terrified of having a black kid in his neighbourhood. It doesn't matter that the worst Martin did was punch him. Zimmerman had the right to stand his ground, and now he's free.
In the days that followed, protests have lined the streets of many cities. In Los Angeles a crowd descended onto a major highway on Sunday, shutting it down. Pressure has been put on the Federal Government to take on the case, claiming that what Zimmerman did was a hate crime. It's hard to see that argument going anywhere, but it's clear that the Martin case is indicative of the race problems that persist in the US. Being black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American means being treated differently, scrutinised and profiled even when there is no cause for concern.
I would also say, this story is once again about America and its guns. Put simply, fearful men should not be able to walk suburban streets carrying a hidden revolver, whether they think they're protecting us or not.
And yet, somehow that's the Bizarro universe we live in here in the States. We are a country where every single day, people — usually minorities — are shot and/or killed. We are a country that in recent years has seen gunmen try to take out a Congresswoman, murder teenagers at numerous schools, decimate the occupants of a movie theater, even slaughter very young children. And still, we are not able to pass even the most basic of gun control legislation. Indeed, after each shooting the first thing that happens is that gun sales explode across the country; not because people don't feel safe, but because they fear Obama is going to respond by taking away their guns.
Many have cheered Obama's leadership since Newtown, especially the emotional speech he made as his gun control legislation ground to a halt. The fact remains that he, too, believes that Americans have the right to carry weapons; indeed, one of his very first comments as the cry went out for gun control legislation was to remind Americans that we have to respect other people's right to bear arms.
In conversations about climate change people talk about the tipping point, that moment when such dramatic change happens that it appears to have come from out of nowhere. In fact, the change was quietly happening all along, little by little. At the moment, when it comes to American's gun control laws, it seems like all we can hope is that such a tipping point is on its way. It certainly doesn't seem like a damn thing is happening right now.
What is clear — and a lesson for politicians and voters in both the United States and Australia — is this: if you spend your time creating a climate of anxiety, whipping up hysteria or building walls in order to score political points or justify prejudice, the inevitable eventual result is going to be children lying dead in your streets or drowned off your shores. And that should haunt our days.
Jim McDermott SJ is a former associate editor at America Magazine. He is currently studying screenwriting at the University of California in Los Angeles.