Mr. Dunn's Gun

Calhoun's Cannons for Feb 19, 2014

The country gets what it celebrates.

                          Dean Kamen

Pull out a gun and you've got murder on your mind.

Pull out a spoon, you're thinking, "soup."  Pull out a rake and it's "leaves."  Pull out a hammer, you'll think, "nails.  It's awfully hard to kill a man with a spoon, and you can't eat soup with a gun.  So when you pull a gun, you've got murder on your mind.

One of the basic requirements of being a citizen in a civilized country is a duty to keep the peace, uphold the law, and do no harm to your fellow citizens.  Even when threatened with violence, you still had a duty to retreat, if at all possible.  That duty was the bright line of a civil society, a society that put a premium on seeing that harm must be avoided as a first step. Only when that proved impossible was a citizen allowed to meet force with force.  And even then, any survivors of that encounter would still be taken to task and if the force was unwarranted or excessive, they would be held to account.   

 No more.  In many ALEC-driven, Republican-led states, that duty is nothing but a quaint anachronism.  Instead of  duty-to-retreat, we now have "stand-your-ground" laws, a complete reversal that replaces a responsibility to your fellow citizens with the absolute triumph of the self-contained individual.  No longer responsible for keeping the peace as a citizen among other citizens, in "stand-your-ground" states, the individual's singular perceptions, no matter how distorted or disconnected from reality they may be, are the new benchmark.

Both laws are a perfect demonstration of the difference between a civil state and a vigilante state.   

In Florida, for example, if you're white and think that all young black males are a thuggish menace, or you're upset, angry, are having a bad day and you pick a fight with one of your black fellow citizens for no reason other than you're in a foul mood, and suddenly you start to feel "frightened" because your bullying has now gotten  you into a tight spot and your quarrel is starting to go south on you, you no longer have a duty keep the peace and get the hell out of there. Instead, you can pull out a gun and start shooting and then claim you were "scared" and "in fear of your life" from all these "thugs."  And get away with it. 

That's certainly what happened to Michael Dunn.  Had he lived in a "duty-to-retreat" state, the prosecutor would have asked Mr. Dunn the following questions:  "Was your car in working order?  Did your car have wheels?  Why didn't you use the wheels to roll on over to another parking space farther away from the loud music and the annoying kids, before you started shooting?"  And he would have been convicted of murder.

Civil state, vigilante state.  That's where we are today, faced with a national question on what kind of country we want to turn into, with a special added wrinkle: Guns and Race.

 In a Feb. 2 story, New York Times reporter, Lizette Alvarez, observes, "It is also possible that Mr. Dunn assumed the teenagers were armed because so many Florida residents do own guns, including Mr. Dunn . . ."  Adds Mary Anne Franks, associate law professor at the University of Miami, "Once you have a situation that someone white and male feels threatened by a group of young black men, is it possible that he sees a gun where there was no gun?  That is one of the more disturbing questions."

Indeed it is.  In stand-your-ground states especially, there's a growing list of "Don'ts" for African Americans: Don't drive while black, don't walk while black, don't run while black, don't wear hoodies, don't play loud music, don't be an uppity, mouthy kid, don't smoke pot with your white friends; he'll get a fine, his record cleansed after a little community service, while you'll go to jail, end up with a record and a ruined future. And if you're injured in an accident in the middle of the night, for God's sake, don't go pound on a white man's front door begging for help.  If he's armed, you're finished.       

So many don'ts, so many deaths, so many disturbing questions. Guns and race, race and guns, guns and guns, civil state and vigilante state. Our choice: A country grounded in a citizen's duty to uphold the law, be responsible for keeping the peace in order to maximize the safety of their fellow citizens, or a fearful, racist, armed-to-the-teeth, angry country grounded in pure, celebrated self-interest:  My gun, my rules, MY country.  And for the ones with the most money and the biggest guns?  ALL the ground is THEIR ground and lesser Citizens need to step off the sidewalk.  

  

      

Same Old, Same Old

Calhoun's Cannons for July 15, 2013

This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice.

                                            Oliver Wendell Holmes

George Zimmerman went looking for trouble.  Trayvon Martin was out looking for Skittles and an iced tea. Zimmerman found his trouble. Trayvon found his death. Trayvon's parents then went looking for justice.  Their community went looking for justice.  What they found instead, was The Law.

It was The Law that operated differently for black and white, rich and poor.  It was The  Law blind to human bias, bigotry and racial profiling.  And it was The Law that had been poisoned by Florida's ALEC-led "stand your ground" rules, a gun-lobbyist's wet-dream, a license to pack heat and kill with impunity because the ALEC laws bestowed authority upon any gun-packing fool and turned a civilian into an untrained, armed militiaman, a cop wannabe who knows that he can act with impunity. A law that protects unconscious race bias, unwarranted lizard-brain fear, and appalling carelessness.

In Florida, as in other states with ALEC-led pack-your-heat and stand-your-ground anywhere-you-like, if you foolishly and wrongly profile your fellow citizen as a scary black man, a punk, "one of those," provoke a confrontation and then shoot him dead, The Law allows you a get-out-of-jail free card.  Especially, if you're white.  I mean, this is Florida, after all, and there's a history there.

Which is what made this case so bizarre.  It was a drama absolutely brimming with racial fear and back-story animus, (All those f--ing punks getting away with it.), awash in the politically generated fear and paranoia that animate so much of our society nowadays. (Just who are those ALEC-led laws aimed at?  Against whom is one standing one's ground?  Martians?) Yet all parties utterly denied that such a thing could possibly be going on. 

And, like many cases involving white and black America, the narrative changed during the trial from one involving an innocent dead kid into the narrative of a dangerous black man responsible for and deserving of his own death.  The victim became the perpetrator and the perpetrator now became the victim.  And nobody wanted to deal truthfully with what really happened that night. Or why. All critical elements if you're looking for justice.

But who and why and what happened are irrelevant if you're looking at The Law.

And when the verdict came down, it was another national O.J. moment.  A familiar narrative of two nations: one white, one black, both viewing a single case through their own historical lenses.

The verdict also became the new Law-sanctioned narrative of the now transformed Zimmerman who, through his lawyer and Robert, his spokesman brother, re-tell the story of a totally innocent man who, through no fault of his own, was wrongly set upon by a dangerous young man and so he had to shoot.  It's a story that I don't buy, but I can't blame Zimmerman for sticking to it so fiercely.  Far better to go through your life thinking of yourself  as an innocent victim than face the terrible truth that it was your own foolish actions and bad judgment that set in motion events that resulted in the death of an innocent young boy. That these tragic events would never have unfolded.  Until it was started by you.

Zimmerman's path forward will not be an easy one and that, I suppose, is a kind of rough justice. Scant consolation to Trayvon's family. But for the rest of black America, the verdict was an old, familiar tune.  And for them, their way forward is also an old, familiar path: work to change The Law into something more like Justice, eliminate the un-civilized ALEC-fueled license to kill laws, continue to counsel their young sons not to be caught Driving While Black, and seriously consider outfitting their children with Kevlar vests whenever they go out for a snack and a soda at the corner store.

New rules for an all-American post racial world.      

Koch Brothers Exposed

       If you ever wondered just who and how your government is being sold out to (besides the highest bidder) go to www.alecexposed.org for a gander at ALEC, the American legislative Exchange Council.  That's the organization that brings your average corporate lobbyist together with his employee (legislative aides) so they can write the laws that will ensure special favor to your average corporate lobbyist's boss, Corporate America.  (Average, run-of-the-mill citizens need not apply.)
     Then plant to attend the screening of "Koch Brothers Exposed," Saturday, April 14th, 7 pm at the Information Press Office, 3435 Sacramento Dr. Suite A in San Luis Obispo.  (RSVP 545-7916
      The documentary film is by director Robert Greenwald ("Wall-Mart; The High Cost of Low Price," "Outfoxed," and "Afghanistan.") and examines the "billionaire brothers and the vast network of organizations that undermine the interests of the 99%. . ." 
     If you haven't heard of the Koch Brothers, or ALEC, it's time you learned.