Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Monday, February 17, 2014

Florida

The second prominent "Stand Your Ground" case has ended.  Michael Dunn was convicted of three counts of attempted murder for the people he shot.  But for some reason, the jury couldn't convict him on the murder of Jordan Davis.

Davis and his friends were in a parking lot, listening to obnoxiously loud music.  Dunn asked them to turn it down.  They turned it up.  Dunn unloaded his 9MM into the car.  Davis died.

Dunn tried to say he was "threatened" by the loud music and thought he saw a shotgun in the car.

In some ways, it doesn't matter.  Dunn will be behind bars for the rest of his life in all likelihood, as he 47 years old and facing 60 years in prison.

But as so many others agree, I think the important words are those of Ta Nahesi-Coates:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/black-boy-interrupted/283881/

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