Vigilantism is Destroying American Society

The legal acquittal of 29-year-old George Zimmerman in Florida on second degree murder charges — as well as the ensuing debate about widespread electronic eavesdropping by U.S. intelligence agencies — is further proof that in the United States, the problem is often the laws themselves.

In this day and age, anyone who admires the concept of vigilantism and approves of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law shouldn’t be surprised to find civil society held hostage by armed vigilante justice. Florida introduced the nation’s first stand your ground law in 2005 and it was there that the armed neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman, armed with a pistol, followed and shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin to death because he considered him “suspicious.” Similar laws are now on the books in 25 other states. The law allows anyone who feels threatened to take the law into his own hands and, if necessary, shoot to kill. That’s what happened in Sanford: Martin was on his way home wearing a hoodie and armed with nothing more than a bag of Skittles and an iced tea. Zimmerman, a Hispanic-American and neighborhood watch volunteer, pursued, confronted, and fought with him — and subsequently shot him dead. The fact that Zimmerman and not Martin was the aggressor in this case was never disputed.

The law was enacted when Jeb Bush, brother of ex-President George W. Bush and a possible candidate for president in 2016 himself, passed the law in Florida when he was the state’s governor, replacing the former law that required people who felt threatened to flee the source of the threat whenever possible. The result of the new law: States with such laws on the books experienced a 50 percent increase in self-defense killings.

Even gang members have successfully used the self-defense plea even though they committed murder. The core problem of the new law that led to acquittal in Florida is the reversal of burden of proof associated with it. The shooter now does not have to prove he had no option but to pull the trigger in order to save himself. Now the other side has to prove that the shooter had no reason to assume he was ever threatened. Civil rights leader Al Sharpton, who was among the first to urge the Justice Department to file civil charges in the Zimmerman case, characterized the grotesqueness of the situation by saying, “We can put a black man in the White House but we cannot walk a black child through a gated neighborhood.”

Other reactions point to the fatal consequences that arose from a combination of political encouragement for vigilantism, persistent racism in the United States, social disadvantages for minorities, and the proliferation of firearms in America —there are currently some 300 million guns in private hands and 32,000 gunshot fatalities annually. Journalist Gary Younge made an appeal for calm in the wake of Zimmerman’s acquittal: “Appeals for calm in the wake of such a verdict raise the question of what calm there can possibly be in a place where such a verdict is possible. Parents of black boys are not likely to feel calm. Partners of black men are not likely to feel calm. Children with black fathers are not likely to feel calm. Those who now fear violent social disorder must ask themselves whose interests are served by a violent social order in which young black men can be thus slain and discarded.”

Civil rights leader Clarence Jones, who 50 years ago helped craft Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, said that much progress had been made in the racial question since then, but added, “But as long as there is necessity for such a legal category as hate crime, the “Dream” remains unfulfilled. As long as DWB (“Driving While Black”) in the presence of police remains a perilous activity for many African Americans throughout our nation, the Dream remains diluted. As long as unemployment among African Americans keeps repeating the historic ratio of double the rate of unemployment among white people, the Dream remains unfulfilled.”