George Zimmerman acted in self defense against Trayvon Martin.

OK, so the "Pro" has repeated over and over his belief that it was reasonable for Mr. Zimmerman to "defend" himself against a boy armed with a bag of skittles and an iced tea by shooting him in the heart. The "Pro" cites his version of Florida's self defense law and ignores the clear requirement under Florida State Statute 776.041 (2) (a) that a person trying to avail himself of a self defense argument cannot do so if they started the fight, unless they have "exhausted EVERY reasonable means to escape" the danger. I have previously raised this with the "Pro" and have pointed out that if Mr. Zimmerman was able to escape to the point where he could shoot his gun, he probably could have tried another means to escape the danger he allegedly perceived. Perhaps he could have thrown a punch. That used to be kind of traditional in fights in most places. Historically, it has not been accepted behavior to get in a fight and as soon as you are losing, take out a gun and shoot someone in the heart. Now, maybe that is what 20 year old Tea Party Conservatives do these days. It works pretty well in those video games that the "Pro" has said he likes to play. I am sure that shooting someone in the heart scores a lot of points when you "spend a great deal of time playing games like Age Of Empires, Civilization V, Hollywood Mogul 3, and Stronghold." Unfortunately, Mr. Pro, its not such a good idea to do this in the real world. In fact when people do this in the real world there are actually laws and consequences for such overreaction. The basic definition of "manslaughter" is an unintentional killing that results from recklessness or criminal negligence and the State of Florida has specifically codified Manslaughter in Section 782.07(1) of the Florida Statutes as: "The killing of a human being by the act, procurement, or culpable negligence of another, without lawful justification according to the provisions of chapter 776." As we have tried to teach the "Pro", Section 776 does not avail itself to Mr. Zimmerman because of his failure to exhaust all reasonable means before killing a boy armed with a bag of skittles. Mr. Zimmerman is further culpable under Section 782.11 of the Florida Statutes which outlaws an "Unnecessary killing to prevent an unlawful act" and states that "Whoever shall unnecessarily kill another, either while resisting an attempt by such other person to commit any felony, or to do any other unlawful act, or after such attempt shall have failed, shall be deemed guilty of manslaughter, a felony of the second degree". I have been at this long enough to know that the "Pro" will continue to take the position that poor Mr. Zimmerman did nothing wrong and did not provoke anything. The "Pro" thinks that Zimmerman had every right to confront the teenager and that Zimmerman was an innocent victim. The fact that Zimmerman ignored police staff admonishments that he should stay in his car and let the police handle it, has no bearing on what happened in the "Pro's" world. The "Pro" further thinks that in trying to piece together what happened on that night, the only testimony we have from Mr. Zimmerman BEFORE the incident occurred, i.e. Zimmerman's recorded opinion that these "F#@kin$ punks, these as@holes" always get away" is irrelevant. Somehow, even though this confrontational statement is recorded shortly before Zimmerman and Martin met, the "Pro" thinks that this is not an indication of Zimmerman initiating the confrontation that ended Trayvon Martin's life. So, we are not going to change the "Pro's" mind. He can go back to spending a great deal of time playing video games where people can get shot hundreds of times a night and nobody really dies. That's not what happened here. Whoever people end up voting for in this debate, I hope that everyone who reads these arguments thinks long and hard about the ramifications of a vigilante society where people respond to a punch with a gun. The next kid carrying skittles and an iced tea might be someone you know. Think about how you would feel if that teenager was killed by a "neighborhood watchman."