Monthly Archives: April 2012

J. Neil Schulman writes:

Many of the protesters demanding “Justice for Trayvon” have argued Trayvon Martin was a victim of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law because it enables George Zimmerman to claim a right of self-defense using deadly force, with Zimmerman only having to demonstrate he had reasonable fear that if he did not stop Trayvon Martin from continued combat Martin could have inflicted upon him life-threatening or maiming injuries.

Yet if it was any Florida law that made any physical combat between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin discriminatory in favor of George Zimmerman, it was Florida’s concealed-carry-weapons licensing law’s minimum age of 21 that denied the 17-year-old Trayvon Martin a right of self-defense with a concealed handgun.

Our laws are schizophrenic on the question of age, and infantalize post-pubescent human beings that thousands of years of human culture — and many cultures around the world today — have regarded as adults.

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