Case could help with gun laws

The peaceful protests in the wake of George Zimmerman’s acquittal should not dissolve into complacency. They should inspire renewed activism to change gun laws and societal attitudes so that armed confrontations are not encouraged, as they are today in places like Florida, and so that people who end up shooting and killing unarmed individuals have some responsibility if their own actions brought on the confrontation.

We say peaceful protests because the violence and destruction committed by small numbers of protesters— vandals, really—in Oakland and other cities have no political legitimacy. The peaceful marchers and the millions more Americans who had visceral reactions to this case are the ones capable of productive action.

They are, consciously or not, on common ground with Gabby Giffords and others fighting for sensible gun laws and sensible attitudes toward gun violence. The toll it takes nationwide, with murder rates rising after decades of decline, makes it a major public health threat of our day. Its victims disproportionately are young men of color—often dying at the hands of others of the same race. While the Trayvon Martin case aroused outrage because it began as racial profiling, the other deaths too often are shrugged off. That is wrong.

Zimmerman’s gun changed the dynamic on that fateful night. Calling 911 to report the suspicious character— Martin was walking at night while black and wearing a hoodie—Zimmerman was told not to pursue him. Surely he would have heeded that instruction had he not felt the invincibility of carrying a firearm in a state that glorifies the right to kill rather than avoid a fight.

What if a black man in a hoodie had decided a white teenager walking in his neighborhood looked suspicious? What if police told him not to follow the kid but he did anyway? And what if, when the white kid attacked him, he pulled a gun and shot him—really, does anyone think that black man would not have been immediately arrested? Wouldn’t police have looked at why he stalked the kid in the first place? Didn’t the teenager have reason to be afraid?

Martin will leave a legacy if this trial inspires more Americans to look critically at our gun laws and the behavior they encourage.