Here's a Mother's Day Story for You:

Via Crooks and Liars

I have a fundamental problem with the Stand Your Ground laws popping up around the country--including a long-standing version already in place in my home state of California--which is that it essentially codifies vigilantism in the most dangerous of possible ways, resulting in what police organizations warned would be legalized hate crimes.
Unfortunately, you have the NRA and its ALEC compatriots wrapping SYG laws with the sacrosanct mantle of the Second Amendment so that any kind of nuanced, intellectually honest discussion is impossible. However, what makes these bills so heinous is how inconsistently they're applied. For someone like George Zimmerman, he simply invokes it in a police interview and he's released without an investigation even though he's killed an unarmed boy simply walking down the street. For someone like Marissa Alexander--who had direct knowledge of past acts of violence and a threat against her life by the man she shot a warning shot at--it's dismissed out of hand.

Why does this not surprise me? I thought at the time that if Trayvon had had a gun and shot Zimmerman (for which it would seem he would be justified), he would have IMMEDIATELY been arrested for murder. Color still makes a difference in this country, folks.