Zimmerman is guilty because...

I had no particular desire to post about George Zimmerman today, or any other day for that matter.  I have not actively sought out news about him, but you can hardly miss the headlines, and occasionally I stumble across something about him in articles I am reading for other reasons.  Such was the case today, when I was reading a talk radio summary published on WND.com.  They were talking about how Michael Savage has passed Rush Limbaugh in listenership this week because of the high number of internet listeners he has.  Then they talked about Savage's conclusion that Zimmerman is guilty because his gun had the safety off and a round in the chamber, and therefore Zimmerman was out looking for a violent confrontation.

It is this kind of willful ignorance that keeps me from taking Michael Savage seriously.  Honestly, I want to, because I love his passion and the unconventional viewpoints he takes on the issues of the day.  But I also see him make careless and uninformed mistakes that shade him toward the crackpot side of the spectrum for me.  So let's explore Dr. Savage's conclusion.

By all accounts, the pistol that Zimmerman used was a KelTec PF-9.  Here's a picture of one:

From the KelTec Website:

The PF-9 is a semi-automatic, locked breech pistol, chambered for the 9mm Luger cartridge. It has been developed from our highly successful P-11 and P-3AT pistols with maximum concealability in mind. The PF-9 has a single stack magazine holding 7 rounds. It is one of the lightest and flattest 9 mm ever made. Firing mechanism is Double-Action Only with an automatic hammer block safety.

A cursory look at this picture gives us the first indication of Dr. Savage's ignorance.  There is no external safety anywhere on this gun!  For those reading this that don't know anything about firearms, that little tab above the center of the grip, where you might think a safety would be, is the slide release lever, which automatically holds the slide open when you have fired the last round, or can be manually engaged if necessary. You have to push it down to release the slide from the locked position.  The hammer block safety mentioned in the description is an internal safety which only releases when the trigger is pulled a specific distance, and is there to keep the gun from going off if it is dropped.  So there was no safety there for Zimmerman to turn off, because the gun wasn't made with one.

While visiting the KelTec website, I also looked at the pictures and descriptions of all their pistols to see if any of them did in fact have an external safety.  There are three listed that do, two of which have barrel lengths in excess of nine inches and are not concealable with anything less than a trench coat, and one which is a .22 Magnum - not even close the the caliber (9mm Luger) that police say was used in the shooting.  The three other pistols manufactured by KelTec do not have external safeties.

It should be noted that many of the most popular carry pistols today do not have external safeties.  So again, applying Dr. Savage's logic, thousands upon thousands of Americans are out on the streets every day looking to have a violent encounter because they bought a pistol that has no external safety.  That's like saying a gun is an assault rifle because it's painted black.  It is utter foolishness.

Dr. Savage then goes further into ignorance by concluding that carrying your gun with a round in the chamber means you are looking for a violent confrontation.  If this is true, then a very large percentage of people who carry a pistol, either openly or concealed (which includes police officers, by the way), are actually looking for a violent confrontation every day.  Why?  Because they consider it normal to carry their weapon with a round in the chamber, and would consider any other method foolish.  They take steps to carry it that way safely (they aren't stupid, after all), but they know that if you need that pistol, you are going to need it immediately, and even the second it would take to rack the slide to chamber a round could mean the difference between going home or going to the morgue.  That is the simple choice.  But Dr. Savage would label them all as looking for trouble every time they carry their gun with a round in the chamber.  That conclusion doesn't pass the sniff test either, Doc.

I don't know if Zimmerman is guilty or not.  From the little I have heard and read of the trial, the case is pretty weak, but that remains for the jury to decide.  I do know that Zimmerman was colossally stupid in the way he handled himself in the first few weeks after the shooting, and brought a lot more trouble onto himself than he had to.  He should have lawyered up and shut up.