This is back from August, but it’s the first I’ve seen it. Rick Ector of Rick’s Firearms Academy of Detroit debates Ben Crump on Stand Your Ground laws. Rick is absolutely right that the Martin case was a classic self-defense case and had nothing to do with Stand  Your Ground in Florida. Our opponents can only win by misleading people, as Ben Crump is doing here.
Rick did pretty well if you ask me. Debating on camera is harder than it looks.
I’d be indescribably pleased with myself if I managed to be as articulate and focused as Ector was.
That being said, my reaction to the segment is as follows:
– The hosts favored Crump (among other things, they allowed him to have the first AND the last word).
– Crump was measured where Ector was passionate, thus:
– Crump came across as reasonable (and believable) even while spouting falsehoods whereas Ector could be characterized as angry (and perhaps not clear thinking). Crump is clearly good at this and well practiced.
It seems to me that anyone could use this debate to reinforce their previously held beliefs on either side of the issue. It’s very hard to change minds, especially when–as you point out–one side doesn’t concern itself with the facts and casts doubt on the truth.
In any case, kudos to Ector for making Crump work a little harder than he probably usually has to. Civil rights advocates must take every opportunity to ensure that statists are never alone and unopposed at the microphone.
Sincere thanks to you and Bitter in that regard as well!
He did very well. Debating three people ain’t easy let alone on camera. But, most important, was the advice from the female ‘journalist’ who says “how do you know what really happened…You only have one man’s account…” Bingo! and thanks for reminding me. That’s some excellent advice.
Make sure, that.
It was NOT just “one man’s account”, it was the eyewitness who saw Trayvon Martin as the assailant, and the forensic evidence that did not contradict Zimmerman’s account. In addition, the time lapse and final location of the fatal event supported the idea that the unarmed teen tried to stalk Zimmerman.
I think that we need to stop letting these thugs be referred to solely as unarmed. We should be calling them unarmed assailants! Trayvon Martin – unarmed assailant, Michael Brown – unarmed assailant. Quit letting the other side always present these thugs as the victims.
The removal of stand your ground laws would serve only one purpose – to make it easier for lawsuits to be filed, and financially hazardous for those being victimized by thugs, much like Hillary’s support for killing off the protection of lawful commerce act would do to the firearm industry.
One tactic the anti-defense crowd uses is to cite cases where people didn’t get away with murder just because they claimed they were “standing their ground”. Crump brought up the guy who got shot for “playing music too loud”- yet Dunn is going to spend the rest of his life behind bars. We can’t let them keep using examples where the law worked as a reason to repeal it. Ditto for Theodore Wafer and Markus Kaarma, who both failed CD/SYG claims, and we can add the popcorn throwing incident to this when he most likely gets convicted. Yet these liars keep using these cases. I wish Ector called him out on that. There are no calls to repeal insanity defense laws just because a sane person tried to use it as an excuse.
Second, Ector himself was a little misleading when he gave an example of a victim being forced by law to turn their back on a gun and try to run. Obviously that’s not being able to retreat in “complete safety”. The actual self-defense differences are extremely subtle, and will rarely come into play. The true value of SYG is the protections it gives early in the prosecution process to help people avoid going to a trial that that will win so they can get their life back, and the subsequent civil protections from Hawks like Sabrina Fulton who will sue you for everything you have because their boy was such a nice outstanding young man. Even when you win, you lose.