How the Zimmerman acquittal may kill self defense

I am sure many of you were surprised to wake up this morning to learn that George Zimmerman was acquitted on all charges on killing Trayvon Martin.  I really thought the 6 women jury was going to convict Zimmerman on manslaughter.  However, that was not meant to be and he is now considered innocent and a free man.

What upsets me though is the potential ramifications on how the justification of "self defense" may be affected in the years to come.

When I took karate years ago, my instructor told me that as I learned more about the martial arts, I also had to understand the meaning of self defense.  What I've learned is this:

When a person takes a punch at me, I can defend myself by blocking the attack and responding with an equal reaction.  In this case, I can attempt to punch that person back.  However, I could not break the attacker's neck, or rip his throat out, or break his/her back, etc...  In other words, my reaction must be equal.  Now, if the attacker had a knife or gun, then all bets are off and I can defend myself with deadly force because it is reasonable for me to believe that my life is in danger.    This is what I've learned in regard to self defense and as far as I know, it really has not changed.

But here comes the Zimmerman vs Martin case.  From what I've gathered over the weeks of TV coverage, Zimmerman followed Martin because he suspected, based upon his appearance, that Martin was up to no good.  Unfortunately, no one can really say for sure what happened because Martin is no longer on this world.  He was killed from a gunshot wound inflicted by Zimmerman.

Basically, because of Zimmerman following Martin, a street fight broke out resulting in Zimmerman suffering abrasions to the back of the head.  But Martin was not armed with a deadly weapon.  As soon as Zimmerman got attacked, if that is what happened first, he could have yelled for help, he could have walked/ran away.  But that is not what he did.  He took out his gun and shot Martin.

Based upon my knowledge of marital arts, Zimmerman acted beyond the scope of an equal reaction.  However, the current legal system we have still labeled it self defense.  So my problem is this...

Because of this case, there is now a precedent on the books that any dumb-ass throwing a punch at someone can now be potentially shot and killed???

I hope this thought is wrong, for all of our sakes.  Let me know what you think.

It's been a while

Hi anyone reading...

It's been a very long time since I've written on My Roar.  In fact, the last post was nearly 3 years ago.  Since then I've been doing a lot of different things such as writing on Examiner and working on my Animal Advocacy Network site on Facebook.  Not to mention getting seriously obsessed with Doctor Who, Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.

Anyway, I've decided to revamp My Roar and will be posting my opinions and rants soon.  The reason for this decision is the Zimmerman acquittal.  Later on I will be posting my thoughts on that and plan to post some rants daily.  We'll just have to see where this takes me next.

Thanks for stopping by and please feel free to comment or leave suggests for topics you want me to roar about.