Dear Florida:

[ritaxis]

I had a lovely, lovely time in the beautiful Panhandle a couple of years ago and always wanted to go back. But I don't see how that is possible. You have made your space deathly unsafe and it terrifies me to think of getting caught in the crossfire.

I realize that as a little old white lady I am not the target of your laws, but (1)I can't outrun a "warning shot" that's aimed at somebody else and (2)it hurts me when somebody's killed like this. And (3) it's disgusting.

That goes for other "Stand Your Ground" states and communities too.

Comments

[del-c.livejournal.com]

And it's not just Florida. Dear America, what do you think it looks like to foreigners when in two days we hear a girl in Michigan was shot dead on a doorstep asking for help when her car broke down, a driver in New Mexico was stopped by cops, then anally probed and enema'd eight times because they say he clenched his buttocks, and a boy in Iowa was shot dead by police for driving his father's truck (the father wishes he hadn't phoned the police now, he only wanted to keep the boy safe).

I don't even link to the woman in Washington DC shot dead by police for bumping a plastic cone, or the man in Texas tasered for trying to get his baby son out of a fire (the baby died), because they're just earlier this year, not in the last two days. Your whole country scares me to visit.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I understand. It's all over the place. It's so bizarre, and I feel that while the US has a murderous history, this especially violent and dangerous atmosphere was systematically promoted and shoved down our throats as we ineffectively struggled against it over the last generation. You can see it in a lot of our popular writers and speakers, how they promoted institutionalised gun violence as a cure to petty rudeness and small property crimes.