I'm baffled at the fact that many on here have said it's their right to be armed for whatever reason, protect their self, their loved ones and so forth because you never know when a madman is going to be out in public, and yet I've not heard one person mention the number of unwanted deaths that could arise from that.
George Zimmerman and this case are just two of a million ways something could go wrong in public. Many of the other 999,998 examples also consist of innocent bystanders being accidentally shot and killed...all because, ya know, you had your right to carry your firearms. In short, the number of unwanted, accidental deaths that could or do arise from this (I would assume) are much higher than the number of people's lives being saved because you play Dirty Harry for a day.
I'd also like to take this a step further and where I'm going is sort of AKMVP's original point. If this is your argument, that you have a right to carry, then where might that mindset lead us? To a place where everyone in society is always freely walking around, packing? Is this the type of society we want to live in? And what happens if a madman opens fire in a mall in such a world? How much chaos would ensue when 19 other men pull out their guns...and the cops arrive? How many more accidental deaths would result out of the sheer craziness?
Lastly, people always revert back to the 2nd amendment argument if all other logic escapes them except, and I've heard some posters bring this point up in other threads in year's past, we neither live in a society like Madison and his contemporaries did, nor one that they ever probably envisioned. Those men were just that, men, not gods, and to undyingly stick to the Constitution from hundreds of years ago unwaveringly without ever changing it would be insanity. Unless you think giving women and blacks the right to vote was the wrong call. Then I can't help you.