Monday, January 21, 2013

This could have happened


The other day I was at the grocery store, picking up some assorted items. I had finished shopping and had unloaded all the groceries into my truck and was pushing my now-empty cart towards a nearby cart corral. An elderly black woman on her way into the store smiled and said, "I'll take that." I smiled back, passed the cart off to her and she went inside. As she walked away, I had one thought; she's lucky I didn't shoot her.
Seriously, I could have invoked Florida Statute  776.013, known commonly as the "Stand Your Ground" rule and blasted her into oblivion.
First of all, she was black. I mean, I haven't actually read the statute, but that's more than half of it, right? It's just another way for white people to shoot black people, isn't it?
Also, she threatened me. "I'll take that." She declared an intention to take something away from me, never mind that it was something that didn't belong to me and that I was finished with anyway. What matters is I had every right to pull out a gun and open fire on that nice old lady right there in the Sweetbay parking lot, blasting away at someone's mom and grandmother until the gun was empty, reloading and firing a few more shots into her lifeless body just to make sure I was absolutely safe from this woman who was probably on her way inside to get stuff to make cookies, but I didn't.
Oh well.
Happy Dr. Martin Luther King Day, everyone! 

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