Stand Your Ground Laws: An opinion -

How the media handle, and often mishandle, the touchy topics of race and ethnicity. One minute, they are tiptoeing around the subject because they don't want to inflame tensions; the next, they are all thumbs, slapping inaccurate labels on people and framing stories in what is now an antiquated black-and-white paradigm.

Why an individual who was not a trained law enforcement officer but instead a volunteer monitoring his surroundings for what he considered suspicious activity, either on his own or as part of an official neighborhood program, was carrying a loaded weapon and felt justified in using lethal force.

Fine. Let's talk about those laws. But we can multitask. And there are other urgent issues to deal with -- the sort that are bubbling just under the surface as a result of the controversial outcome of the Zimmerman verdict.

In the final analysis, it may well be that "stand your ground" laws are too loosely written and need to be changed. But as you well know if you paid attention to this heart-wrenching trial and its troubling aftermath, that's not all that needs changing in our society.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/22/opinion/navarrette-zimmerman-verdict-issues/index.html?iid=article_sidebar