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"  The most salient piece of evidence to me that George Zimmerman was off the rails in his pursuit of Trayvon Martin always has been the fact that the police dispatcher on his 911 call specifically told him not to pursue the unarmed teenager. Zimmerman ignored the cop and went after Martin anyway, with lethal consequences. I&amp;#039;ve always felt that at least part of the Sanford Police Department \u2014 probably the grunts in the patrol cars, since upper echelons seem to have been dedicated to throwing this case right from the start \u2014 had to be extraordinarily furious over being thrown into the jackpot this way by a gun-toting wannabe who already had a long history as the local pain in the ass, and who even took a swing at one of their own a few years back. I think we&amp;#039;re seeing the fallout from that now. It&amp;#039;s pretty clear that local law-enforcement is in turmoil. First, we had the leaks about the victim. The plastic bag that might have contained marijuana some time this decade. The suspension from high school. This all pretty clearly came from law-enforcement. All of this, coordinated with the sudden omnipresence of &amp;quot;good friend&amp;quot; Joe Oliver, and the promulgation of the tale that Martin sucker-punched Zimmerman, breaking his nose, and then getting on top of him, smashing his head repeatedly into the sidewalk. That lasted about a day. Then, suddenly, on Wednesday, ABC comes up with the video of Zimmerman&amp;#039;s arrival at the cop shop in which no injuries of any kind are evident on his nose, his head, or anywhere else. (Apparently, the EMT&amp;#039;s in Sanford did their training at Lourdes.) It is not in any way to diminish the reporting done by ABC to point out that somebody else in law-enforcement wanted this video out so as to counteract the narrative that was under construction through the other leaks. Is this any way to run a criminal-justice system? No. But it&amp;#039;s the way ours operates almost every day in every city and town in the country. (And no, Chuck Todd, my man, it is not the place  of journalists to wish that leaks would stop.) (And no, Zimmerman&amp;#039;s father can&amp;#039;t wish it all away.) I wish now that the case would die down a bit. Trial-by-media makes me nervous, no matter who the defendant is, and it makes me feel even more queasy that Nancy Grace, the squawling harpy who never met a defendant she wouldn&amp;#039;t boil in her own blood, has lined up with the Martin family. I also wish the case itself would die down a bit so we can all have a serious conversation about the bloody fetish-worship our country has with its firearms. Not content with eviscerating even the mildest forms of gun control, the NRA and its various fronts and sublet politicians have moved along to passing laws that make sure that more and more citizens can own more and more guns and have more and more legal latitude as to where they carry them and when and how they use them. Hell, Indiana just enacted a law that legitimizes cop-killing if the shooter has a reasonable fear that the cop is acting illegally. (Ask a street cop some time how he feels about that one. Every traffic stop on a dark highway can turn into the OK Corral.) The &amp;quot;Stand Your Ground&amp;quot; Law in Florida is a perfect example. As I understand the law \u2014 and this is a point that none of Zimmerman&amp;#039;s defenders like to make \u2014 Trayvon Martin, stalked by a man he did not know, would have been within his rights to stop and turn and pull iron on Zimmerman. At which point, of course, Zimmerman would be permitted under the law to draw and fire back. When exactly, under this law, does the concept of &amp;quot;self-defense&amp;quot; pass from one individual to another? (I have a guess here, but it involves race, and, as we know, This Case Is Not About Race.) I guarantee you none of this law&amp;#039;s supporters gave this question a minute&amp;#039;s thought. The Florida legislature, and Governor Jeb Bush, who signed this monstrosity into law, has managed to create through legislation conditions that would legitimize under law firefights all over the state. What started with an attack on things as simple as registration or a waiting period has become a fullblown legislative campaign to normalize citizen gun violence within the legal system. The NRA has worked not only to end any consensus on any form of gun control, but also to legitimize gun violence within American society. It is still possible that Florida has passed a law that will make it impossible for anyone to prosecute George Zimmerman for anything. Gun control is a dead issue in our politics, reflexive congressional panels be damned. Barack Obama wants no part of it, so much so that the NRA has been forced to concoct lunatic scenarios by which he will come to get all our guns after he is empowered by being re-elected. (In addition to its enabling gun violence, has anyone noticed that the NRA is pretty damn crazy?) The campus shootings changed nothing. (Geez, if only those kids at Virginia Tech were packing... and \u2014 poof! \u2014 laws appear that would allow students to carry concealed weapons to class.) Gabrielle Giffords changed nothing. (Hey, how about that guy who almost shot the wrong person! Good thing he was armed.) I fear that Trayvon Martin will mean nothing in this regard, either. We have come to worship the gun as a totem in our politics. By the standards of what we have allowed to happen in this regard, George Zimmerman might be giving speeches at the NRA convention by this time next year. There are hands around our entire government now, and they are cold and dead ones. CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE AND ONGOING COVERAGE OF THE TRAYVON CASE &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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