I've heard one woman got convicted because she declined to try to escape through the high, small windows of a basement apartment, and I "watched" in the Boston Globe as a father was convicted for not abandoning his sleeping daughter to the tender mercies of a home invader (a fact that was not denied by the prosecution).

Note this is duty to retreat from your legal residence.  While this doesn't address your general point, per the new mid-July 2013 2nd edition of Branca's The Law of Self Defense, in the row "General duty of non-aggressor to retreat before use of force in self-defense" (there are further breakdowns for in your residence and Stand Your Ground), 13 states require a duty to retreat before using "deadly" force, Iowa, Massachusetts and Minnesota before use of any force, you have to assume Missouri is the same (our Missouri Plan selected higher judges routinely nullify crystal clear self-defense laws), Vermont's is conditional on requiring immediate lethal force, and Virginia is conditional on your made no "contribution to the affray" (which might cover Dunn).

Sure - with the possible exception of Kdog, I don't think anyone has a problem with someone reporting suspicious activity.

Of course, if the person actually saw someone looking into houses they knew were vacant, that would likely be one of the first things they would tell the police dispatcher - as opposed to say, "He's just walking about the area, looking at all the houses" (in a townhouse development with houses in every direction), which is what Zimmerman actually said.

He'd probably also mention that he knew this person didn't live there - which, of course, he also didn't say.

Make a phone call about suspicious activity?  Sure.  Although that can go sideways when police show up, too.

I seem to recall that Zimmerman's neighborhood was fairly densely populated, so it defies common sense and logic that he - or anyone who lived there - would be able to know, in the rain and poor lighting, whether someone definitely did or did not live there.  That's just ridiculous.

And, just by the way, I don't think you "turned it around."  Turning it around would be, "If you lived in a neighborhood where there had been recent break-ins, would you want George Zimmerman armed and "patrolling" your apartment complex?"

jbindc: "If you were a person who lived in a community, where there had been several recent break-ins by young, black males ..."

Do you know for certain that the break-ins were committed by young black males -- or are you just assuming that they were committed by young males?

There's a really big difference, especially if we're talking about heretofore unsolved crimes. I say that in all seriousness, because 20 years ago, my grandparents and their neighbors in Pasadena were then being subjected to multiple break-ins and burglaries over a six-month period, and it was simply assumed by almost all -- shameful to admit, but myself included -- that the culprit was probably one of the many teenaged black males who attended the nearby high school on the same block.

You can imagine most everyone's surprise, then, when Pasadena police finally caught the culprit in the act and arrested him. The cat burglar turned out to be a 65-year-old white male, who daily rode his bicycle up and down the blocks as he cased the neighborhood for potential targets. Oh, and he was armed with a .38 pistol when apprehended, so he was evidently deadly serious about his business.

People really need to be more thoughtful and careful in acting upon their assumptions. Sometimes, we're simply far too certain in our judgments, and fail to account for the possibility that we could be very wrong, which in some cases can hold enormous potential to cause people some pretty serious grief, ourselves included.

In both these cases, the shooter should have let it go or called the cops, the guns provided both people the courage to do something they would have never done solo.

I don't care if they are chasing actual criminals, I don't want anyone in my neighborhood running around with a gun believing they are going to stop crime, unless they have a badge.  I would rather come home to an empty house than have a bunch of idiots playing cops and robbers outside with loaded guns.  It's why we all have insurance, so we don't have to patrol the neighborhood to make sure out possessions are safe.

Both these case are so pointless, people died, a guy is ostracized and another is going to prison.  For what, some idiotic vision of machismo brought to you by Hollywood.

If you were a person who lived in a community, where there had been several recent break-ins by young, black males, and you saw someone whom you knew didn't live there, walking around in the rain, and looking at / in a neigbors' house - neighbors you KNEW weren't home - wouldn't you think that was a bit suspicious?

I don't know how you want to factor in that kind of stupidity, but it's clear to me that while there are millions of responsible gun owners out there, there are also these kinds of people; we hear about them every day, and I'm pretty sure the reports aren't being fabricated.

And the reason I referred to a gun owner with a here-I-come-to-save-the-day mentality has something to do with the countless times we hear, in the aftermath of a mass shooting, gun owner after gun owner say, "well, if people had been allowed to carry weapons into the mall/theater/college campus/store, maybe this could have been prevented or the loss of life minimized - somebody could have taken out the shooter."

The information disseminated above, not so different from right wing chants that muslim are going to come and take our freedoms away, is hype, propaganda and fear mongering.

Many here believe that police and military should be the only ones with guns, because they are here to protect us from all the bad people.

Or that people with permits don't always follow the instructors teachings, or that the teachings may not be that good to begin with, or that many folks with guns don't actually have permits to carry them ?

Is that what you were referring to or was it some other canard ?

Trying to split the responsible gun owners from idiots with guns is a ridiculous, it's subjective GZ being a prime example, responsible or not ?  Never get a consensus on that, but here you are trying to differential between the two, when they are one in the same.

Gun owners are one lot, myself included, and trying to peel off this or that faction as some group beyond reproach is pointless for the folks who aren't scared of their own shadows and leave the house without a a loaded weapon, like myself.  We should not have to walk around wondering who is actually responsible and whose gun is going to fall out an go off in a crowded coffee shop.

Even if we did everyone agreed, they certainly would never agree to not giving irresponsible people guns, can't even figure out if legitimate crazy people can own guns at this point in the game, so there is no point is trying to split that hair.