Having Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mother, testify before a Senate committee on stand your ground laws is like asking Meryl Streep to testify about pesticides. Neither one knows the first thing about their subject, but it’s sure to grab a few headlines. And there you have the reason for Ms. Fulton’s appearance before Tricky Dicky Durbin’s dog and pony show on Capitol Hill this morning. “Fulton will argue at the 10 a.m. hearing that the Feb. 26, 2012, shooting of her 17-year-old son and the acquittal of George Zimmerman over the summer shows that the laws are confusing.” Of course, anyone who paid the least bit of attention to the Zimmerman Bonfire of the Vanities-like prosecution and acquittal knows that Florida’s stand your ground law played absolutely no role whatsoever — zero, nada, zilch — in either the charges filed or the trial itself . . .
But that’s completely beside the point of Durbin’s little press event today.
“Whatever the motivations were behind the passage of these laws, it is clear that these laws often go too far in encouraging confrontations to escalate into deadly violence,” Durbin said Tuesday. “They are resulting in unnecessary tragedies, and they are diminishing accountability under the justice system.”
Why drag Trayvon’s mom up to D.C. for a SYG hearing now? Who knows. Maybe it’s because Durbin’s in the tank for America’s new murder capitol, Chicago. That means anything that weakens Illinoisans’ right to keep and bear arms is something to be pursued.
Tuesday’s hearing also puts a congressional spotlight on the issue of guns, which has disappeared from the agenda on Capitol Hill after the Senate failed to advance background check legislation due to opposition from most Senate Republicans and a few Democrats.
Or maybe the headlines grabbed by Ms. Fulton’s testimony will mean a little less attention on the administration’s slow-motion car wreck that is the ObamaCare rollout. Whatever the motivation, when it comes to civilian disarmament, the senior Senator from the Land of Lincoln has never needed much of a reason to get in front of the cameras.