Michael Dunn is not a murderer even if he made his best attempt.

Michael Dunn was charged with attempted murder regarding the lives of the three young men who survived his shooting rampage.  Dunn received a mistrial on the more heinous crime of first degree murder for the killing of Jordan Davis who Dunn claims had a shotgun pointed at him.

For there to be a mistrial on the most important point of murder says a lot about the nature of the deliberation of that jury room.  It says a lot more about the reality of Stand Your Ground Laws (SYG) and how they are impacting some of our perceptions of justice in America.

What is not congruent in this decision is the impression of the shooting scene that eased the jury into a fairly quick decision regarding attempted murder but an uncertain conclusion regarding murder.  Their inability to convict on every count means that they believed some aspect of the Dunn defense.  Not only did they believe his story to be plausible, they arbitrarily decided to ignore the crime scene and focus on the testimony of the accused.

You see, to assume that he is clearly guilty of attempted murder and not murder means that he is shooting bullets with artificial intelligence.  If the bullets shot in self defense had killed more people than he would have had less sentencing because all of the dead would have been covered by the SYG explanation that created a mistrial on murder.  The bullets that he shot at the rear of the car as it drove away from the scene are likely the bullets that produced this conviction.  Essentially, these bullets and only these bullets were seen as murderous bullets, while all of the others had the potential to be justified bullets.

This jury has essentially said that the guy who shot at the side of the car could have been defending himself but the guy who shot at the  back of the car was attempting a murder.  To believe this you have to think that Dunn had a personality transformation that shifted him from a free American with the right to feel safe from outside attack into one who was looking to rid this land of a few of its rap loving scum.

Take a moment and imagine the first gun shot and how many seconds it would take to get the hell out of there. Maybe I am simply not clear enough about life and death gun battles.  I just can't relate to the evolution from fear to self preservation to attack and destroy within a 15 second gun battle, especially one where every bullet was fired in one direction.

Anyone who understands the use of deadly force understands that it comes with a shoot to kill expectation.  You do not wound your enemy and allow him to kill you in response.  There are really only two options in this story.  Either Dunn saw this car load as a threat to his life or a threat to his freedom.

In 15 seconds of gun fire and escape by the teens in the car, Dunn did not go from a self defender (who never receive return fire) into a world avenger (who never received return fire).  He was the same shooter during the side panel shots as he was at the rear of the car.  He had the same disregard for who lived or died in that car with every shot he fired.  His purpose and intent did not switch itself in the 10 seconds of  heavy gun fire at side of the car versus the 5 seconds at the back of it.

Either Dunn was attempting to murder them all, or was responding in self defense and nothing more.  If even one juror agreed to convict Dunn of attempt but not murder, than that person is not responding to the crime scene but is stretching the definition of justice to fit the parameters of this SYG law.

Any SYG killing can be justified by intent so long as the killer is not around to speak for themselves.  That is what Dunn was attempting to accomplish with his final shots at the back of that car, but he failed.  Since he did not fail at killing Jordan Davis and was NOT convicted of it, I think I get the message.

Michael Dunn is not a capable murderer, he is just capable of attempting it.
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