MSNBC's Ed Schultz took Fox's Bill O'Reilly to task for his claims that the media is somehow inciting racial violence with their coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting during his interview with the lawyer for the Martin family, Benjamin Crump, and for O'Reilly's claim during that interview, that the media would not just let this story die a slow death were it not for the national outrage and attention it has garnered.
As Schultz rightfully pointed out, O'Reilly is already on record trying to dismiss the racial problems we have in the United States, so his claim that he can be trusted to keep a story like this in the national spotlight without other pressures are dubious at best.
O'Reilly unwittingly pointed out during that interview with Martin's lawyer, exactly why the media should not stop covering the case:
CRUMP: What we hope we have is is dialog saying, how can this investigation have happened like this where you get to say an unarmed kid is killed and he's allowed to go home that same night.
O'REILLY: Because of that law in Florida. That law in Florida changes everything.
O'Reilly seemed to be oblivious to the fact that Florida is not the only state where these sorts of laws have been enacted and "changed eveything." O'Reilly told Crump immediately following the quote above that "In another state, that never would have happened."
Schultz responded by noting that's far from the truth, since we now have a ton of other states in America with similar laws on the books. Schultz played a recording that I first saw on Chris Hayes' show last Saturday, and was just horrified by, of a man in Texas who called in to a 911 operator and told that operator he was going to kill two men who were robbing his neighbor's property. We then hear the audio of the man shooting and killing those two men dead after being told repeatedly by the person on the phone not to go out there and not to take matters into his own hands.
What Hayes' show did not air was the footage from Fox News where the above mentioned man from Texas, Joe Horn, was being propped up by the right as some kind of hero for shooting those two men and pretending that his life was in danger, before ignoring the warnings not to get involved in the burglary or take the law into his own hands.
I agree completely with Schultz when he said this in response:
SCHULTZ: Bill O'Reilly can say there's no reason to cover the Trayvon Martin case, but Joe Horn proves him wrong. As long as these "stand your ground" laws are on the books, Americans have the right to kill other Americans without being physically threatened. We've seen it.
Schultz also asked why O'Reilly wasn't bringing on Republicans from Florida like Jeb Bush who signed that awful "stand your ground" law, or Marco Rubio, the Senator from that state to defend it.
Ed Schultz followed up with an interview with the lawyer for Martin's family, Natalie Jackson and MSNBC regular Jonathan Capehart and got their opinion on the "stand your ground" laws and some of the news that's been slowly leaking out on Zimmerman and his temperament.
And for anyone that did not get a chance to watch this last week in Chris Hayes' show, here's his coverage of that same horrific shooting in Texas and who's pushing these "stand your ground" laws -- Gun lobby influence on 'Stand Your Ground':
Under Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, Trayvon Martin's killer, George Zimmerman, can claim self-defense. Lisa Graves, the executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, joins the Up w/ Chris Hayes panelists to discuss "Stand Your Ground" and the nationwide gun lobby.
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