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Reader question: Please explain this sentence: “I do believe that Zimmerman is guilty but I am not sure there is any ‘smoking gun’ evidence.” Smoking gun evidence? My comments: Irrefutable evidence, in other words. Here, the speaker says he believes Zimmerman, George Zimmerman that is, is guilty but isn’t so sure that anyone has found that “smoking gun” evidence to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that he killed Trayvon Martin out of racial hatred. Zimmerman killed 17-year-old Martin, all right. That much is certain. Let’s have a quick recap. Zimmerman, 29, is a neighborhood watchman. One rainy night (February 26, 2017), he saw Martin walking around in the street. Zimmerman grew suspicious and followed him. The two got in a fight and, subsequently, Zimmerman shot Martin through the heart. Martin, who is black, died. Zimmerman is half white half Hispanic – his mother is Peruvian and his father German-American. Zimmerman initially walked away for free. But a year later he was brought to trial for second-degree murder. Zimmerman said he killed Martin in self defense. The jury earlier this month agreed with him, finding him not guilty. Zimmerman killed Martin all right. That much is beyond doubt. He did it but in our quote at the top of this page, the speaker was talking about the lack of concrete evidence of another kind, that Zimmerman was racially motivated, that he followed, fought and killed Martin because Martin was black. | 
