Richard Land, from an appearance on CNN with Soledad O’Brien:
I think that we need to be very careful, however, that we don’t have a rush to judgment. I am shocked, frankly, to find out that Mr. Zimmerman still has his firearm and has not been in any way, shape, or form not put under probationary status….But at the same time, racism is – to call someone a racist is about the worst thing you can call somebody in our society, and rightly so. And so we don’t want to throw that term around flippantly. I think it’s good the Justice Department is involved, the state government is involved, and we need to encourage the authorities to do a thorough investigation, and make certain that justice is done, because, of course, we sadly in this country have a history where in the past, oftentimes when the victims were black, there was not justice.
I’m not sure it hasn’t crossed racial lines in terms of outrage, that there hasn’t been a more swift investigation and the fact that Mr. Zimmerman still is at large with his weapon and with no restrictions. But at the same time, we do have people in our society who scream racism at the drop of a hat.
Like everyone else Mr. Land must hedge his statements. To me the initial national reporting on this appears purposefully — or at least negligently — inflammatory.