It has always amazed me how otherwise (seemingly) rational human beings can reject all facts, forensic data, eyewitness testimony, and other evidence when they are completely committed to an idea that they hold dear.

Gun control supporters are one practitioner of this sort of cognitive dissonance. Conspiracy theorists (9/11, Sandy Hook, Illuminati, “chem trails,” etc) are another. People who still insist that Trayvon Martin was a “victim” who was “just walking home” or that he was “racially profiled” are equally immune to reality, but shockingly, enough of them exist to hold a small protest rally in Los Angeles:

An anti-gun violence and racial profiling rally was held Saturday in Crenshaw on the one-year anniversary of the controversial George Zimmerman verdict.

Zimmerman was acquitted in the murder of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin in Florida.

In Los Angeles Saturday, a large group of about  200 — including stars like Kobe Bryant — rallied for peace and justice.

CBS2’s Joy Benedict reported from the rally.

“What do we want? Justice!”

The familiar rally chant filled the streets of Crenshaw. The Zimmerman verdict came down a year ago and protesters Saturday said it still reverberates.

I watched the Trayvon Martin trial start to finish, covering it as a member of the media.

Anyone who watched the trial knows that Trayvon Martin easily could have made it home, if he so desired. It was clear that Trayvon Martin waited for four minutes for George Zimmerman to pass by on his way back to his truck, and it was Martin who came up behind a retreating Zimmerman and initiated the confrontation. It was completely obvious that Trayvon Martin was wholly responsible for every bit of violence that evening up until George Zimmerman’s single, desperate, defensive shot.

Anyone who watched the trial was privy not just to the evidence presented by the prosecution and defense to the jury that unanimously acquitted Zimmerman, but evidence argued in evidentiary hearings in front of the judge that the jury was not always allowed to hear. Those that listened to the hearing on the admissibility of Martin’s phone records learned that Trayvon Martin was allegedly an abuser of multiple drugs, an apparently bloodthirsty street-fighter who complained that his last victim didn’t bleed enough, and who was apparently dabbling in the trafficking of stolen firearms, including a Smith & Wesson Sigma pistol and two revolvers, in the weeks before his death.

A “victim?” Trayvon Martin was many things, but an innocent victim he was not.

He was not the victim of racial profiling, but someone who was criminally profiled for the way he was acting—a long-standing police practice—allegedly staring in the windows of homes on a rainy night, in a neighborhood where burglary was a known problem.

Nor was Trayvon Martin a “victim of gun violence.” Martin was instead an instigator of a felony assault, who was stopped by someone fortunate enough to have armed himself against criminals when an eyewitness yelled at Martin to stop beating Zimmerman, but refused to intervene.

Criminal violence from violence-glorifying subcultures is still the number-one killer of young minority men in America. Illegally obtained firearms are often used by criminals in commission of these acts, but the perpetrators of these crimes have much more in common with Trayvon Martin than they do George Zimmerman. Doughy tri-racial busybodies that call 911 at the drop of a hat aren’t typically involved in the drug trade, gang turf wars, or the music and movies that glorify and perpetuate the now generations-old cycle of violence.

Unless people can be honest and recognize that criminals committing felony assault deserve having deadly use of force used against them in self-defense, don’t expect there to be any change in the levels of violence.

Far too many people would rather practice denial than address the cultural problems responsible for the violence.

As long as they continue to allow violence, good people (like so many residents of Detroit) will arm themselves against violent young predators like Trayvon Martin.

Any society that hopes to survive simply has no choice.