I'd argue that a bullet, and the gun that shot it, played a huge role in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. In the comment threads, gun rights advocates have fallen back on the old "guns don't kill people, people kill people" line. But it might also be reasonable to argue that the Skittles-wielding teenager was killed by politics as much as anything else:

Trayvon Martin was just 10 years old when politicians in Florida passed legislation that, seven years later, is being blamed for letting his killer walk free.

Martin’s Feb. 26 death in a gated suburban neighborhood at the hands of a 28-year-old man is calling attention to Florida’s 2005 “Stand Your Ground” law, which allows the use of deadly force if a person feels threatened. Gunman George Zimmerman was pursuing Martin because he thought the 17-year-old African-American teenager was suspicious and told police he was acting in self defense, though Martin had only a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea on him when he was shot and killed a short distance from the home of his father’s girlfriend.

Florida was the first state in the country to pass such a bill, but they weren’t the last. And like many legislative trends, this one has its roots in the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

It's not like Martin's death wasn't an obvious consequence of the Stand Your Ground law. This is a law that makes it easier to kill somebody, and get away with it. That's its point. And while I'm sure the backers' goal was mostly to allow gun toting citizens to kill actual bad guys, collateral damage like Martin's death was inevitable. And I'm guessing, acceptable to the law's advocates, at least in aggregate.

So yeah. Politics kills. Usually (at least domestically) through neglect. But sometimes, as in Stand Your Ground and other ALEC/NRA backed laws, actively, aggressively, and with full awareness of the consequences. So think twice about your politics before you pull the trigger.