I was speaking only of my own personal experience doing NW for 20+ years, not the merits of the Zimmerman/Martin action or conditions in that neighborhood. It seems for a NW person to be armed as they are patrolling, they would have to be deputized. Being armed as a private citizen representing only yourself is another story. But being armed and tracking suspicious persons, to my knowledge, is now what Neighborhood Watch is about. It certainly isn’t in VA (from whence Zimmerman hails).
I have no idea how they do it in FL, but if you recall the transcript with the dispatcher, Zimmerman was told ‘you don’t have to be doing that’ in tracking the kid. If every NW patrol was armed, I would imagine they’d have to be trained, deputized, the whole ball of wax. Would they be given power to arrest? It would be a dramatic restructuring of Neighborhood Watch, that’s for sure.
The police saying “you don’t have to be doing that” is not the same thing as “you should not be doing that”. He does not require permission from the police to watch someone. Again you do not give up your 2nd amendment rights when you do neighborhood watch.
Individual citizens, or individual citizens working together in a neighborhood watch, all have the right to carry. Period.
Neighborhood watches involve night time patrols, and evenings are when criminals come out to play. In addition, neighborhood watch people are looking for trouble, though in the sense of finding and reporting criminals rather than arresting them. If they run into criminals on the job, and the perps are armed or numerous, their lives could be in jeopardy. It would not make sense to have a neighborhood watch without weapons. I've read about neighborhood watches in Third World countries where gun control is pretty strict. They carry fighting sticks or batons in case of attack. The irony is that any neighborhood watch where weapons aren't needed is probably a superfluous neighborhood watch.
People who are against neighborhood watch people carrying guns are a little naive. Criminals who might hesitate to attack cops have no compunction about attacking civilians. Mayberry* was 50 years ago.
* If San Diego PD's stats are to be believed, per capita violent crime was much lower 50 years ago; better emergency medical care has turned many shooting and stabbing incidents that would have become murder cases back in the 1950's into aggravated assault cases today. In 2006, per capita robberies were 6x what they were in 1950. Per capita aggravated assaults (shootings, stabbings) were 15x.