George Zimmerman Auctioning Gun He Used To Kill Trayvon Marton To Fund Fight Against BLM

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George Zimmerman auctioning gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin to fund “fight” against Black Lives Matter

Months after selling his Confederate flag painting to help an anti-Muslim gun shop, Zimmerman is auctioning his gun

BEN NORTON

George Zimmerman says he is auctioning the gun he used to kill unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin, and using the money to “fight” the Black Lives Matter movement.

He announced the auction on Wednesday night in a newscast on Orlando’s local Fox affiliate, local media reported.

The online auction starts Thursday, with the opening bid set at $5,000.

Zimmerman said he got the gun back after being acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in July 2013.

“The firearm is fully functional as the attempts by the Department of Justice on behalf of B. Hussein Obama to render the firearm inoperable were thwarted by my phenomenal Defense Attorney,” he wrote in the description on the gun auction website.

Zimmerman said he is “proud to announce that a portion of the proceeds will be used to fight BLM violence against Law Enforcement officers,” using an acronym for the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement.

He said he will also use some of the money to challenge “Hillary Clinton’s anti-firearm rhetoric,” and to “ensure the demise of Angela Correy’s persecution career,” referring to the Florida state attorney who investigated the killing of Trayvon Martin.

Zimmerman described the gun as “a piece of American History,” and claimed the Smithsonian Museum has expressed interest in buying and displaying it.

He concluded the product description with the Latin phrase “Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum,” meaning “If you want peace, prepare for war.”

Explaining his decision in the Fox interview, Zimmerman maintained, “I’m a free American; I can do what I like with my possessions.”

When he was asked what he thought about those who might disapprove of the auction, Zimmerman replied, “They’re not going to be bidding on it, so I couldn’t care less about them.”

This is not the first time the shooter has sold something to raise money for right-wing causes.

In August 2015, Zimmerman raffled off a painting he made of a Confederate flag to help a Florida gun shop owner who declared his store to be a “Muslim-free zone.”

The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations civil rights groups sued the gun shop owner, and Zimmerman said he would use part of the money he raised to help pay the anti-Muslim man’s legal fees.

The two men teamed up to sell prints of the Confederate flag with the words “the 2nd protects the first” on it, referring to the First and Second Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Zimmerman killed Martin in a gated community in a Florida suburb in February 2012. He claimed the unarmed teen attacked him, and he shot him in self-defense. Zimmerman was later acquitted citing the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law.

Critics say this law has created a double standard in gun use. In one of several cases that illustrate this, Marissa Alexander, a black Florida mother, served three years in prison and remains under two years of house arrest after firing a warning shot into a wall in order to protect herself from her abusive husband.

In court, Alexander tried to use the same Stand Your Ground law to justify the warning shot, but originally faced up to 60 years in prison.

Ben Norton is a politics staff writer at Salon. You can find him on Twitter at@BenjaminNorton.

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