Last week, we reported that George Zimmerman attempted to auction off the gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old Black teen in Sanford, Florida. Yesterday (May 18), the sale closed with a winning bid of $138,900. The Huffington Post reports that the final bid for the Kel-Tec 9mm handgun was placed by “John Smith”
The auction was originally hosted by GunBroker.com, but the site quickly removed the listing, saying it wanted “no part in the listing on our website or in any of the publicity it is receiving.” Zimmerman eventually successfully operated the auction via UnitedGunGroup.com, though the site initially declined the listing. Company leadership subsequently reversed the decision, and the first attempt at an auction was hijacked by people who drove the bidding up to $65 million using names like “Racist McShootFace.”
Shortly after the close of yesterday’s auction, someone posted a comment saying that the winning bid was illegitimate: “None of your bids are real. I should know because they are almost all mine … Racist McShootFace strikes again!”
United Gun Group defended itself on Twitter against critics who took issue with the site for helping Zimmerman profit off the 2012 shooting:
— United Gun Group (@UnitedGunGroup) May 18, 2016
Martin’s 2012 death is credited with sparking the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. In his original listing, Zimmerman said that “a portion of the proceeds will be used to: fight BLM violence against Law Enforcement officers, ensure the demise of Angela Correy’s persecution career and Hillary Clinton’s anti-firearm rhetoric.”
(H/t ThinkProgress, CNN)