SANFORD, Fla. (AP) - Former Florida neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman is auctioning off the pistol he used in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager.
In an interview with Orlando, Florida, TV station WOFL, Zimmerman said he had just gotten the pistol back from the U.S. Justice Department, which took it after he was acquitted in Martin's 2012 shooting death.
"And I thought it's time to move past the firearm," Zimmerman told the station. "And if I sell it and it sells, I move past it. Otherwise, it's going in a safe for my grandkids and never to be used or seen again."
The auction listing on GunBroker.com lists the gun as a 9 mm Kel-Tec PF-9 pistol. The auction begins at 11 a.m. EDT Thursday and ends at the same time Friday. The bidding starts at $5,000.
The auction listing also says a portion of the proceeds will go toward fighting what Zimmerman calls violence by the Black Lives Matter movement against law enforcement officers, combatting anti-gun rhetoric of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and ending the career of Angela Corey, the attorney who led the prosecution against Zimmerman.
The listing ends with a Latin phrase that translates as "if you want peace, prepare for war."
When asked what he thought of people who would be opposed to auctioning the gun, Zimmerman said, "They're not going to be bidding on it, so I couldn't care less about them."
Well, I suppose legally he has every right to do this, but still - this reminds me almost of "If I did it," or more relevant to the race conflict, the Emmett Till murderers selling their story to time, in that someone aquitted of wrongdoing is profiting off their "crime." It pissed me off, but I'm not sure how one would go about countering it without massively reducing civil rights. I would not be opposed, however, if someone were to publish the names over everyone who bids on this, which is perhaps a bit of an extreme view to take.
So here's the question I'm getting to, and mostly answered above - What, if anything, can and should be done about aquitted defendants profiting from their supposed crime? In more extreme cases, such as the Emmett Till case, where it's a near confession, should there be a way to null Double Jeopardy and retry these cases? How do we balance constitutional rights of defendants and cases like this and others? For our international members, how does your country handle defendants profiting off their infamy?
On your mark, get set, POOOOOOST!
