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George Zimmerman (right), the acquitted shooter in the death of Trayvon Martin, listens to defense counsel during a court appearance in Sanford, Fla., Nov. 19, 2013, for an aggravated assault charge stemming from a fight with his girlfriend.
Joe Burbank-Pool/Getty Images
A user with the screen name “Racist McShootFace” has pushed the bidding for the firearm owned by George Zimmerman and used to kill unarmed teen Trayvon Martin to $65 million, the Daily Mail reports.
As news of the auction spread, several people hijacked the auction site posting bids under phony screen names like, “Donald Trump,” “shaniqua bonifa” and “Tamir Rice,” the 12-year-old boy killed by Cleveland police in 2014.
United Gun Group took over Zimmerman’s auction after GunBroker.com, the initial website where Zimmerman posted the offer to sell the 9 mm Kel-Tec PF-9 pistol, took his listing down, noting that it wanted “no part in the listing on our website or in any of the publicity it is receiving,” the Daily Mail reports.
Hours after Zimmerman’s listing was taken off GunBroker.com, United Gun Group took to social media to note that it would host Zimmerman’s listing.
“United Gun Group offers a free platform for law-abiding citizens to buy, sell, trade and discuss firearms and related products,” the group wrote on its Facebook page.
“United Gun Group’s stance is that as long as Mr. Zimmerman (or any other UGG member) is obeying the letter of the law, his personal firearm sale will be permitted on our network,” it stated.
The gun was back up for sale, along with a statement from Zimmerman calling the pistol an “American firearm icon.”
“Prospective bidders, I am honored and humbled to announce the sale of an American Firearm Icon,” the listing read. “The firearm for sale is the firearm that was used to defend my life and end the brutal attack from Trayvon Martin on 2/26/2012.”
Many critics of the auction called the move insensitive, and it appears that those unhappy with both Zimmerman’s decision to sell the weapon and the website’s decision to host the auction, staged cyber warfare. The bidding began at $5,000 and within hours, the highest bid was $65,039,000.
On the auction listing, Zimmerman boasted that a portion of the proceeds would go toward fighting the “violence by the Black Lives Matter movement against law enforcement officers, combating anti-gun rhetoric of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and ending the career of state attorney Angela Corey, who led Zimmerman’s prosecution,” the Daily Mail reports.
Zimmerman claimed in the auction listing that the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., had expressed interest in owning the firearm, a claim the Smithsonian denies.
Read more at the Daily Mail.
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