George Zimmerman Is Auctioning Off The Gun He Used To Kill Trayvon Martin

George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, is auctioning off the gun he used in the killing.

Martin, who was black, was 17 years old when he was shot and killed by Zimmerman on his way home from getting Skittles in February 2012.

Zimmerman saw Martin walking home, wearing a hoodie, and assumed he was a criminal. A police dispatcher told Zimmerman to not follow Martin. Instead, Zimmerman got out of his car, followed and chased Martin, and eventually shot and killed him.

Zimmerman was acquitted in a trial in 2013.

This killing was a tip-off point for the Black Lives Matter movement and the first in a series of high-profile killings of unarmed black men.

The gun Zimmerman used to kill Martin was recently given back to him by the US Department of Justice. Now, he's going to auction it off.

He told FOX 35,

I'm a free American. I can do what I want with my possessions.

Zimmerman, who was charged with domestic aggravated assault on his girlfriend in 2013, said he plans to use the profits from the sale to prevent violence against the police by Black Lives Matter members, stop Hillary Clinton's gun control campaign and end the career of Angela Corey, who led prosecution against him, according to The New York Times.

Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, has been campaigning for Clinton since January this year. She supports Clinton for her strong gun control platform. In her Clinton endorsement on CNN, Fulton wrote,

Today, throughout many communities of color, our young people go about their lives feeling as if they are a target in their country. It's become a sad fact of life that senseless gun violence can strike with little or no warning, either from neighborhoods that have become flooded with firearms, or police who are too quick to resort to deadly force.

Tracy Martin, Trayvon's father, said in a statement he would not comment on Zimmerman's plan to auction the gun. But, the statement says, the Trayvon Martin Foundation is continuing its work to end gun violence.

This is not the first time Zimmerman profited off the infamy he gained by killing an unarmed teenager. Last August, he was back in headlines as a gun store that called itself a "Muslim-free zone" started selling prints of a Confederate flag painted by Zimmerman.

Citations: The New York Times, CNN, TIME