The listing to buy the gun used by George Zimmerman to shoot and kill Trayvon Martin has been taken down.
Gunbroker.com, where the gun was set to be auctioned, has not released a public statement about where the listing went, and their Twitter account has been set to “private.” The auction was set to start at 11 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday and last for 24 hours.
The opening bid for the gun was set to $5,000 and the reserve price — the price Zimmerman wanted to be met — was undisclosed.
“What I’ve decided to do is not cower,” Zimmerman told Fox35 News in Orlando Wednesday night when discussing why he was auctioning off the gun. “I’m a free American. I can do what I want with my possessions.”
In the original item description for the gun, he called it a piece of American history. Zimmerman also claimed the Smithsonian expressed interest in it.
“The Smithsonian has never expressed interest in collecting George Zimmerman’s firearm. The Smithsonian has no plans to ever collect or display this object in any of its museums,” the Smithsonian said in a statement.
Zimmerman, who identifies himself as Hispanic, fatally shot 17-year-old Martin, who was black, on Feb. 26, 2012 in his neighborhood in Sanford, Fla., where he was the neighborhood watch coordinator. Martin was unarmed, but Zimmerman said Martin attacked him and he fired in self-defense.
Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, with his trail beginning on June 10, 2013. He was acquitted roughly four weeks later on the grounds that he acted in self-defense under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.
