On Monday, George Zimmerman defended auctioning the firearm that he used in 2012 to kill unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, saying that he “was tired of Hillary Clinton’s anti-gun rhetoric.”
“I was tired of Hillary Clinton’s anti-gun rhetoric,” Zimmerman told ABC News Las Vegas affiliate KTNV via Skype. “She has been stumping around for a false campaign for the Trayvon Martin Foundation. She lied, saying that I killed him when he was walking home in his daddy’s neighborhood. Which if anyone watched more than seven minutes of the trial they would know that is false.”
Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder in July 2013.
Last Saturday, at an event organized by the Trayvon Martin Foundation to support families of gun violence victims, Clinton accused presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump of pandering to the gun lobby in a speech to the National Riffle Association the previous day. Trump’s policies are “not just way out there” but “dangerous” and would make America less safe, Clinton said.
Zimmerman’s 9-mm Kel-Tec PF-9 pistol reportedly sold for more than $120,000. He also promised to use some of the proceeds to oppose the Black Lives Matter movement, which has gained notoriety in the aftermath of Martin’s death and other related incidents.
Zimmerman said he plans to donate some of the proceeds to oppose the Black Lives Matter movement, and some to support Alden Clopton, a Texas deputy police officer who was shot four times last month.
“I am going to donate to officers such as the deputy in Texas that was shot in the head at point-blank range for no other reason than he was in uniform,” Zimmerman said. Clopton survived the shooting because he wore a bulletproof vest.
Zimmerman told KTNV that he wished the 2012 shooting incident would have ended differently.
“Of course, I would have done anything to not have to take a life in self-defense,” he said. “I would have done anything for Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin to have actually taken an interest in their child.”
Zimmerman added that Martin’s parents “had no interest in their child.”
“I wish they would have. I wish they would have raised them right. I wish I never had to, I would have stayed in bed if I would have thought I would had to take a life in self-defense. I don’t think anybody in their right mind would ever want to be in this position,” he said.
Zimmerman also said he plans to eventually sell three-dimensional lithographs of the gun with his signature, along with the case number.