A Florida neighbourhood watchman has sold the gun he used to kill unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin for $US250,000 ($346,000), auctioneers say.
United Gun Group, which hosted the auction on its website, has confirmed the amount of the sale of the Kel-Tec PF-9, a 9mm pistol.
The price, also reported by television stations in Nevada and Florida a day earlier, far exceeded the market value of a second-hand weapon.
The very fact that the weapon was even being auctioned off had prompted a major backlash due to the nature of 17-year-old Trayvon’s 2012 shooting.
Watchman George Zimmerman claims he acted in self-defence but the teen’s family and friends claimed it was a murder driven by racism.
Mr Zimmerman’s trial and subsequent acquittal exposed deep racial divides in US society, and nationwide protests erupted over the shooting.
The TMZ celebrity news website said the winning bid was a last-minute one, denying a Florida bar owner the chance to own for $150,000 what Mr Zimmerman has called an “opportunity to own a piece of American history”.
The sale ends 10 days of a drawn-out process that first saw Mr Zimmerman try to auction off the weapon on GunBroker.com, which promptly removed the post, before it turned to United Gun Group.
Top Comments
Gross. Goes to show who the piece of trash is, and it isn't Trayvon Martin.
Have a good look at yourself, Zimmerman!
God, this guy has no clue. Regardless of whether or not he was justified, this weapon was used to kill someone. That's not something a normal person would feel proud of - especially when the person you killed turned out to be an unarmed teenager.
Never mind him - the most clueless numbskull is the one who *bought* the gun. Truly a case of more money than sense.
Yeah, that's equally weird, although there's a part of me that's hoping some good person bought it so they could destroy it or remove it from the public eye. But then ZImmerman still gets the money, so still not a great plan.