Rant #1,673: Pistol Whipped

You just can't make something like this up.

The gun that George Zimmerman used in the unfortunate Trayvon Martin affair, one that enraged the nation no matter where you stood on the matter, is up for auction.

And as of Friday, the high bid was $65 million.

That's right, $65 million.

Why anyone would want this gun to begin with is a mystery to me, but the 9 mm Kel-Tec PF-9 pistol was put up for auction by Zimmerman, and a few bids have been made, one of this amount.

There is no way to tell if the bid is legitimate. The auction was actually taken off one gun auction site and put on another, because the original site didn't think it was in their "best interest" to feature an auction of this weapon on its site.

We all remember the incident that made the gun in question supposedly so valuable.

In 2012, Zimmerman, you might remember, was acquitted of second degree murder of Martin, a teen who he believed was up to no good. Zimmerman was on a neighborhood security watch, and due to varying reports, supposedly was told to be on the lookout for a teen who supposedly had committed some robberies in the area.

They got into a skirmish, the gun went off, and Martin was dead.

This led to months of outrage on both sides about who was the aggressor, whether Zimmerman was defending himself, and just what happened that fateful evening.

Even though Zimmerman was acquitted, there is still a lot of doubt about what happened, and in the months and years that followed, a lot of bizarre behavior has followed him, and this is the latest notch in his checkered history.

The gun was returned to him after the Justice Department's investigation concluded, meaning he could do with it what he wanted.

He put the pistol up for auction to get funds for an anti-"Black Lives Matter" campaign and for some other reasons.

There are actually some other bids up for this, more in line with rational thinking, if one can be rational about auctioning a firearm to begin with, and it appears clears that Zimmerman will get a sizable amount for the firearm.

Personally, I am not sure exactly what happened that night. I think it is totally unclear to everyone what happened, and certainly to me.

Neither Zimmerman nor Martin were choirboys, and the only thing I am convinced of is that what happened was unfortunate, and I would say the same thing if Zimmerman got the worst of it rather than Martin.

But auctioning the gun off? I just don't get that.

If this gun is worth so much--or anything--to someone, just think about the guns that downed Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and John Kennedy and his brother, Robert, must be worth.

And again, I am not trying to liken these unfortunate acts with the Zimmerman/Martin affair, but to me, the Lincoln, King and Kennedy assassinations are far more important in American history than the Zimmerman/Martin affair could ever be, which means the weapons that were used in these incidents are far more important, too.

I don't like guns, don't feel the need to carry one or glamorize them, and while I believe that Americans have a right to bear arms, guns often get in the hands of the wrong people, and that is what makes them the danger that they are.

An auction like this kind of glamorizes them, makes them into something beyond a mere weapon, and I can't back that at all. It kind of minimizes what they are, too, and whatever they are, when used the wrong way, they can be not only weapons, but instruments than can kill others needlessly.

Again, I am not passing judgment on the Zimmerman/Martin case. But to auction off the weapon from that case is trivializing that unfortunate incident, and that is wrong ...

And to me, it trivializes it no matter whether you thought Zimmerman was wrong or you thought Martin was wrong.

It also brings up another question: is it ethical to auction off a weapon that was used in such a tragic incident?

You be the judge of that, but I won't be putting up a bid, that's for sure.