A gun store in Florida sued for declaring a "Muslim-free zone" is now selling prints of a Confederate flag painted by George Zimmerman.
Zimmerman, who was found not guilty of murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in 2013, painted the Confederate flag when he heard gun store owner Andy Hallinan is being sued by a Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, according to a statement on Florida Gun Supply's website.
The prints are about $50 each and all are signed by Zimmerman. Everyone who buys one will be entered 50 times in a free drawing to win the original painting. The Confederate flag is painted over an American flag and on the back of the original painting the outline of the underpainting can be seen, according to the store's website.
I painted the confederate flag backed by the American flag because I believe that anything can stand with the American flag behind it...
— George Zimmerman (@TherealGeorgeZ) August 18, 2015
Florida Gun Supply posted a "mini-documentary" explaining the reason for selling the prints, saying that the store is fighting back against the "cultural cleansing" of American history.
"They're starting with the Confederate flag, but then they're going to remove statues, rename schools, rename streets and try to cleanse the history in America," Hallinan said in the video.
Much of the video blames news media for creating fear and dividing the American public. Hallinan cites Zimmerman's case, who claimed self-defense in 2012 after he shot Trayvon, an unarmed African-American teenager, as an example of skewed media coverage.
"(Mass media) intentionally incited hatred and race when the entire issue wasn't about race in the first place," Hallinan said.
In the video, Zimmerman said he contacted Hallinan after the gun store owner gained media attention for publishing a video online that said he would no longer serve Muslim customers following a shooting in Chattanooga, Tenn., that left five service members dead. The gunman, 24-year-old Mohammod Abdulazeez, was Muslim.
Zimmerman painted the Confederate flag in Hallinan's honor to help him raise money for legal fees, according to the video. A statement on the store's website said they plan to split the proceeds.
The Confederate flag print "exposes the twin evils of racism and Islamophobia," CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told USA TODAY Network.
"I just think it’s a clear indication of the overlap between traditional racism targeting African Americans in the form of a Confederate flag and Islamophobia," he said.
CAIR identifies itself as the "nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization." In January, the group appealed to the United Arab Emirates to be removed from that nation's list of designated terrorist groups. The group is not on the U.S. list of terrorist groups.
In 2009, however, a federal judge said in a ruling unsealed a year later that CAIR was tied to Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza and which is on the U.S. terror list. "The government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR" and other groups "with Hamas," U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis said in his July 1, 2009, ruling.
Hallinan told USA TODAY Network in an interview that so far the gun shop has experienced a "huge outpouring of support" from the public in response to the Zimmerman print.
Hallinan was not sure how many prints had sold, but said the number right now is fewer than 20.
