George Zimmerman Joins Forces With Anti-Muslim Gun Seller to Push Confederate Flag Art

If someone had entered, in some mythical headline generator, all the key ingredients to produce the perfect mashup of utter racist nonsense from recent American history, this might be it, per The Washington Post: ” ‘Muslim-free’ gun shop teams with George Zimmerman to sell Confederate flag prints.”

This is actually a thing. The Post’s write-up will have to suffice, because we can’t even:

The owner of a Central Florida gun shop that recently declared itself a “Muslim-free zone” announced that he is teaming up with another Floridian, George Zimmerman, to raise funds for both of their legal bills by selling prints of Zimmerman’s painting of a Confederate flag.

In a newly posted 10-minute “mini-documentary” about the burgeoning friendship between Zimmerman and Florida Gun Supply owner Andy Hallinan, the pair discussed how they believe “the media twists the truth” about them and argued that the Confederate flag must be defended by Americans against a “cultural cleansing” campaign waged by the media and the political elite.

Then, the pair announced that they are selling a series of prints of Zimmerman’s Confederate flag painting, which includes the inscription, “The 2nd protects our 1st.” Zimmerman described the inscription as a “double entendre.”

“I was painting the American flag when I heard of you getting sued by CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations), and I decided that I would do for you what the American people did for me,” Zimmerman told Hallinan, in reference to his own fundraising campaign for a legal defense fund. In 2013, Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder charges for the shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.

Florida, please.

These two gun enthusiasts have combined several unsavory currents circulating in the zeitgeist and taken them to the level of near-performance art. On the upside, they’re also offering prime material for some creative responses.

–Posted by Kasia Anderson