In Fort Myers, where two teenagers were shot dead, children learn how to shoot in county-run programs and gun shops host community functions

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

When Jason Moore heard about the shooting in a Fort Myers, Florida, nightclub that killed two and injured more than a dozen others, his reaction was immediate.

He had the employees at his gun shop move roadside signs to just outside the club’s parking lot that said: “We come to you, concealed weapon permit.”

The shooting early Monday morning happened after a party for teenagers was emptying out of Club Blu. Sean Archilles, 14, and Stef’An Strawder, 18, died. The youngest person injured was 12.

Fort Myers is best known by some for its white-sand beaches that attract spring break partiers and retirees. But this region of south-west Florida is also known for its gun culture. Schoolchildren learn how to shoot in county-run programs, and gun shops host church groups and book clubs.

This week’s incident is the second recent shooting in Fort Myers to gain widespread attention. In October, a zombie-themed event that attracts 20,000 people to the city’s downtown ended when a gunman fired shots into the crowd, killing 20-year-old Expavious Tyrell Taylor and wounding five others.

The ZombiCon gunman is still at large, and so are most of the suspects in the city’s murders last year. After 13 people were killed in Fort Myers in 2015, police have made four arrests.

In the Club Blu case, three men identified by deputies as “persons of interest” had their first appearances in court on Tuesday.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A bullet hole is marked by police as a small memorial grows outside Club Blu, where two people were killed. Photograph: Gaston de Cardenas/AFP/Getty Images

Outside Club Blu on Tuesday, a makeshift memorial formed in a mulch-filled flower bed. In the middle was a poster board addressed “to the shooters”, with prayers for the victims’ families. It included the words: “I pray and cry for a better world.”

Violent crime has risen by 10% in Fort Myers between 2010 and 2014, and those crimes committed with guns have increased the most, by 57%. All of this has helped the city land on a list of the most dangerous places in the US, ranked 54th, ahead of Miami and Philadelphia.

But when Moore heard about the shooting at Club Blu, and at the Orlando nightclub shooting in June in which a gunman killed 49 people and injured 53, he wondered about whether anti-gun regulations led to it. Laws restrict patrons from bringing guns into nightclubs, and Moore questions whether shooters are now targeting such places.

“There’s a movie theater down the street from me that has a big sign saying you can’t bring your gun in, and I won’t go inside,” Moore said. “That sign is like a big advertisement to the bad guys on where to find their victims.”

Within just a few miles of Club Blu, there are at least 15 gun shops and ranges.

Jon Dezendorf, manager at Fowler Firearms just around the corner from Club Blu, says incidents like the one this week generally don’t affect his business. He says gun shows in Fort Myers have never been busier.

“People shop for guns and get concealed weapons permits when there’s talk about gun control. That’s when we’re busiest,” Dezendorf said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jon Dezendorf, manager of the nearby Fowler Firearms, said the store is busiest ‘when there’s talk about gun control’. Photograph: Eric Barton/The Guardian

Henk Morelisse, who lives in nearby Naples, Florida, said the gun culture of south-west Florida has created an attitude where people think guns are always the answer.

“There is a culture of guns here, no question,” said Morelisse, a native of Holland who has lived in Florida for three decades.

Morelisse is a preservationist and furniture maker who fought the state’s decision last year to allow limited hunting rights on Everglades bears. The hunt was discontinued this year but may be resumed in 2017.

When he heard about the Club Blu shooting, Morelisse didn’t blame the hunters, but he wondered about whether south-west Florida’s culture of guns makes such shootings possible.

No state has more permit holders for concealed guns than Florida, with nearly 1.4 million.

Addressing the shooting this week, the Republican governor, Rick Scott, dismissed that gun ownership rate as having any relationship to this incident or other gun violence in the state.

“The second amendment has never shot anybody,” he said. “The evil did this.”

Many of Florida’s guns are solely for hunting. And Melissa Henig, who coordinates a hunting program, distinguishes hunters from gun owners who fire against people.

“Hunters are typically not the ones who walk in somewhere and do these mass killings,” Henig said. “They are usually the responsible ones.”

Moore, explaining how he believes guns should be used, recalled a recent trip to 7-Eleven when someone shouted: “He has a gun!”

Moore pulled out his gun and walked up to the cash register, where he found the elderly woman who had screamed. Out of fear, she had backed into a display case, sending bags of cookies flying. She pointed to the man in front of her in line.

The man’s shirt had become untucked, revealing the gun in his waistband.

Moore put his gun away. And an off-duty police officer, who had reached for but not quite pulled his gun, backed down.

“Out of the five people in the store, three of us were armed,” said Moore. “That’s exactly how I like it. I want to shop at a store where the good guys have guns.”