Deadly Fort Myers Club Shooting Shows Abject Failure Of Background Check System

The recent shooting at a Fort Myers night club “teen night” left two people dead and 17 wounded in a barbaric and senseless crime.

Now the woman who bought the gun is in deep trouble for allegedly straw-purchasing the weapon for the murderers.

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A 33-year-old woman faces serious federal charges after police recovered a gun she bought earlier this year at the scene of a deadly nightclub shooting in Ft. Myers, Florida.

Authorities charged Jazmin Challana Barron, of Lehigh Acres, Florida, for lying to a licensed gun dealer while buying a firearm. Federal investigators recovered the gun from the Club Blu shooting on July 25 that ended with two teens dead and a dozen injured.

Fort Myers police said the scene unfolded just before 1 a.m. in the club’s parking lot during a teen night. The shooting was determined gang-related and not a terrorist attack, as authorities are still on edge from a horrific massacre in Orlando earlier this summer. Police identified the deceased victims as Ste’fan Strawder, 18, and Sean Archilles, 14.

After the shooting, investigators recovered a MasterPiece Arms pistol chambered in 5.7x28mm near the club and matched it with casings found on the scene. Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives traced the gun back to where it had been originally purchased and then identified the buyer. A further investigation revealed that she provided false information when buying the gun.

When filling out her paperwork at the gun shop, Barron used a vacant lot as her home address, willfully lying (and committing a federal felony). She is also apparently caught in a web of conflicting stories about the gun being stolen from her (or not).

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The MPA57SST is a distinctive handgun, a MAC-inspired pistol that fires the anemic, video gamer-loved 5.7x28mm, one of the least effective handgun rounds made. Designed as a PDW (personal defense weapon) cartridge to punch through light body armor, the caliber was quickly adopted and then just as quickly discarded by law enforcement agencies who discovered that the cartridge often did little tissue damage, causing “icepick”-type wounds that would not reliably stop suspects even when used in P90 submachine guns. To paraphrase a midwestern SWAT commander instructor of mine who used the cartridge, it was “awful,” and they quickly went back to their 9mm H&Ks because “we got tired of shooting them  [violent suspects] a dozen times [with 5.7 ammo] before they noticed.”

The 5.7 is best known as a cartridge the FN Five-seveN pistol favored by Mexican drug cartels (who call it the “mata policia”, or “cop killer”) used by an islamic terrorist Army officer in the 2009 Fort Hood attack.

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Authorities say that the MPA57SST purchased by Barron is forensically linked to other shootings in the area.

Amazingly, the prosecution for the night club shooting is falling apart, due to the anti-cop/pro-criminal “no snitching” culture of the victims. 8 of 12 injured victims are refusing to press charges, perhaps fearing retaliation for what appears to be a gang-related shooting. Despite three arrests made just blocks from the club the night of the shooting, authorities say that they do not have suspects in custody.

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Jazmin Challana Barron had a clean criminal record prior to the shooting, and even had a valid Florida concealed carry permit.

Straw purchasers such as Barron allegedly is are among the two major sources of firearms for prohibited persons, the other being the black market sales of illegally acquired firearms.

Those pushing “universal background checks, ” which is nothing more or less than de facto gun registration,  have no answers for the significant problem of straw purchasing.

While straw purchasers can face 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for illegally purchasing a firearm for a prohibited person, the fact remains that the Department of Justice rarely prosecutes these cases to the fullest extent of the law. Under the Obama Administration, straw purchase prosecutions have plummeted, and even those who have been caught red-handed have been let go with little or no jail time, even when the straw purchased guns were used in racist murders and cop-killings.

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