The private elevator to the Presidential Club at The Alamo. (Photo credit: Susannah Breslin/Forbes)
Ah, yes, the culture wars are raging in this nation and gun rights is just one of the fronts.
The high profile opening of a (yet) another nice gun “superstore” in not Texas, but Florida, serves as (yet) another high-profile win in the war for our gun rights. It’s a “Guntry” Club, complete with nice furnishings, public and private indoor ranges and even a board room. As they say in the story, it’s open, airy and modern. It’s $10 million worth of nice.
It’s one of three like it in Kentucky and Florida.
This isn’t your daddy’s gun store. (Photo credit: Susannah Breslin/Forbes)
A place you might find Donald Trump, but most likely not nanny Bloomberg or his Mommies Dearest.
Yes, it’s a lot like golf, only louder (once again, as they say in the story).
Pull up a beverage and enjoy the story.
Remember the Alamo? This isn’t that Alamo. (Photo credit: Susannah Breslin/Forbes)
Welcome To The Guntry Club, Where There’s A Boardroom And A Shooting Range
(Forbes) – A couple years ago, I wrote on this blog about a “firearms superstore” in the Midwest, where I took a gun class. It was fun, but it was your daddy’s gun store. Taxidermied animals stood guard over endless cases of firearms. A small, dusty section for women offered me a pink bottle of mace, a pink rifle bag, and a T-shirt featuring a sexy zombie in a bikini top and hot pants with the slogan: “ I ONLY WANT HALF YOUR BRAIN NOT HALF YOUR STUFF.”
A couple weeks ago, I walked into The Alamo in Naples, Florida, a state-of-the-art, self-described “shooting destination.” The newly-constructed, 26,000-square-foot facility into which its owner has invested over $10M is bright, airy, and modern. It was built from the ground up on what was once a dirt lot; it opened in early May. Kevin Creighton, The Alamo’s marketing manager, describes the opening as more of a “squishy” launch than a soft launch because this is the area’s off season; “snowbirds” from the East Coast and the Midwest will flock down here en masse come winter.
Inside, the sunlight streams through high windows. The employees are friendly. The 6,000-square-foot showroom is squeaky clean and equipped with video screens. There are no stuffed bears posed in the attack position, jaws agape. Every Monday, starting at 4PM, women don’t pay a dollar for their range time. In the back, you can have lunch at one of the high-top tables or pay to shoot holes in targets on any of the 19 lanes downstairs.
Forget the golfing range. The War Room is where gun enthusiasts do business. (Photo credit: Susannah Breslin)
The Alamo is one of three firearms stores and gun ranges (two in Florida, one in Kentucky) owned by Robert Marcum’s Lotus Gunworks. What he’s selling at The Alamo: Gun Culture 2.0. Once upon a time, Gun Culture 1.0 was about shooting ducks with your dad. Today, a new generation of firearm owners is more diverse than homogeneous, more interested in self-defense than hunting deer, more likely to be a tattooed urban-dweller than an “Elmer Fudd.” As Creighton sees it, we’re living in an era focused on “personal empowerment,” and guns are one way people are choosing to empower themselves. Think: the Apple store — with bullets. For Gun Owners 2.0, “It’s no longer about food,” he says. “It’s about protecting what matters to me.”
A girl and a target. (Photo credit: Susannah Breslin)
