ODESSA, Fla. — In a state that has stirred plenty of controversy for its gun culture and violence, one Florida couple's backyard swimming pool encapsulates it best – in the shape of a pistol.
Louis and Raye Minardi have lived in their Tampa-area home with the gun-shaped pool for decades.
When the Minardis decided they wanted to build a pool in the 1980s, they wanted it to be long enough to swim laps.
So, they hired Albert Jones III, owner of A.H. Jones Pools Inc., to build them the 55-foot-long pool behind their house on Gunn Highway in Odessa.
"You swim your lap down the barrel," Louis Minardi told WUFT, recalling what Jones once said to him. "It gets deeper on that end. You can flip over from it and then you can swim back."
Jones was tired of building the same old pools and asked Louis Minardi if he could build the gun-shaped pool instead, according to WUFT.
Jones, who died in 2010, crafted a unique design, complete with varying tiles to distinguish the gun's different parts.
The pool has been resurfaced through the years, but the shape hasn't changed.
Florida has been no stranger to controversy when it comes to the topic of gun laws and gun control. The state's "stand your ground" law made national headlines after the 2012 fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, who was 17 when he was gunned down by George Zimmerman, a volunteer neighborhood watchman. Zimmerman was later acquitted of murder, claiming he acted in self-defense.
Then there were the mass shootings in Orlando, Parkland and, most recently, Fort Pierce.
Florida lawmakers are currently considering a bill that would allow people to carry concealed weapons without permits.
Minardi told WUFT he's in the center of the political gun debate.
"If you're qualified, mentally able to have one and protect yourself, I think you ought to have one if you want one, whether you keep it at home or you carry it with you," he said. "But it's like everything. It's educating. It's educating the people about guns, how they work."
