Deadly teen shootings shook Myrtle Beach this summer. Are more youth carrying guns?
Along Myrtle Beach’s popular downtown Ocean Boulevard tourist area, it’s not unusual to see crowds of teenagers hanging around as the sun goes down and the SkyWheel lights up.
However, there has been growing concern among businesses, residents and city officials about the number of teens along the strip — especially those carrying guns.
This spring and summer, four high-profile shootings shook the Myrtle Beach area, two of which were deadly and involved teenagers possessing guns.
Young people with guns isn’t a phenomenon unique to Myrtle Beach. But in the last five years, more than 300 minors in Horry County have received weapons charges, most of which involved illegally possessing a firearm.
Many, but not all, of those charges likely tie back to gang activity, Horry County Solicitor Jimmy Richardson said.
City officials have previously attributed downtown youth violence to a lack of things for young people to do downtown. There also have been claims by law enforcement that many downtown crimes are committed by young people visiting from out of town.
Following the deadly mass shooting on North Ocean Boulevard in April, Myrtle Beach Police Chief Amy Prock addressed the gun violence by youth in a video, stating, “If you have a committed a crime in MB or plan to, we will hold you accountable. This incluces juveniles who unlawfully bring firearms to our community.”
Youth gun crimes by the numbers
Based on records obtained for the last five years, 329 referrals for minors with weapons charges were processed in Horry County, according to the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice. In Myrtle Beach, 158 juvenile arrests were made for firearm-related charges, according to information from the city.
When asked about youth gun crime trends in Horry County, county spokesperson Mikayla Moskov was unable to comment, stating that the county’s system does not allow cases to be broken down by those involving youth gun possession.
Some of the referrals to juvenile court and arrests have come from deadly shootings that occurred on the tourist heavy Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach, including an officer involved mass shooting that left one teen dead and 11 others injured.
But the majority come from cases of minors possessing firearms illegally. Most of those firearms aren’t simply considered illegal because they are in the hands of a minor, but because they were also stolen.
From Jan. 1, 2025 to June 30, 2025, 34 referrals for illegally possessed and stolen pistols among minors have been processed in Horry County. In 2024, the number was 45.
Stolen and illegally possessed firearms have far outpaced juvenile referrals and arrests for other offenses such as violent crimes or weapons being brought onto school property by minors, both in Myrtle Beach and the broader county, according to records from the state Department of Juvenile Justice.
Changes in age laws alter trends
Youth gun crime numbers in the county over the past five years do not show an upward trend. Those number excludes a decline at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.’
While the frequency of youth gun charges may appear to increase following 2019, it is most likely due to a change in state law that took place that year which increased the legal “juvenile” age limit from 17 to 18, according to Richardson.
Additionally, in March 2024, a new “Constitutional Carry” law was passed, allowing those 18 and older to carry a gun openly or concealed without a permit. The law also states that possession of a firearm alone is not enough for law enforcement to stop an individual. Rather, there must be reasonable suspicion that a crime has occurred.
Therefore, for incidents like the June 12 shooting downtown which led to the arrest of two North Carolina 18-year-olds in possession of a gun, their simple possession of the gun would not be enough for law enforcement to step in. However, it was later discovered that the gun was reported stolen, and two minors were also arrested in relation to the incident, which left one person injured from gunshot wounds.
Downtown gun crimes spark concern, change
Two recent downtown shootings by teenagers prompted the adoption of a stricter youth curfew in parts of the city. Officials have noted that the curfew isn’t a fix-all solution, but have lauded it as a step in the right direction.
However, even if the new curfew had been enacted prior to the aforementioned shootings, the alleged shooters who were 18 years or older would still have been allowed to be present downtown. Minors would also be allowed downtown past curfew if they were at work, as the shooter in the most recent downtown incident in the popular Peahces Corner restaurant was.
The first major shooting to rock Myrtle Beach this year came late at night on April 26, when 18-year-old Jerrius Davis of Bennettsville drew a firearm and shot it into a crowd. He was pursued by a Myrtle Beach Police officer, who shot and killed him. Eleven other people were also shot or injured during the incident.
While Davis was 18 years old and therefore may have legally possessed the gun he used in the shooting, the incident still sparked concerns about youth violence downtown.
In May, four people wearing masks – including a 17-year-old – shot at Myrtle Beach Police officers while leading them on a high-speed chase in a stolen vehicle.
Riley Pegram, 17, of Brown Summit, North Carolina, was charged with three counts of attempted murder, possession of a weapon during a violent crime, kidnapping, unlawful possession of a firearm, possession of a stolen vehicle and failure to stop .Omarion Glass, 20, of Greensboro, North Carolina, was charged with three counts of attempted murder, possession of a weapon during a violent crime and use of a person under 18 to commit certain crimes.
Just a few months later, on the night of July 27, a shooting by a minor inside Peaches Corner on 9th Avenue North in Myrtle Beach left one person dead. Evony McCray, a 17-year-old employee of the restaurant from Conway, shot and killed 18-year-old Grayson Meyers.
McCray was charged as an adult in the killing, but was illegally in possession of the firearm he used as a minor. It remains unclear whether Meyers was in possession of a weapon at the time of the shooting.
Meyers, while 18 when the incident occurred, could be seen in Instagram posts posing with various firearms in previous years. It appears that his account has since been removed.
Another shooting near Peaches Corner that injured one person earlier that month resulted in the arrest of two 18-year-olds and two juveniles.
The most recent Peaches Corner shooting catalyzed the enactment of a new youth curfew in Myrtle Beach, in an effort to keep minors out of heavily trafficked areas alone at night.
The city already had a curfew for those 17 years old and younger from midnight to 6 a.m., but the new curfew begins earlier, at 10 a.m., and targets the downtown area. The curfew was temporarily enacted over Fourth of July weekend this summer before being made permanent.
Myrtle Beach Police Chief Amy Prock noted that in addition to a juvenile curfew, there were “mitigating” factors that must be examined with open carry laws.
Youth gun possession tied to gangs
One reason many young people in the county are being arrested for possessing firearms illegally, particularly stolen ones, is typically gang activity, according to Richardson.
“Youth with bad home lives sometimes will turn to gang membership as a secondary familial group, and they obviously don’t have the child’s best interests at heart,” Richardson said.
Gang membership is the most common reason the solicitor’s office sees behind youth gun possession, Richardson said. Typically, the guns seen in the hands of these minors were stolen by gang members and kept in a “storehouse,” where they are returned and used again in future crimes, he explained.
“Gangs will go out, break into cars, steal guns, and then you see these same guns being used around,” Richardson said. He added that more often then not, the guns are stolen from unlocked cars, though from time to time, a gang will rob a gun store.
Richardson called Myrtle Beach one of the “best in the state” at identifying previous activity a gun has been used in when the police department recovers an illegally possessed or stolen gun. He explained that the department uses the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network to use identifying characteristics of the weapon “like a fingerprint,” and determine where it came from or was previously used.
“Every gun is going to be different even if they were assembled on the same line,” Richardson said. Those differences have allowed officers to investigate how far firearms have traveled, and by what means, to wind up in the hands of minors.
Richardson added that when illegally possessed firearms come through his office, they are ultimately melted down to prevent them from making their way back onto the streets.
