Father and Son Plead Guilty in Florence Gun Store Burglary
Benjamin Mercer Sr. and Benjamin Mercer Jr. admitted to charges stemming from a May 2024 burglary of Palmetto State Armory.
2 reports on this incident · first at Sep 3, 2026, 3:32 p.m. ET
Earlier reports
Sep 3, 2026, 3:32 p.m. ETFirst report
Father and Son Plead Guilty in Florence Gun Store Burglary
Two Florence men pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a burglary at Palmetto State Armory, according to the United States Department of Justice, as reported by WMBF News.
Benjamin Mercer Sr., 54, and Benjamin Mercer Jr., 31, both of Florence, entered guilty pleas. The government alleged that on May 12, 2024, the pair burglarized the store and stole firearms. During a controlled purchase on June 17, 2024, Mercer Jr. allegedly pulled out a handgun, pistol-whipped an informant, and threatened to kill them. After fleeing, he allegedly shot at law enforcement and barricaded himself in an apartment.
Mercer Jr. pleaded guilty to stealing firearms from a dealer, illegally possessing firearms, and brandishing and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. He faces a maximum penalty of life in federal prison. Mercer Sr. pleaded guilty to charges related to the burglary and faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in federal prison.
The case remains at the plea stage, and sentencing has not yet been scheduled.
Was this report accurate and useful?
Sources
Revision history
- Version 13 Sept 2026, 19:52current
First published.
- Version 13 Sept 2026, 19:32current
First published.
How we work
This site models an investigative reporter rather than a wire desk. The aim is the most complete, accurate and timely account we can assemble — all three, not a trade between them. Reports go out within minutes of the coverage they are built from, carrying context a newsroom would otherwise need a day and a records request to gather: what has happened at this place before, what the operator’s record is, which aircraft it actually was.
Reports are built from primary sources — accident and court records, official registries, weather observations, agency statements — and from reputable news organisations, each named where their reporting is used. Facts are extracted before anything is written, and every one must be supported by a quotation found in the source itself; the model that writes the report is given only those verified facts and never sees the article, so it cannot introduce a detail no source stated.
Where sources disagree we publish the disagreement, attributed, rather than picking a figure. Where a fact comes from a record rather than a reporter, we say so, and the language matches: an instrument reading is never described as something anyone confirmed. Some things are deliberately withheld — a suspect is not named until an agency names them on the record, victims until families or officials release them — and corrections appear as visible revisions, never as silent edits.
None of that makes a report true. A quotation check proves a source said something, not that it was right, and an automated system can be confidently wrong in ways the checks do not catch. If something here is wrong, the feedback above is how it gets found. The full methodology, including what we refuse to publish.