Back in my RSO days I can vividly remember being trained on what to look for / what to do in the event of a suicide on our range. The grizzled old lead RSO was some sort of NATO war crimes investigator in a past life. I can vividly remember him telling me "we haven't had our suicide yet". A few months after I left that job for one in another state someone offed themselves there.

Based on these anecdotes, I'm wondering if there are any ranges that HAVEN'T had a suicide yet?

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Based on these anecdotes, I'm wondering if there are any ranges that HAVEN'T had a suicide yet?

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None have had the problem here locally although there have been negligent discharges resulting in injury. The local military bases have had their share of suicides. In the past the guard shack was staffed by active duty guys who were sent there for punishment duty. They of course were armed and sometimes pretty depressed and disgruntled. Contract personnel now man the gate.

I do think that ranges should have policies that prevent people from impulsively renting a gun and killing themselves. In many of these cases psychological postmortems would be helpful in terms of understanding the dynamics and addressing the underlying issues. In fact, we know quite a bit about suicide and prevention.

Suicide with a firearm is convenient.....but a slap in the face of survivors.

Plenty of other ways.

Last experience for me was with two brothers worked at the same mill as I. One decided to suck on a .357 magnum over a girl. He lived.......for a while. His brother was brought in to identify him. Teeth gone and all, you can imagine the mess the >357 left the family members.

Last I heard, he still has flash backs of it..He was a good man. Didn't deserve that memory.

Fucking leave a note indicating your location, and use the many chemicals available to us. Using a gun is barbaric and leaves family traumatized.

Damn right, there are organizations (for good or bad) that have information on how to off oneself with out making too much of a mess... quietly and comfortably.... but then a lot of folks are too lazy to do the work.

That is the one big issue with suicide.... the crap you leave behind. I've had a good friend do it and he still owes me an explanation.

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Originally posted by PASig:

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Originally posted by calugo:

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Originally posted by PASig:
This happened at my LGS range maybe 7-8 years ago. They will no longer allow lone, non members to walk in and rent a gun and go into the range by themselves. You have to be a member or be with another person as the suicide there was a guy off the street who walked in, rented a gun then proceeded to blow his head off.

Is your LGS Classic Pistol? This is probably a good policy to implement for all gun ranges.

It was French Creek Outfitters in Phoenixville, PA

Ok....just asked because Classic Pistol had a similar suicide a few years ago

No, we do not implement policies for ALL because of the misconduct of a FEW.

Really sad. I know similar things have happened at Knob Creek Gun Range.