They rent guns at local gun ranges, then shoot themselves, leaving the mess and the bother for other people.

From Gun Nut Central

This morning a friend shared with us a recent news story from Texas about a man who committed suicide at a gun range, and we thought we'd post it. But since the article about the incident was from a smaller newspaper with unspectacular graphics and layout, we decided to do what we often do, which is look around for a catchier presentation about the incident from a different news source. So we typed in "suicide" and "gun range" in the search engine...

...and we found that there were so many stories about other gun range suicides from around the country, that sorting through them all to find the one in Texas we were seeking was challenging. At the end of our post commentary, we're pasting links to a sampling of the gun range suicide articles we found.

But rather than highlight any one tragedy in particular, we thought we'd post instead this 2014 Politico article by our new favorite gun violence prevention writer, Matt Valentine. It's a really nice, quick overview on the topic. There's also a good article from the Orange County Register that's worth checking out in the links below.

A big reason for the problem of gun range suicides is that a lot of gun ranges actually *rent * guns to any schmo off the street who comes in. No background check is required--the schmo just scribbles a waiver that proclaims he isn't crazy. Presumably any schmo who scribbles that he IS crazy won't be rented a gun. Presumably.

In fairness, as gun range suicides have become a bigger problem, many gun ranges have abandoned the Kevorkian gun rental part of their business--not necessarily out of altruism, but because the repeat range customers who bring their own guns have become concerned for their safety. Hey, man, you know, with those rental schmoes, you have no idea if they're trained, or a bad guy, or a nut.
Which, it must be noted--and not without gritted teeth of frustration--is exactly the argument against open carry. With open carry, the entire world becomes a firing range. Except, there's no convenient emergency exit.

Not all of the gun ranges are following suit on this business choice. After all, there's no law mandating it. Of course, when a man and woman committed double suicide after renting guns at Bob’s Tactical Shooting Range in Massachusetts, and it was revealed by a customer interviewed in the press that it was the fifth such rental suicide at Bob's in recent memory, ol' Bob did grudgingly decided to end his rental service.

The fact that this was not already well known is partly because gun death data in general is hard to gather, thanks to the NRA. But a it also has to do with the way our society treats suicide. We are perplexed and ashamed at the idea of suicide. Families don't like it to be known, because of guilt. They think it reflects on them and the love and support they gave the loved one who killed themselves--not true, but understandable. Many papers won't even report on suicides as general policy. Coroners and police will cover for the surviving loved ones and leave their reports generic.
So when an suicide incident slips through and is aired in the press, it is fair to assume that we are only seeing the tip of an iceberg that may or may not be enormous.

Hey! Did you guys know that the NRA refuses to accept suicide by gun as a legitimate part of any estimation of gun death in the U.S? It's true! It's the reason they argue that the 30,000-plus gun death statistic is grossly inflated.

"Hey! Some of those are gun suicides! Get 'em out of there!"

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