Man shoots himself in head at shooting range, police say (Albuquerque)

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | March 30, 2015 | Nicole Perez and Elise Kaplan

[CedarDave]

A man walked into Calibers shooting range, rented a gun and shot himself in the head with it Monday, according to the Albuquerque Police Department. He died at a local hospital.

Police say the man used a gun rented from the indoor range, which is near Washington and I-40, to commit suicide. Tanner Tixier, a spokesman for APD, said police believe he shot himself in the head.

Doctors found a suicide note in his pocket. His identity has not been released.

[Malsua]

And ranges are often visited by single people who have nobody else in their life interested in shooting.

The rules requiring two people are if you are renting a gun. The logic goes, if you're going to off yourself with your own gun, you probably aren't going to rent a lane at the range.

There have been 4 or 5 gun range suicides that I'm aware of in NJ in the last 2-3 years, all from rentals. I think pretty much every NJ range now requires 2 people if you're renting.

[terycarl]

TAKE THE DAMN THING OUTSIDE do you realize the mess that has to be cleaned up?????good grief man, think of someone but yourself for a change..!!!

[GMMC0987]

I’r rather they do that than to crash a airliner full of people or drive head on into traffic.

[theneanderthal]

I had a friend, guy I went to high school with, shoot himself in the head. He had a heart condition which limited him to about 10% of his breathing capacity. Not thinking clearly at all. Shot himself in his pick up truck. His widow had to pay a company to clean the truck, install new seats, yada yada. He should have picked out his favorite tree in the forest. But his oxygen starvation precluded clear thinking. Who can understand these things Not me.

[The KG9 Kid]

This is the primary reason I don’t like indoor ranges. I’ve mentioned here before long ago in the FR archives that I once arrived at an indoor shooting range just a short time before a lunatic blew a tunnel through his head. He didn’t even wait to get to the firing line; he killed himself in the sound-lock room between the firing line and the customer service area. I thought all the cop cars outside was due to police firing qualification — as that range provided — but only when I got inside did they tell me they were closed for the day while the deputy coroner took pictures and some shocked range staff stood ready to clean up the tomato and mushroom soup spill all over the walls and floor.

Indoor ranges that rent guns to people that didn’t bring their own guns to begin with are asking for this sort of trouble. Lawsuits will follow if you can’t at least prove that the idiot could have done it at home with the gun they brought themselves. Renting one out to just any nut stumbling through the door ethically makes you partner to their suicide.

I don’t want to be on the line when someone screws the muzzle in their ear and pulls the trigger on the biggest handgun the range rents out. Requiring that all gun renters already bring their own firearm to the range can and does lessen the chance of suicide, but it seems that it’s a lesson that new indoor shooting range owners have to learn. The poor gun handling on the non-suicidal visitors worries me enough without someone coming in to murder themselves and perhaps someone else deliberately.

My advice to one range that kept their policy of renting guns to just anyone walking in off the street was to at least put a sign in the window that read “If you’re here to rent a gun to kill yourself with, be aware that you could have used the car you drove here in to asphyxiate yourself quietly and peacefully in your garage at home. Besides, you’re just going to pull the muzzle away from your head at the last instant when it’s too late. Maybe only shoot your jaw off or turn yourself into a gibbering screeching retard to live the rest of your miserable life out inside a hospice care facility.”

[The KG9 Kid]

"... Baby Bro used to be a Range Officer for a popular indoor range in California. Some guy did the same thing. This was the days before commercial crime scene cleanup was a thing, and so guess who had to sponge up the gooey bits? Not a happy camper."

One of the indoor ranges I used to have a membership in kept a new home steam cleaner vacuum in an unopened box in the storage room. Their plan was to use it once to clean up and then put it in a garbage bag and pitch it in the dumpster out back.

I shoot out in the desert now at a location where I know I'm alone and can see people coming from miles away.

[pigsmith]

bfl

[CedarDave]

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[Carthego delenda est]

“He died at a local hospital.”

Sheesh! What did they rent him, a pellet gun?

[MHGinTN]

I recall a mother with her son doing a double. She shot him then herself, at an indoor range.