Suicide at my local range

[jmr40]

There are lots of murderers walking our streets because cops botched investigations and ASSUMED things. Often they are 100% sure of the guilt, but because of procedural errors evidence cannot be admitted. Think O.J. Simpson. He got away with 2 murders because of a botched investigation

There are innocent men in jail right now because cops didn't conduct a thorough investigation and uncover evidence that could have proven they were innocent.

This is probably suicide, but you always have to consider the possibility of an accident or a murder that was set up to look like suicide. It was certainly an odd place and would raise suspicion. Two weeks, or 2 years from now a family member could discover that someone else at the range at that time was involved with the mans wife and may accuse someone of murder.

The family may be approached by a slick lawyer who convinces them that if they can convince a jury it was really an accidental shooting and because I was in the lane next to the guy it was my gun that actually shot the guy. You never know what a jury will come out with. The range and my estate may be paying the family $$$millions$$$. A thorough investigation now may save lots of headaches later.

If I'm there I'd demand the cops take my guns to be tested so I have concrete proof later that I didn't shoot the guy.

 

[Gaerek]

I have also decided I don't think so much of the forum lawyers that want to jump on everyone the moment they post "unsupported opinions".

Unsupported opinions have no real value. They might be interesting from a trivial aspect, but if you wish for people to see things like you see them, it's important to support your opinion.

For me, if someone has a differing opinion than me, I want to know why. You see, I value knowledge, and I'm willing to have challenges to my opinions, beliefs and prejudices. But without some kind of support for an opinion, that simply won't happen. If more knowledge isn't what you're looking for, well, let me tell you about this bridge I have for sale...

 

[Frank Ettin]

...What am I guessing at? Guy shoots and kills himself, his body drops to the floor. The gun has to go down with him, and end up somewhere.

Then I asked a question. So what am I guessing at?

You're guessing about exactly how the scene looked when the police arrived, what should have been immediately obvious and what conclusion an investigator should have immediately made.

And if the deceased had been holding his gun when someone else shot him, the body could also have dropped to the floor, with the gun going with him.

 

[orangello]

One of my cousins was tragically assaulted a few years ago; he was not immediately discovered (alive but seriously injured). In the course of the investigation, the sheriff's department DEMANDED that the locked and not visibly involved/touched/bloodied gunsafe be opened to allow them to examine and document the contents. They emptied the safe of firearms, some cash, and some insurance papers and such. They had custody of these articles for some months as the investigation continued. They eventually related to the family that they had reached a dead end in the investigation of the assault. They did not return the safe contents at that time; that return required the involvement of the family's attorney and some written requests (and some phone calls to county court officers i am told).

The fact that the case was unsolved did not upset the family nearly so much as the manner in which the department communicated its needs to the fairly incapacitated victim's representatives. Though not required by law (so far as i know), a little bit of verbal grease would have made the process MUCH smoother. The sheriff lost some trust and some electoral support with that one. I felt that impounding the contents of the safe was overkill, but had it been presented as "temporarily safekeeping the victim's assets" or explained as a search for some unseen link to the perpetrator of the crime, it wouldn't have bothered anyone and would have accomplished the same goal. I am thinking the same would be true of the range confiscation; provide an expected timeline and procedures for the return of confiscated materials and if possible a brief explanation of the reason for the confiscation of that particular item.

It all goes back to "legal doesn't equal right or good".

 

[AH.74]

You're guessing about exactly how the scene looked when the police arrived, what should have been immediately obvious and what conclusion an investigator should have immediately made.

I am not guessing about anything whatsoever. I made no statements about "exactly" anything. I simply stated- the guy shot himself, went to the floor, and the gun went down as well. There is no guessing there in any way, shape, or form. Again, I then asked a question. That was not guessing either.

I do not agree with your propensity to argue needlessly.

 

[JRH6856]

I simply stated- the guy shot himself, went to the floor, and the gun went down as well. There is no guessing there in any way, shape, or form.

Well, unless you were there and saw it happen, you're guessing that what you stated is what happened.

 

[BerdanSS]

Several years ago we had a guy in the town just 2.5 miles from mine, walk into a busy sporting goods store (that I often frequented) with shotgun shell he brought with him in his pocket (they found the box missing a single shell in his car) He asked the clerk to see a shotgun at the gun counter. They said he looked it over thoroughly for some time as if he was going to buy it.....But all of a sudden produced the shell from his jacket, popped open the action, dropped the shell in.....then stuck it in his mouth and blew his head off right there in front of shoppers, including children.

What in Gods green earth would compel someone to do that?! You'll never know anything but that how sad and distraught someone must feel to think that's there only option.

 

[Gaerek]

Well, unless you were there and saw it happen, you're guessing that what you stated is what happened.

^^^This

What seems obvious, isn't always all that obvious.

There was a self inflected gunshot at a range I used to live near. It had appeared that the guy had shot himself in the side of the chest. Initially, it was called a suicide, because they couldn't immediately see how it could have been an accident. After the investigation, it was found that the guy had been reholstering his .44 Mag in his shoulder rig, and had his finger in the trigger guard. It was initially assumed that the angles of everything wouldn't allow for that. Even the first people who responded to it thought the guy did it on purpose.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I am not guessing about anything whatsoever. I made no statements about "exactly" anything. I simply stated- the guy shot himself, went to the floor, and the gun went down as well. There is no guessing there in any way, shape, or form. Again, I then asked a question. That was not guessing either.

Not guessing? You have the same information we have at this point. Just how was it that YOU determined that the guy shot himself? How do you know he wasn't "helped" or outright murdered at close range?

Maybe you missed this statement...

Authorities haven’t released details about whether the man shot himself or if someone else was involved.

Yes, you are guessing.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Can someone please explain to me how this is justified? I don't see any way there can be a mistake about which gun was used and this seems to be wrong in many ways.

Since no deputy eyewitnessed it, they have to rule out that the cause of death was homicide. If the weapon may be traced to another individual at the range, he's got some explaining to do. If however the weapon found with the deceased belongs to the subject, is registered to the deceased, has the deceased's prints all over it, and the ballistics match along with powder burns indicating close range, then the death may be attributed to suicide and not homicide.

 

[AH.74]

Not guessing? You have the same information we have at this point. Just how was it that YOU determined that the guy shot himself? How do you know he wasn't "helped" or outright murdered at close range?

I can't open every link all the time. I was going by what the OP posted:

Just last Sunday, some guy took a handgun, stuck it to his chest and pulled the trigger.

 

[Sport45]

I am not guessing about anything whatsoever. I made no statements about "exactly" anything. I simply stated- the guy shot himself, went to the floor, and the gun went down as well. There is no guessing there in any way, shape, or form.

This is a huge assumption. You seem to be forgetting the plethora of threads here about how we all need to carry multiple reloads because there's no such thing as a one shot stop.

The fact is, we don't know what happened after the guy shot himself in the chest. He may have put his gun back on the bench and sat down in his lawn chair to expire.

So in this instance... yeah, I can see getting irritated if the LEO's showed up and wanted _every gun_ collected. So my bolt action .350 Remington Magnum that is still zipped in the case gets picked up by the police? I know, the police are collecting evidence and they have to be sure to get it all.

Why would your rifle be treated differently than any other firearm there? Plenty of time to case it before the police arrive.

 

[BerdanSS]

I'd wager there was quite a scramble just after the shot....anything and everything could of happened in that mess. Unless it's like our range that has full HD digital real time cameras from multiple angles on each shooting lane.

 

[Frank Ettin]

Not guessing? You have the same information we have at this point. Just how was it that YOU determined that the guy shot himself? How do you know he wasn't "helped" or outright murdered at close range?

I can't open every link all the time. I was going by what the OP posted:

Just last Sunday, some guy took a handgun, stuck it to his chest and pulled the trigger.

First, if you're not opening the links you're just guessing about what's there. And in that case, you're acting on incomplete information.

Second, the OP's statement is apparently based on what the police said after they investigated. But the discussion was focusing on how the police were conducting the investigation that led to the conclusion.

To some extent this is all about the questions of how we know things, what we really do know, or can know or can't know, and how well we know things. This is whole area study in itself, and it's called "epistemology."

During the course of my career I've seen a lot of people get themselves into trouble by not knowing what they don't know; and by thinking they knew things when they really had no reason to believe that, having relied on bad data or unsupported opinion.

True, this is the Internet, and things here, we tend to think, don't really mean anything. But it's still a bad idea to get in the habit of jumping to conclusions, relying on assumptions based on tenuous data or guessing about things. It might work for the unimportant things in life; but if one gets in the habit, he might deal with something important that way too.

Being critical of information given to you, asking where it's from and what it's based on, expecting evidence, etc., are all good habits. I have no intention of discontinuing doing such things myself.

 

[AH.74]

Being critical of information given to you, asking where it's from and what it's based on, expecting evidence, etc., are all good habits. I have no intention of discontinuing doing such things myself.

Yes, exactly. And my being critical and questioning of peoples' personal property being confiscated by government agents, and of them being labelled as suspects in a murder investigation by the same without what I believed to be just cause, is my doing the same.

If, as reported, the results after the initial investigation indicate that the shot was self-inflicted, the peoples' property should have been immediately returned to them. We do not know yet if that is the case.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

And my being critical and questioning of peoples' personal property being confiscated by government agents, and of them being labelled as suspects in a murder investigation by the same without what I believed to be just cause, is my doing the same.

You really don't understand police work or the law. Nobody was labeled as a suspect. An investigation was ongoing.

If, as reported, the results after the initial investigation indicate that the shot was self-inflicted, the peoples' property should have been immediately returned to them. We do not know yet if that is the case.

Indications are hardly definitive. If there is a bullet still inside the deceased, then ballistic testing would be involved to confirm the firearm used. That would not happen at the range.

 

[Frank Ettin]

Being critical of information given to you, asking where it's from and what it's based on, expecting evidence, etc., are all good habits. I have no intention of discontinuing doing such things myself.

Yes, exactly. And my being critical and questioning of peoples' personal property being confiscated by government agents, and of them being labelled as suspects in a murder investigation by the same without what I believed to be just cause, is my doing the same....

Not exactly.

You didn't question the validity of the information. You question the propriety of the action based on some of you assumptions. And the bases for your assumptions was called into question by the explanations being given for why the police did what they did.

...If, as reported, the results after the initial investigation indicate that the shot was self-inflicted, the peoples' property should have been immediately returned to them. We do not know yet if that is the case.

True, and we have no idea what indeed happened.

 

[Rainbow Demon]

I've seen people do some really stupid things when trying to clear a jam. Theres a slim possibility that the death was an accident.

A through investigation is called for to be absolutely certain that this was suicide, since most life insurance policies won't pay off on a suicide.

PS
I once saw a man have a misfire and then look down the bore.
Saw another who racked the slide to clear the chamber and latched the siide back, then looked at the breech face through the open ejection port, while completely forgetting to remove the magazine first. He was holding the pistol with muzzle pointed right at his throat or upper chest.

Darwin Awards are not as uncommon as Nobel Prizes.

 

[AH.74]

You really don't understand police work or the law. Nobody was labeled as a suspect. An investigation was ongoing.

Their guns were taken. They were suspects in the investigation.

 

[Tom Servo]

How about we have somebody who's actually dealt with this chime in? Like me.

In my case, several factors were thrown into sharp relief:

1. Until they know better, the police are going to treat the situation as a crime scene. That means anyone present gets detained and questioned.
2. Any weapons present will be checked and logged, at the very least. None were confiscated in my situation, but I can see that happening as part of an investigation.
3. In a morbid way, I was fortunate. The shooter had a note clutched in his right hand which read "I refuse medical attention." He also had a more elaborate note in his wallet. This established intent and sped up the investigation. It also cleared our establishment of any claim of negligence or wrongdoing.
4. It's easy to second guess range staff and RSO's on this. I had actually walked directly behind the shooter and spoken to him less than fifteen seconds before he shot himself. Even if I'd been right next to him, it only takes a split second.
5. The shooter gave no indication whatsoever that he was depressed or agitated. He took no pains to avoid attention. In fact, I remember him being quite gregarious. This puzzled me, and I asked a psychologist about it. Apparently, once someone commits to the decision to take their own life, they generally feel relief and hope. You just won't know.
6. It's easy to want to pass more restrictive rules and policies, but they're not entirely effective. One range owner I spoke with had a guy sit through a 15-minute video, and he had his own gun when he did it.
7. He fired from right to left, and it appears he deliberately waited until no other shooters were in the path of the bullet. In talking to others who've dealt with this, consideration for the safety of others is often a factor.
8. It's a good idea to keep an open door and a soft shoulder for any staff that dealt with the incident. As soon as it's mentioned on the news (or pounced upon by some creep with a police scanner), people flock in expecting to hear the whole gruesome story ad infinitum. It's really morbid and inconsiderate, but it happens.