SF man fatally shoots himself at firing range

[Veritas_223]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/01/BAGP2KTNGP4.DTL

[tman]

Apparently 10 days was just too long for him to wait.

[bu-bye]

Stupid fool

[kilword]

...

ouch shot himself in the neck....that be painful and not to quick.
bet he just needed a hug.

[chickenfried]

Man if there's this many during the summer. Imagine what the holidays will be like around here.

[rkt88edmo]

Seems like we may be having a little bay area epidemic? he even signed up for time with an instructor? Bummer for Bullseye.

[chiefcrash]

.....that gun range is about 1.5 miles from where i work....

freaky...

[Leadthrower]

Man that sucks...I've shot at Bullseye many times, and it isn't in SF it's in San Rafael. Long way for a guy from SF to go shoot himself. I'm sorry the guys that own/work there have to be dragged into this suicide.

[VeryCoolCat]

Jeeze, this year this kinda thing seems to be happening a lot lately.

[Diabolus]

I grew up in Marin County and shot at that place when I was young when you could shoot alone. Then someone killed themself and they required you to go with a friend.

The people that commit suicide this way are worthless people to begin with. I can't imagine how devastating it would be to find a dead body; or worse, someone with a horrible neck wound flopping around on the floor.

It is strange that he would shoot for two hours, which is something he obviously enjoyed, then kill himself.

[grammaton76]

If he had an instructor, maybe he was going for under-the-******** and the instructor scuffled with him first, resulting in a neck shot.

[blkA4alb]

I was just going to post this article. I was there an hour after this happened. I shoot at bullseye at least once and sometimes twice a week. I know the staff very well (allowed behind counter, help clean up) and its very sad that this happened. I showed up yesterday and all the police were still there, I knew something had happened and left.

I just got back from there today and the carpet is gone, and they missed a small spot on the wall . It felt very weird shooting there today since I don't know which stall this occurred in. It was a very weird feeling that is hard to explain..

[donger]

If he had an instructor, maybe he was going for under-the-******** and the instructor scuffled with him first, resulting in a neck shot.

Ooopss! Can't say ch!n!

[Spaceghost]

Probably mentally ill

It is strange that he would shoot for two hours, which is something he obviously enjoyed, then kill himself.

I would guess that this individual was mentally ill. Bi-polar, suffering from depression, poor impulse control, etc. We will never know for sure if it turns out he was un-diagnosed at the time this happened. I could make a pretty good case that if you kill yourself, you're crazy anyway.

[CALI-gula]

"...gunshot wound to the neck..."

"...training with an instructor..."

"...shot for two hours..."


I am willing to bet this was mistake and not an intentional suicide. It sounds like he was new to shooting and might not have practiced basic principles of handling a gun. Even if he stuck it under his lower mandible, I don't get the angle where it could then go slip and mistakenly go through his neck, if intentional for suicide. And I don't think he was all that crazy - it seems he took numerous appropriate steps to rent a gun, get an instructor, and then shoot for 2 hours.

I am willing to bet this was a fatal error and nothing more by someone with limited safety and shooting experience; maybe he was either holding it up vertically with his shooting hand, while looking down range at his finished target with his finger still on the trigger and touched it off, or as above but fumbled with the gun and instinct squeezed his hand around it while his finger was in the trigger guard, or he was plain screwing around with it, or not giving it due respect, and did not realize it was on a live cartridge, etc.

I have seen people do things that were much more dumb that could have resulted in fatalities, and it took the range officer or other shooting patrons to scream, jump, yell, and sometimes nearly tackle these idiots before they could kill themselves or others around them. Who hasn't been to the range and seen some jackass sweep the whole firing line from his stall, with a live gun and finger in the trigger guard?

I have told the story many times of some young guys, shortly after passing of SB23 at the range in the stall next to me, banging their Bushmaster vertically on the ground by the butt, the failure-to-fire cartridge cooking in the chamber which would not extract, meanwhile, the muzzle pointed directly at my head while they bang the butt on the ground. At one point, one of them was looking down the barrel in the light of the stall, trying to "see" the blockage, the cartridge still in the chamber, AFTER they had just been banging it on the ground. If he killed himself, some media mutt might have labeled it an intentional suicide. Absolute morons - they were kicked off the range when the range officer saw it too.

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