Shooter's Paradise Mishap

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I was just talking to a co-worker who had heard a nasty story about something that happened at Shooter's Paradise a couple of weeks ago and I was wondering if anyone else heard about it. The story is that a lady went in there and rented a pistol. They took her into the range, gave her some general instruction and she proceeded to fire a few downrange. A little while later, rumor has it, she decided to turn the gun on herself and took her own life. I have not been able to find anything on the web about this. The person that told me said there was a really small article in one of the Prince William newspapers. He also said he spoke with some other people that frequent or own ranges (not sure which)and they state that this is a pretty commom occurence, they just like to keep it hush hush, understandably so. Just thought I'd put it out there and see if anyone else had heard about this.

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A woman committed suicide there a couple of months ago. I'm not sure if this is the same woman they are talking about or not. Hopefully there haven't been two in the past two months.

Here's a link to the story:
http://www.potomacnews.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WPN/MGArticle/WPN_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149190736513&path=



Woman kills herself at range

By LILLIAN KAFKA
lkafka@potomacnews.com

Thursday, September 21, 2006

The death of a woman at a Woodbridge firing range was a suicide, police have ruled.

The woman, who Prince William police refused to identify, shot herself at Shooter's Paradise on Monday, said police.

A manager at the firing range confirmed that the woman rented a gun, purchased ammunition and went inside the firing range where she took her own life.

The manager, who refused to be identified, said this was the first time something like this has happened at the Marumsco Plaza firing range.

The number of suicides in Prince William County has decreased in recent years.

Between 2000 and 2004, the number of suicides in the county has dropped 43 percent, according to the Virginia department of health.

In 2000, 32 people took their own lives in the county. Four years later, 18 people took their own lives.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in Arlington graded Virginia in a nationwide analysis of mental health care systems.

Virginia received a grade of "D" for overall mental health services, recovery support, infrastructure and information access, according to the NAMI web site.

The organization advocated former Gov. Mark R. Warner's $460 million transformation initiative for the state's mental health system.

NAMI has a local chapter in the Prince William area and its Web site is nami-pw.org.

Its Web site provides an emergency number for suicide intervention, (800) 273-TALK, and other contact information.

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According to Friend who talked to officer friends who were there (I know), she was just shooting and next thing they knew, she turned the gun on herself and committed suicide they watched it happen in slow motion as it was just *bang*, round down range, *bang*, round down range, turns gun on herself no hestitation, *bang*

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thanks nra_bear, that's probably it. i also hope there wasn't a second in as many months. i'm not a big fan of paradise anyways, so i usually don't go there.

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You hear about these surprisingly often--somebody doesn't own a gun so they go to a range, rent one, and use it to off themselves.

Very inconsiderate toward the witnesses and range personnel who have to witness it and deal with the aftermath; some ranges have stopped renting to people who are there alone for that reason.

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This has happened a couple of times at a range down here in Virginia Beach. In the first instance, the woman bought a gun at the range and then shot herself with it. In the second instance, which happened fairly recently, a man shot himself with a rented gun. The particularly odd thing about the man was that he rented one gun, shot a few rounds, then came to the counter to switch guns before shooting himself on the firing line. Sadly, one of the people shooting there at the time was a recently recovering alcoholic. I can only pray that seeing this didn't make him fall off the wagon.

Personally, I wish I could revive the selfish bastards that do this so I can kill them again (slowly) for what they do to the people around them by doing this. First, there's the emotional scar that seeing someone die violently places on you. This can be especially hard when you weren't expecting it. At least if you're working in law enforcement or with a rescue squad, you recognize that you'll see that sooner or later. No one really expects to see a bullet through someone's head at the range. Second, the police take every gun on the range into custody until the case is resolved. One gentleman present when the woman shot herself lost several thousand dollars worth of handguns, and wasn't able to get them back until the case was closed.

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The cops took every gun on the range after a woman shot HERSELF???

If the evidence made it perfectly obvious that the woman shot herself, on what basis could they confiscate all that private property??!! What would they have done if she had shot herself at the Hampton gun show? The mind reels...

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Dutch Uncle wrote:

The cops took every gun on the range after a woman shot HERSELF???

If the evidence made it perfectly obvious that the woman shot herself, on what basis could they confiscate all that private property??!! What would they have done if she had shot herself at the Hampton gun show? The mind reels...

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Forensics. Basically, they can't just take the word of the people at the range that the person shot themself. I understand why they do it, but it doesn't make it suck any less. This is actually a good example of why gun ranges should actually be taping the firing line. I see several that have cameras going. But having a rolling recording going would make a huge difference in incidents like this.

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There are cameras on the range at Shooter's, but I have no idea if they are recording. They should, the equipment isn't that expensive and the potential savings in liability is worth the effort.