Three Suicides, Three Months: Should Ranges Be Renting Guns?

June 17, 2009 — -- Three attempted suicides in recent weeks at Florida shooting ranges where customers can rent guns has left the owners of the ranges shaken and worrying that there is little they can do to protect customers from taking their own lives.

"It bothers me to hear about instances of suicide," said John Harvey, the owner of the Oak Ridge Gun Range in Orlando, Fla. "It really makes you sick."

"It makes you wonder if there's anything else you can do, but there isn't," said Harvey. "We discuss it all the time. It depresses everyone."

While background checks are required by federal law for individuals purchasing guns, no such law exists for gun rentals.

"It's difficult to screen. People will sign a complete waiver that they're okay, they're not going to hurt themselves and then boom," said Harvey.

Harvey said that in his 22 years in the business, his own range has seen three attempted suicides and two that were successful. The last suicide was more than 10 years ago, he said.

But instances of suicide are not uncommon in the area, said Harvey, who said other gun range owners are struggling with the reality that their businesses could be providing individuals an easy way to take their own lives.

There are no official statistics that track the number of suicides at shooting ranges each year, but so far this year there have been several highly publicized gun range deaths.

On June 13, a woman rented a gun from East Orange Shooting Sports in central Florida and shot herself in the head. She survived the attempt and her condition is unclear. A lawyer for the range said that it would no longer be renting guns until it was able to run background checks on customers.

At the same range on April 27, a 26-year-old man committed suicide, and on April 5 a mother killed her 20-year-old son and then herself at Shoot Straight range in Casselberry, Fla.