http://ocregister.com/local/shot00731cci.shtml

Tuesday, July 31, 2001

Woman commits suicide at gun range, police say
The 21-year-old had rented a weapon at Firing Line in Huntington Beach.

July 31, 2001

By DEBBIE TALANIAN
The Orange County Register

HUNTINGTON BEACH A woman committed suicide Sunday at an indoor shooting range where she had gone with her boyfriend, police said.

Le Uyen Thi Tran, 21, was in a shooting booth when she shot herself in the head about 8:30 p.m. with a handgun she had rented at Firing Line, 17921 Jamestown Lane, deputy coroner Larry Esslinger said.

Tran, a student living in Anaheim, was pronounced dead at 9:30 p.m. at Huntington Beach Hospital, Esslinger said. Suicides like Tran's happen once or twice each year at Orange County shooting ranges, he said.

Gary Grassfield, a Firing Line employee, said all customers who check out guns sign a waiver absolving the business of liability. He also said Firing Line requires a three-hour training class for people with no weapons experience. Grassfield said there are no state laws that require such training.

The business has trained employees to recognize if someone is acting like a novice. Employees have turned away several people who seemed to lack experience, he said.

Grassfield declined to comment on Tran's suicide.

Sgt. Steve Johnson, a Huntington Beach police spokesman, said the motive for the suicide is under investigation.

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 Copyright 2001
The Orange County Register
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Standing there with her boyfriend, that was a spur of the moment.

We need to ban ranges.  I mean come on, it is for the children.

hopefully her or her guy had enough money on them to cover the cleanup cost as well as lost business. I'm sure everyone else had to quit firing and they couldn't take on any new customers until all the badge wearing types were out of there. and the gun too, I'm sure it's going to be stol...taken as evidence of some kind or another..

A knife or a rope or a window or a firearm.............Ban them allll!!!!

Great, just what we need. You can guarantee that the national media won't pick up on the gun range's safety course.

themao [chainsawkill]

At least it wouldn't be quite as messy.

This use to happen at the old range I go to over there. On Target in Mission Viejo. I seem to recall that in 1 year they had like 2-3 do this. Always during the holiday. What sucks about this is that CA lawmakers will use this as a case for pushing more laws about taking classes. Pretty soon you would need to go to class for a day, then pass a psyche test, then have a form signed by the CLEO of your city/county just to buy a firearm.

At least she didn't try to kill her BF and everyone else in the building first.  Of course, on a target range she wouldn't get far doing that.

I can imagine the conversation "You're leaving me for a round-eyed blonde!?!  I'll show you!  Don't laugh - you're next!"

Sorry.  Couldn't help trying a little levity.

That is the range I go to! I guess its a good thing I wasn't there today.

Sheesh, I've shot at that place too, along with my sister who said that's the second such incident in the past year. Not only are these suicide cases idiots, they're cowards. [V]

Thats why guns are so so very very BAD!

Idiots need to start using spoons to kill themselves instead of firearms!

damn thats where i learned how to shoot a handgun and where my dad took me with my 10/22 when i was a kid

That's happened up here once or twice before.  First time, someone rented a handgun and then shot themself in the chest.  The second time, some guy bought a gun, waited the two-day waiting period, took it to the range, and then shot himself through the skull with the last of a box of ammo.

Guess both situations were quite a mess on the range.

Mike

I don't know.  Maybe we could set up a special booth in each and every range for whack-jobs like these.
Film at 11.
Kinda takes the stigma right out of it...

We must close the gun range loophole!  It allows obviously suicidal people to kill themselves.  We it not for that range, that young woman would still be alive.  I am absolutely convinced that she would not have jumped off a bridge, stepped in front of a train, or overdosed on pills.  People who rent guns should be subject to the same background checks as people who buy them!

You are an idiot, why don't you go and hang yourself?

If she knew that she was gonna do this, why the heck didn't she help the range out, and BUY the gun?  It's not like she was going to ever see the VISA bill, right?

I can't speak about this women but one should not assume that everyone that commits suicide is an idiot or coward.  It is easy to make these assumptions but in most cases people kill themselves because the suffer from serve depression or other mental illnesses.

I had a family member that committed suicide. I can assure you that he was neither a coward or an idiot.  This man served his country in combat as a Navy Field Corpsman,  completing physical challenges that Marines in his unit failed to complete.  He scored in the top 5% on his ASBAV and attended a university on a scholarship.  He was possibly the strongest willed person with unquestionable integrity that I have ever known. I can't think of another person I would have wanted by my side if I was in a dangerous situation.  Although this man was strong he succumbed to mental illness.  

I feel that many of you would not have lasted as long as he did under a similar situation.

I belong to the Firing Line range. I was actually planning to go there last night but a last minute problem at work kept me away. Very weird feeling. . .

Never mind, I just reread that it was Sunday.

Shorty

[edited because I sometimes post before I read]

I wish their were more people like us out there.

JIMBEAM---
I'm sorry you lost a loved one to mental illness.  
I think the illness is that these folks don't seek the help they need.  They end up dying lonley in a crowd.  Obviously, they are NOT thinking of anyone else but themselves when they take their own life.

There was a cousin of mine in the family that took his own life with a .22 rifle when he was about 18.  I don't remember anything about it, because I was too young.  But, it does happen.

An employee I used to work with took his own life, and there were some really strange things going on in this guys head, too.  He had some fantastic happenings going on brought about by his own self.  When I heard about it from one of the other guys I'd worked with, I could understand how the guy might have thought it was the only way out...Wow!

Bottom line is: it ain't ever worth it.  Kinda final.