Following this text is a copy of an L.A. Times article on Monday about a suicide at the Agoura Hills Target Range. Tonight at 6-7pm PDT on radio station KFI, 640 AM in Los Angeles, the suicide victim's family will be on for 1/2 hour followed by Jim Davis, owner of the range, for 1/2 hour. Listen in and support Jim. He operates a fine range and is a good guy. There have been four suicides at the range since 1995, while in the same time period at two local hotels there have been 13 and 16 suicides. Jim is tough on everyone, but you can't stop someone who is determined from committing a crime or suicide.
Can someone post this to subguns.com? For some reason my IP (Compuserve) has been blocked by Tom Bowers. I'm trying to correct that, but they need to support Jim Davis also.
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Monday, May 28, 2001 | Print this story
Gun Rental Restrictions Urged
Safety: Couple's mentally ill son killed himself at a shooting range.
Owners say they do all they can to prevent tragedies.
By NOAKI SCHWARTZ, Times Staff Writer
On a summer morning last July, a pale and shaking Bobby Prince told
his parents he was going for cigarettes. He climbed into his white
Bronco and headed south, past the stream he caught bass in as a boy, and
rolled onto the Ventura Freeway. Five miles down the road, he stopped
under the ticking clock tower at the Agoura Hills Target Range.
Prince, 31, marked a single passage in his Bible and tucked it into
the console. Then he walked into the range, rented a shotgun and killed
himself. The clock's hands rested at 10:10 a.m. It was the fourth
suicide at the range since 1995.
The tragedy could have been prevented, his parents say, if the owner
had conducted a background check and learned that their eldest son was a
paranoid-schizophrenic who had been arrested several times. Although his
arrest record and illness prevented him from buying a gun, he could rent
one for $10.
Range owner Jim Davis insists that Prince was a trusted, regular
customer who never gave any indication of instability. "He seemed fine,"
Davis said.
Suicides with rented guns have plagued shooting ranges across the
nation for years, although there are no comprehensive statistics. In Los
Angeles County, at least 12 suicides have been reported at ranges since
1995. The problem has caused many range proprietors to insist that
customers either use their own licensed guns or, if they rent, to bring
a companion. Others have stopped renting guns.
Prince's parents, Rosemary and Robert, say those safeguards aren't
enough. They want the Agoura Hills City Council to require ranges to
conduct background checks on first-time renters through the state
Department of Justice. The council is expected to take up the matter
within the next few weeks. The Princes say they then want to take their
fight to the county Board of Supervisors and even the Legislature.
"We don't want to close the range down and aren't suggesting that
guns don't have a place in the world," said Rosemary Prince, 58, at her
Westlake Village home.
"But would you take a 2-year-old child and let them make decisions
for themselves?," said Robert Prince, 60. "Ill people are no different .
. . they don't think they're mentally ill."
Part 2 follows.