Suicide by gun.
A little over 10 years ago my fathers live in girl friend killed herself with his gun. I'm not posting this to elicit any kind of sympathy, but just to tell a story about what happened concerning the gun shot. My father owned a snub-nosed .38 caliber revolver among many other guns. The 38 was the gun his girlfriend used to end her life. My father was a sleep, or passed-out is more likely. He had a major drinking problem and died from it back in 2006. Anyway, his girlfriend took the revolver and sat in a chair. The chair was kind of like a love seat for one person, or a section of couch if you will. It had a wooden frame all around and a large pillow type cushion as the back rest. She was sitting in the living room in the front of the townhouse with her back toward the front window. She took the gun and placed the barrel against her chest and fired. The round passed through her heart and killed her instantly from what the police had said. There was almost no blood at all when I got there later that night. After the round went through her it passed through the pillow, and the wooden frame on the back of the chair. It then went through the window and into a large ficus hedge. The round kept on going out across the yard, and it crossed the street. The police found it up in the front yard of the neighbors house across the street. There's really nothing good about this story, but it could have been much worse. Had someone been walking down the street at the time the gun went off, they too could have been seriously injured or even killed. I always cringe when someone tells me that they need a handgun for 'home protection'. If you squeeze the trigger, then you are responsible for the full trajectory of that round. You might 'shoot the bad guy', but you might also do serious harm to a loved one, or a neighbor who happens to be anywhere close by. Bullets can ricochet off of bones and end up going in all sorts of unintended directions. I was raised with guns in my home. I don't really ever remember not having them. My younger brother almost killed me with the same .38 way back in 1970 when I was 7, and he was only 5. Having a gun in your home only increases the chances that you or someone that you love will be shot. Guns are only good for protection if you are walking around on patrol, and ready to fire. Even then, you don't want to shoot if you live in a densely populated area. I have read that some folks think that suicide by gun should not be counted as a gun related death. I know two people that have killed themselves with guns, and I have to say I disagree. Having lived almost all of my 52 years with guns in my home, they never made me feel any safer. Guns were never a form of protection for me, they were just my dad's very dangerous toys.
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thank you
