Mother shoots son in head at shooting range.

[gorfle]

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/315083.html

Mother with mental health issues takes aim with a rented revolver at a shooting range and blows her son's head off, then kills herself.

[madinmaryland]

1. Sad. Mental Illness is a horrible and insidious disease. It sounds

like there may have been an issue with her actually being in the shooting range.

[skooooo]

2. self delete

brain not in gear yet

[rl6214]

3. From what I hear

These shooting range rental suicides, and this one combines a homocide as well are becoming more prevelent as our economy sinks lower and lower. I think any rental needs to be 100% supervised but maybe that would just get the range supervisor shot. Who knows what goes on in the head of a crazy person.

[Peregrine]

5. I've been to that range

The range is separated from the retail floor by ballistic glass and there are surveillance cameras watching over all of the firing positions. The guys working at gun shops/ranges are very alert--not many businesses that have a lot of what bad guys want permit everybody to come in armed.

[baldguy]

4. And there was an armed guy standing *right next to her* who was unable to stop her.

Sort of shoots down to whole CCW argument. (No pun intended.)

[Peregrine]

6. And if you'd have been able to ask he guy before hand

What he would do if someone shot another person at the range? His answer would have been much different than run for the exit (as he did).

[baldguy]

8. If a person carrying a weapon for "protection" isn't able or willing to act

when the opportunity arises - What's the point of CCW laws?

[rl6214]

9. Not being there

I would assume (I know, don't assume things or you will make....You know the rest) anyway, I would assume she suddenly shot her son with no warning then turned the gun on herself. Not a whole lot can be done about that regardless of the weapon. Now if she had attempted to go on a shooting rampage, I don't think that would have ended too well for her, although it didn't end too well for her anyway.

[gorfle]

11. What would you do?

Once you turn around and find two people have had their brains blown out, what else is there to do but run for the door to get help?

[baldguy]

13. I'm not under the delusion that i could stop a murder in progress without prior warning.

21st century America isn't the Wild West, no matter how much the NRA and GOP spends on propaganda to make you believe it is.

[gorfle]

14. Many examples have already refuted your point of view

People do successfully resist criminals, even when the criminals "have the drop on them." There was an example posted here very recently of an elderly couple who were being held at gunpoint with one of the criminals having a gun to his wife's head. He drew his weapon and shot the criminal. Neither he nor his wife were injured.

[Tim01]

7. Clubbing someone to death at a baseball game would be just as easy.

Gunfire is normal at a shooting range.
Of course it took people by surprise when she took about 2 seconds to murder and suicide. Everybody was shooting guns at targets.

If the range had been filled with cops it would have been the same result.

[gorfle]

10. Hard to react to what you can't see.

Since he was on the other side of a dividing wall with his back turned to the shooter it's kind of absurd to expect he could have done anything.

Even a shooting range full of police officers could not have done anything in this case. Does this mean that it shoots down the whole police argument? Of course not. Same thing for CCW permit holders. There have been a ton of examples where CCW permit holders have been able to respond to deadly threats. Just because there are some cases where it is not possible to resist does not mean the whole concept of being prepared for those instances where resistance is possible is invalid.

[ManiacJoe]

15. You are using the right words

but not thinking it through.

CCW is a reactionary system. You see something bad happen, then you react to it. In this case, you hear the mom shoot the son, you determine that something sounded abnormal (since you are visually blocked), you visually investigate, the mom shoots self, you deploy your weapon to defend yourself.

Unfortunately for the son, the legal system requires CCW to be reactionary, which means that the first person shot is usually not savable due to the element of surprise. In this case, by the time you have determined that an assumed-Good-Guy has turned into a Bad Guy, the Bad Guy has already ended the encounter.

Plus, CCW is not a guarantee of a successful outcome for the defender. CCW just increases the odds of success by making another tool available for escaping the encounter.

[Hangingon]

16. That is a ridiculous statement.

The guy is in a shielded lane, wearing ear/eye protection and concentrating on his own shooting. It says nothing about the CCW argument. There should have been better range supervision. The adjacent shooter, if he was aware of her actions, could have taken other action than shooting the mother.

[Xela]

12. Read somewhere...

...that some rangemasters wear body armour just in case.

Sometimes I've thought about that myself considering the unsafe handling that goes on at the range sometimes. Eeeek.

Xela