How many knew someone killed by guns?

[John Smith]

I knew a boy in my high school that I hung with some who dropped a gun he was cleaning, and it killed him. I was among those who carried his coffin.

Two friends and co-workers were murdered in a sub station of my post office.

A few friends of friends that I didn't know well were killed.

[amish rob]

And seen it. More than a few times.

[Old Dryfoot]

When I was 15 a friend of mine killed himself with a shotgun.

[CWSmith]

And seen it. More than a few times.

Rob, I honestly wish I did not believe you. Nobody should carry that memory with them. I hope you have managed to exorcise those demons and images.

[Paul Pless]

multiple suicides
multiple homicides

[TomF]

2 suicides. Didn't know either of them well, but knew their extended family.

[amish rob]

Rob, I honestly wish I did not believe you. Nobody should carry that memory with them. I hope you have managed to exorcise those demons and images.

Well, I wish it weren’t true. I do my best, like everyone else. The fresh ones still bother me, but they fade, in my experience.

They seem to resurface at odd times, but they fade and fade.

[Canoez]

Several.

Some by accident.
Some by suicide.
Some by homicide.

[Clarkey]

I have never seen a gun outside of a range except in the hands of armed police or a shotgun being carried by a farmer. I certainly don't know anyone who has been shot.

[David Tabor (sailordave)]

2 suicides and the boy that sat next to me in homeroom 9th grade was shot and killed by his best friend.

[Too Little Time]

Too many in a war in the 60's and 70's.

[Gordon Bartlett]

Several suicides and one homicide.

[Peerie Maa]

For a Forum with so few members online that is an appallingly large number.

[Nicholas Scheuer]

^^^

[TomF]

For a Forum with so few members online that is an appallingly large number.

Yes.

In Canada in the 90s at least when I worked in the field, rates of suicides and homicides tracked with the presence of firearms (legally or otherwise) in the household. Appalling stats at that point especially for women who died in the context of abusive domestic relationships, and the household had one or more firearms.

The 2 people who I knew who committed suicide via gunshot used shotguns their respective families used for duck hunting.

[CWSmith]

I have never seen a gun ... except in the hands of armed police ....

"armed police"?! I wish that were not a redundant statement in the US, but it would be.

[Joe (SoCal)]

Renee's brother, jury is still out whether it was an accident or suicide. The memory still haunts her.

Me personally, I can't think of anyone at this time.

[Art Haberland]

I had a nephew who killed himself with his father's pistol. Took it to school and shot himself in the heart, when that didn't kill him fast enough, he swallowed the barrel. His Mother, my sister, was out here when it happened. Her screams of anguish will live with me for a very long time.

[Keith Wilson]

None I knew personally. One suicide that my daughter knew, but I didn't really.

I think the thread is a variation on one I posted asking whether people had ever needed to use a gun in self-defense.

[George.]

And seen it. More than a few times.

And you have had to use guns in self-defense. Sounds like central cal is a real hellhole.

[amish rob]

And you have had to use guns in self-defense. Sounds like central cal is a real hellhole.

You don’t know what I’ve done, so don’t ascribe actions to me.

You can also take your troll act elsewhere.

[TomF]

I dunno Keith's intent, but for my part it's been instructive.

In my part of the world, and particularly in my socioeconomic circles, there's a cultural view that firearms are mostly unnecessary for personal safety - and usually actually present a false sense of security to folks who own them for that purpose. And that instead, the firearms will end up being used with lethal effect which has nothing to do with personal safety.


What the 2 threads have done for me is challenge the first view - by hearing a bunch of examples of how firearm use or mere ownership has kept a person safer than they'd have otherwise been ... or would have done, if they'd had one.

While reinforcing the second view by providing a rather shocking sampling of fatalities which are a direct result of guns being present. And FWIW, while I slightly knew 2 people who'd killed themselves with shotguns, I'm much more closely connected to 4 others who've been actively suicidal at different points in their lives, and made serious and focused attempts. Which they survived.

Three of them because they unintentionally vomited up monstrous quantities of pills, etc., and one because his mother forgot something and came back into the house after starting to drive away. And found her son passed out in the basement hanging from his belt, but not yet dead.

All 4 of those folks who attempted suicide but failed are now glad that they're still here. But they're here because the means they chose to end their lives was less reliable.

[George.]

You don’t know what I’ve done, so don’t ascribe actions to me.

You can also take your troll act elsewhere.

I didn't ascribe actions to you - I commented on things you told us happened to you, and on what that might imply about the are where you live.

Why post stuff in The Bilge and then get upset when you get a response?

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

One suicide
Two Homicides

Do failed suicide attempts count?

[David W Pratt]

None, I'm afraid. Maybe I should get out more.

[TomF]

Once again, this is really raw stuff. Very hard to talk about in person, let alone in pixels where all the non-verbal cues are missing. Please consider some more-than-usual sensitivity, OK?

What seems like a playful and innocuous bit of black humour for folks like me whose experience of such things has been actual but kinda distanced ... well, it would be different if I'd actually had the blood on my hands and clothes, eh? Some images, some experiences, they lie in wait for a person.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

The schoolmaster I most admired, and who went on to become a good friend and mentor, killed himself with a shotgun. He had been treated for depression, but everyone thought he was over it. This was in England in the Seventies. This is his copy of Paul Nash’s “Landscape of the Vernal Equinox”.

[Keith Wilson]

And you have had to use guns in self-defense. Sounds like central cal is a real hellhole.

Not particularly, but Rob was involved in some very unpleasant stuff when he was young; accident of circumstances. He posted about it before, then thought better and deleted it.

My point in asking the initial question was pure curiosity. Guns are a very, very contentious issue in the US, and it seem that nothing divides people on left-right lines as much as that, so I wanted to know what people's actual experience was. Of course it's only the WBF, a small non-representative sample. I think one factor is that most people posting here are older, and crime rates have fallen pretty dramatically in the US over the past 30 years.

[skuthorp]

Great kid I knew in the scouts became an amed robber, shot a policeman, was killed in another shootout.

I still cannot fathom what turned Ian to that.

[White River]

Someone I went to high school with was shot and killed in a drug deal gone bad. He was in his late thirties at the time. I guess he literally dodged the bullet until he didn't. He had been dealing drugs since high school. Still tragic and senseless.

[John Smith]

I had forgotten about a high school teacher. I was in none of his classes, but he killed himself a couple of years after I graduated.

I had no idea what results this thread would bring, and I've been not pleasantry surprised. Seems being pro-life and being pro-gun are contradictory stances.

[Reynard38]

4 suicides. One homicide.

[Bobby of Tulsa]

I have stuffed more body bags, and held more boys bleeding out than I care to remember.

[ERGR]

I've searched my memory but still cannot remember knowing anyone who's been killed by guns, not even knowing anyone who has talked about knowing anyone who was killed by guns.
There's gun homicide in Sweden, but typically between gang members in suburbs I never visit and in social circuits that are far away from me. To my knowledge, guns are not the first choice for suicide here.

We've 23 registered guns per 100 persons, and it's quite easy for criminals to get illegal guns, so the low gun homicide rate isn't because of unavailability.

/Erik

[bob winter]

I've known two or three that committed suicide by shotgun but I have never seen the actual act.