Incident and Impact Data
TrainSafe is dedicated to creating a safe range and training environment for all and is passionate about preventing tragedies. In today's environment, safeguarding your business from legal challenges is essential. In the below examples, the need for a program such as TrainSafe is evident. Tragedies like these are impacting the firearms industry for the worse, and TrainSafe is aiming to transform the standard of care in the firearms industry for the better.
Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide | Catherine Barber, Hannah Walters, Thomas Brown, and David Hemenway.
Suicides at Shooting Ranges – 4/28/2020
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Background: Some shooting ranges have adopted policies to prevent suicides at their facilities. Little data has been available to guide them.
Method: We conducted text searches of 63,710 firearm suicides in the 16 states participating in the National Violent Death Reporting System from 2004 to 2015 to identify those occurring at public shooting ranges.
Results: A total of 118 (or 0.18%) occurred at a shooting range, or 0.12 per million population. If that rate held for the nation as a whole, there would have been roughly 35 shooting range suicides per year during the study period. In total, 88% of decedents arrived alone. When gun ownership was noted, 86% of guns were rented from the range. In some cases, people drove to the range and took their lives in the parking lot with their own gun.
Conclusion: Suicides at shooting ranges are rare. Policies that some ranges have adopted – such as allowing rentals only if the person is not alone – are responsive to the actual characteristics of these deaths and could potentially prevent most.
Man kills another man in attempted murder-suicide at DFW gun range – 8/11/2023
Police say a man entered the gun range and fatally shot a man before attempting to take his own life - NBCDFW | Frank Heinz
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One person is dead and another is critically wounded after a shooting Friday afternoon inside a Dallas gun range. Dallas Police confirmed to NBC 5 that officers were called to a shooting at about 5:20 p.m. inside the DFW Gun Range and Academy along Mockingbird Lane.
Preliminary information from police said a man entered the business, shot a man inside, and then turned the gun on himself. The accused gunman was identified by police on Aug. 17 as 25-year-old Austin Tran, who has since been charged with murder.
Man died by suicide at Youngsville gun club, 3rd deadly gun range shooting in 6 months – 11/15/2023
A man died by suicide Wednesday at a shooting range in Youngsville, according to police. - WRAL Brett Knese
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A man died by suicide Wednesday at a shooting range in Youngsville, according to police.
It was the third deadly shooting at a gun range in North Carolina in less than six months.
The Youngsville Police Department and Franklin County Sheriff's Office were investigating a shooting at the Youngsville Gun Club & Range at 132 Franklin Park.
When deputies arrived, they found a 26-year-old man dead from a single self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Scottsdale mother pushes for stricter gun rental process after son’s suicide – 7/8/2023
3TV/CBS 5 | Steven Sarabia
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A Scottsdale mother is pushing for change after she felt it was too easy for her son, who was suffering from mental health issues, to rent a gun at a local gun range and then turn it on himself. “I don’t want this to happen to another family,” said the mother.
She said her son’s life spiraled out of control while he lived across the country. After losing his job, relationship, and continued battles with mental health, he moved back in with her to try and get his life back on track. She felt he had improved but still had mental health struggles.
Things took a dark turn when he went to run an errand but instead walked into the gun range nearby. “He wasn’t in his right mind, he needed help, but he easily went to that gun range, rented a gun and turned it on himself.”
This mother said she’s not anti-gun but has concerns about how someone with severe mental health issues can rent one at a gun range.
The process is different than buying a gun. Arizona’s Family spoke with Arizona gun rights activist and communications director for Arizona Citizens Defense League, Charles Heller, about the process gun ranges take. He said it can vary from place to place. “You present them your ID, they show you the rules, they ask if you have any convictions. There’s a number of questions you have to check off, and then they’ll rent you the gun. They also talk to you about safety at the range,” said Heller.
This mother feels the process to rent at the range should be the same as buying a gun. She felt her son wouldn’t have passed that background check. “He lied on the application probably (at the gun range). He went in there and got a gun.”
Gun-range suicides lead to proposed legislation to require background checks for gun rentals in Virginia – 1/25/2021
Roanoke Times | Amy Friedenberger
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Jon-Christian Carroll was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps last year after showing signs of mental health issues. After he came home, he’d been committed to mental health hospitals, his father said. Carroll, 21, went to Green Top Shooting Range in Hanover County, rented a firearm, and killed himself at the range. That same month, a 27-year-old man took his life at the same range after renting a gun. Green Top didn’t violate any laws by allowing the men to rent a gun.
”The opposition will acknowledge this issue, but it offers no solutions,” said Carroll’s father, Brad.
That’s what Carroll’s parents want to change. They spoke to Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, who is sponsoring a bill to require that gun ranges run background checks on people who want to rent a gun to shoot.
”The situation is that neither of these men would have been able to buy weapons, because of their mental health backgrounds, but they were able to rent a weapon and end their lives,” Deeds said.
Suicides at gun ranges are incredibly rare — typically less than 1% of suicides by firearm each year, according to research from the Harvard School of Public Health’s Injury Control Research Center.
”Research suggests that people who have a plan and are intent on committing suicide, anything
you can do to disrupt that plan, it may end up saving that person’s life,” Deeds said.
D.J. Spiker, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, told the Senate Judiciary Committee, which heard the bill on Monday, that it’s best for gun ranges to develop their own in-house
policies to prevent suicides by firearm.
While a majority of background checks through the Virginia State Police system provide results
within a few minutes, 42% of them conducted last year didn’t give an immediate answer. That means it could be a few hours until approval.