Suicide At Pflugerville Firing Range Was 3rd In 5 Years

PFLUGERVILLE, TEXAS — The suicide that occurred at a Pflugerville firing range earlier this month was the third such self-inflicted death to occur there in five years, Patch has learned.

Police responded to Red's Indoor Range North, 1908 W. Pecan St., on Aug. 19 amid reports of a shooting. Upon arrival, police found a man dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound and later ruled the death a suicide.

Residents' reactions to the news prompted Patch to request information of police related to similar shootings at the shooting range in the past five years. Some on Facebook neighborhood groups observed how the site has become an increasingly common place for those intent on suicide to carry out their final act.

According to information secured via a state open records request, the man who killed himself at the range earlier this month was identified as Jay Lee, 32. The man killed himself using a Glock .19, according to information provided by police.

Lee was the third person since 2013 choosing the venue to end his life. According to the police-provided information, David Ryther, 24, used a Glock .17 9 mm handgun to end his life at the firing range on Nov. 10, 2015. Two years before, Samuel Havins, 20, ended his life at the same location on Jan. 18, 2013, through the use of a Smith & Wesson Model 63 revolver.

All three deaths subsequently were ruled suicides, according to the information provided by police. The suicide death count could be higher, but Patch limited the information request to the last five years.

There is also a Red's Indoor Gun Range in South Austin located off U.S. 290 near William Cannon Drive. On May 5, 2016, police were called to that location amid reports of an attempted suicide there.

Related stories:

Person Dies In Pflugerville Indoor Firing Range Shooting

Police Respond To Suicide Attempt At South Austin Gun Range

While suicides at shooting ranges are relatively rare, such incidents point to a gaping loophole related to handling firearms that may facilitate such action. While federal law requires a background check to purchase a gun, no such provisions are required to rent one.

According to a report in Fusion, rentals make up roughly 80 percent of the revenue most shooting ranges take in, making the sector difficult to eliminate. Even if background checks at shooting ranges were mandatory, Fusion reported, states aren't required to submit mental health records to the National Instant Background Check System, " ... leaving an opportunity for many people who are potentially suicidal or mentally ill to pass through.".

Suicides at firing ranges have prompted many to adopt policies to prevent such incidents, Catherine Barber, an expert on suicide and violent death from the Harvard School of Public Health’s Injury Control Research Center, told the Boston Globe two years ago.

According to the report, Barber combed through records in the National Violent Death Reporting System, a database maintained by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to assess the firing-range suicide toll nationwide.

The upshot: Among 16 states that submit records for the database, there were 51 suicides at a public shooting range in the six-year span from 2005 through 2010. Barber acknowledged her analysis may have missed some suicides at gun ranges, the Globe noted, as she searched for certain key terms within the narratives of the reports, later reading through them to verify the accounts. Barber also excluded cases at police firing ranges or at target shooting areas found in people’s homes.

But she said her methodology likely captured most, if not all, cases.

A January 2014 article by the Orange County Register found that between 2000 and 2012, there were 64 suicides at shooting ranges in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties in California, according to the report. California was among the states excluded in Barber's analysis as the state did not report such data to the CDC.

Texas is not among the states participating in the National Violent Death Reporting System by providing data, according to the CDC. In 2016, the CDC received funding to expand the system to a total of 40 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The database collects information about violent deaths, such as homicides, suicides, and deaths where individuals are killed by law enforcement in the line of duty, according to the CDC website.

Additionally, "NVDRS gathers information about unintentional firearm injury deaths and on deaths where the intent cannot be determined, although these deaths are not considered violent deaths by the above definition," the page reads.

In addition to seeing suicides, gun ranges have also been the site of fatal accidents, murders, and other violence, the Boston Globe noted in its report.

Patch reached out to Red's Indoor Range North to determine if there are any policies in place there to prevent suicides. A man who answered the phone said he would have one of the managers call back, but the call was not immediately returned.

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