“At 11:02 he went and bought a gun. Was out of the store by 11:30 and he was dead by 3 or 3:30.”

[RHJJ]

With very few exceptions, you'll never truly know why. Maybe it was a bad upbringing and long coming. Maybe it was a perfect upbringing and a day of loneliness. Maybe it was a call for help and was supposed to stop somewhere short of the extreme. Maybe it was somewhere between all of it. Anyone that claims one extreme or another is a fool.

Bingo

 

[10thSFFD]

Should we trade Vermont to Canada?

 

[enbloc]

I'm just glad he didn't go to a rental gun range and do it.

 

[oldguy68]

Maybe there should be a waiting period to be able to reproduce.

 

[Glockster30]

Should we trade Vermont to Canada?

No, VT is too nice. Just give Canada the VT liberals.

 

[Varmint]

I think that if you are going to commit suicide... Seppuku is the only honorable way...

If I had to dress like that every day I'd probably take the honorable way out.

 

[RHJJ]

Maybe there should be a waiting period to be able to reproduce.

Like 60 years

 

[Frizzle Fry]

Should gun shop owners/staff take it upon themselves to get some "how to recognize mental illness/distraught individuals training" for self preservation from lawsuits, social hate, etc.,? I'm not advocating for any reporting, just recognizing that this person at the counter is showing signs of X,Y,Z and then pause on the sale. I know they already have full discretion to sell to whomever. Would this open them to more legal action if an odd ball slipped though?

The margin on firearms is low enough that it's not a "make a sale" situation most of the time anyway... but yeah when people come in and act a little too weird they're asked to leave or given an excuse, in fact here in MA most of the weirdos don't have an LTC in my experience. Doesn't happen often, but I know I'm not the only one whose done it - and it's not about specific risks so much as bad vibes. Also 86 the odd person, here and there, for a variety of reasons.

Suicide is awful, but it's a voluntary self-inflicted act. I don't want to say "not my problem" but guess what the only culpable party is the one pulling the trigger. Once you assert that gun shops are trying to evaluate mental health, or should be evaluating mental health, you're opening up a whole world of responsibilities and risks which don't belong there - not any more than they belong at a car dealership or a store that sells kitchen supplies.

 

[10thSFFD]

Suicide should be banned!

 

[Lip]

So much bs with this article, my pro 2a son who was battling with an intestinal issue and recent depression killed himself with his 1911 last year. It wasn't the damn gun it was the fn drugs the "doctors" supplied. The gun was just the tool.

 

[Fritz the Cat]

Maybe there should be a waiting period to be able to reproduce.

And a license. You need a license to fish but not to parent.

 

[Fritz the Cat]

So much bs with this article, my pro 2a son who was battling with an intestinal issue and recent depression killed himself with his 1911 last year. It wasn't the damn gun it was the fn drugs the "doctors" supplied. The gun was just the tool.

Full of bs

 

[Lip]

Full of bs

I lost it for several months. He did it before the August car shoot. He loved the car shoots, arron, the marks( monadnock, msant) and strangely Boris. He loved that shovel ak.....

 

[Cowgirlup]

I did not know this:

Vermont suicide rates far outpace nation's - VTDigger

Right-to-Die Law Passes in Vermont

Vermont has a right to die law. Maybe some terminally ill people just want to skip the physician assisted part. I've heard many people in that situation there just talk the long final walk in the woods. That might contribute to the higher statistics.

 

[Fritz the Cat]

I lost it for several months. He did it before the August car shoot. He loved the car shoots, arron, the marks( monadnock, msant) and strangely Boris. He loved that shovel ak.....

Until you've been there, you have no idea.
Some people need to engage their brain before operating their mouth

 

[Lip]

Until you've been there, you have no idea.
Some people need to engage their brain before operating their mouth

????

 

[Glockster30]

So much bs with this article, my pro 2a son who was battling with an intestinal issue and recent depression killed himself with his 1911 last year. It wasn't the damn gun it was the fn drugs the "doctors" supplied. The gun was just the tool.

Very sorry to read this about your son.

 

[Fritz the Cat]

????

Sorry, still annoyed with people talking without thinking. I lost six good friends over the years and my father last year, all to suicide.

 

[Lip]

Sorry, still annoyed with people talking without thinking. I lost six good friends over the years and my father last year, all to suicide.

I blame .Gov and the f***ed up hepa laws.i was down near walpole when he did it. Got to drive up to Nashua to I'd him. The ma**h*** doc escapes all responsibility.

 

[Varmint]

So much bs with this article, my pro 2a son who was battling with an intestinal issue and recent depression killed himself with his 1911 last year. It wasn't the damn gun it was the fn drugs the "doctors" supplied. The gun was just the tool.

It is unfortunately another “follow the money” issue. Mental health drugs are a multi billion dollar business.

 

[Waher]

It is unfortunately another “follow the money” issue. Mental health drugs are a multi billion dollar business.

A large number of mass shooters the past decade have been on meds. The high rate of suicide for middle aged men, which hasn't gone down much despite the booming economy, is thought to be linked to statins. Americans are obsessed with quick fix pills and that is killing large numbers of people each year due to the poorly understood side effects of some of these drugs.

 

[dingbat]

So much bs with this article, my pro 2a son who was battling with an intestinal issue and recent depression killed himself with his 1911 last year. It wasn't the damn gun it was the fn drugs the "doctors" supplied. The gun was just the tool.

So sorry to hear that. Neither your son, you, or your family deserve that.
You're not wrong about the drugs. Some of the prescribing of pharmaceuticals happening these days is uncontainable. I experienced it myself when I had a shoulder injury. Went from being a generally happy guy to feeling homicidal/suicidal in less than two weeks of being on a script to curb a nerve pain. Fortunately realized something wasn't right and flushed that shit down the toilet. No longer homicidal/suicidal by any means but never recovered my previous level of happiness, feeling of being safe, secure, etc. I'd like to see the stupid bitch that prescribed me that crap in jail.

 

[Qwikdraw45]

No, VT is too nice. Just give Canada the VT liberals.

Yes! Vermont for Quebec; we'll throw in NY for good measure.

 

[walking wolf]

So much bs with this article, my pro 2a son who was battling with an intestinal issue and recent depression killed himself with his 1911 last year. It wasn't the damn gun it was the fn drugs the "doctors" supplied. The gun was just the tool.

My sympathies. No parent should have to bury their child. Ever. I don't agree with this boy's parents, but I understand their actions. I hope someday they realize that the gun was not the problem.

Neither suicide nor bad parenting are left/right issues IMHO. As for the drugs question, there is a reason I flatly refuse to have any addictive or psychoactive drug in my house. Any drug can have side effects, and any drug that works on the central nervous system (including painkillers) is almost guaranteed to have side effects. We know much less about the human brain than we think we do.

 

[VTski4x4]

I'm very interested to see how this whole story unfolds. I went to SMC which is in Winooski (town over from Essex Junction). EJ is a nice town, very close to Burlington. Fairly wealthy for Vermont, plenty of local opportunities. This person was either in need of serious mental help, or something was going to (or did) ruin their life.

 

[meh]

Yes, of course the method of suicide is immaterial. However, the voluntary aspect of suicide isn't always so clear. The way we look at the world and each other presupposes that our brains are more or less working correctly. I once had to explain every line of complicated mathematical code because it was going into the controller of something very important for safety reasons. The C code was automatically generated from a higher level language, and it turned out in that process of conversion that there were a few sections of "dead code", code that could not be reached. Normally the code generator eliminates dead code, but sometimes it has to leave it in because it isn't smart enough to prove that it's dead code. It isn't sure that this code can't be reached, whereas through some logical cleverness or other, we can see that this is so. The dead code required some special documentation in the software safety certification process, in part because there's no way to write a test that tests what it does. They asked me what would happen if that code was actually executed. My only response was that if it executes, something very bad has already happened. Imagine, if you will, a brain that for whatever reason finds itself in a configuration that it never should have been in, never would have been in if it were healthy and unimpaired. Something bad has happened to it. Can we be sure of the choices we would make in that state? How can we know? I tend to agree that "suicide victim" is an oxymoron, but a person who commits suicide may well be a victim of something else, whatever created the state of mind that led to it. The key to reducing suicides has to be in controlling those effects. If the problem-solving parts of the brain are working, the person will find a way, regardless of what tools are readily available. It's not like they don't commit suicide in prison.

 

[drgrant]

Yes, of course the method of suicide is immaterial. However, the voluntary aspect of suicide isn't always so clear. The way we look at the world and each other presupposes that our brains are more or less working correctly. I once had to explain every line of complicated mathematical code because it was going into the controller of something very important for safety reasons. The C code was automatically generated from a higher level language, and it turned out in that process of conversion that there were a few sections of "dead code", code that could not be reached. Normally the code generator eliminates dead code, but sometimes it has to leave it in because it isn't smart enough to prove that it's dead code. It isn't sure that this code can't be reached, whereas through some logical cleverness or other, we can see that this is so. The dead code required some special documentation in the software safety certification process, in part because there's no way to write a test that tests what it does. They asked me what would happen if that code was actually executed. My only response was that if it executes, something very bad has already happened. Imagine, if you will, a brain that for whatever reason finds itself in a configuration that it never should have been in, never would have been in if it were healthy and unimpaired. Something bad has happened to it. Can we be sure of the choices we would make in that state? How can we know? I tend to agree that "suicide victim" is an oxymoron, but a person who commits suicide may well be a victim of something else, whatever created the state of mind that led to it.

Very good point I was about to mention a similar thing I think it might be more appropriate to say that this kid might be a victim of mental illness (eg something that, with treatment, may have restored his will to live) versus a suicide victim. On the other hand you have people like Hunter S Thompson who pretty much took his life voluntarily due to his physical illness... or people who get assisted suicide because they're getting early onset Alzheimer's or some other brain wasting disease.. that kind of thing....

 

[ridleyman]

"he was a “rabid fan” of the Montreal Canadiens, according to his obituary."

Case Closed.

So, if he had rabies he was gonna die anyway!

 

[babygorilla]

A classmate, that I taught to shoot, used a firearm stolen from his step dad to commit suicide. I don't blame the gun, or myself. I blame Stevie's taking the chickenshit way out of life. He was 20.

 

[lowbuckbob]

"It’s not that the Blacks are opposed to gun ownership in general. They say they support the Second Amendment."

They always say that...