RICHMOND — Jon-Christian Carroll was honorably discharged from the U.S. 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 a gun 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 gun range after renting a gun. The business 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 sponsored 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.
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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 that heard the bill Monday that it’s best for gun ranges to develop their own in-house policies to prevent suicides by firearm.
Mitchell Tyler, co-owner of Safeside Tactical, which operates two gun ranges — in Roanoke and Lynchburg — said Safeside has various measures in place to identify potentially troubled people and not rent or sell them firearms, even if those people could pass a background check.
Tyler said Safeside is part of a group made up of more than two dozen gun ranges across the country, and suicide by firearm is often an issue they discuss. He said policies differ by gun ranges. He said some don’t rent to someone who wants to shoot alone, while others only let range members shoot.
“These are difficult conversations to have, and owners all feel a sense of remorse and sadness, the weight of it,” Tyler said.
Safeside’s staff receives training from Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare about the signs someone may exhibit if they’re not doing well mentally. The business also maintains a list of people not to sell to if they came in and were threatening, for example. Customers or family members can also temporarily add someone mentally struggling to a list so Safeside can be on alert if that person comes in trying to get a gun.
Safeside hasn’t had a case of someone dying by suicide at either of its gun ranges, though there was a suicide at another Roanoke shooting range in September 2014.
A Do Not Sell List is going into effect in July so that people can voluntarily add themselves to a list and prevent themselves from purchasing a firearm.
Tyler said Safeside has rented guns to thousands of people over the past four years. He said a background check on all of those rentals could be a real burden to customers casually coming in to rent guns.
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.
This bill is one of a handful of gun control bills moving through the General Assembly this session. After the Democrat-controlled legislature’s sprint last year to pass laws like expanded background checks and handgun purchases capped to one a month and an attempt to ban military-style weapons, the gun control proposals this session are getting little attention.
Democrats are pushing for a ban on guns that can’t be detected, like plastic 3D-printed guns, and firearms that don’t have serial numbers. Another proposal would extend the waiting period from three to five days for when a gun seller can release a firearm to a purchaser if the background check doesn’t produce a result.
Del. Alfonso Lopez, D-Arlington, said that of the 781,910 background checks performed in Virginia last year, 9,157 resulted in delayed transactions that required additional research by law enforcement. Under current regulations, if an FBI background check takes longer than three business days, a gun dealer can sell the firearm to a buyer.
In 2020, there were no instances in which the dealer released a gun to a purchaser after the three days were up.
Democrats are also backing legislation to allow school boards to establish gun-free zones and ban people from carrying a firearm inside the Virginia Capitol, on the grounds onside the Capitol and any building or parking lot owned or leased by the commonwealth.
“Political discourse should be a free exchange of ideas,” said Lori Haas, Virginia director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. “Armed intimidation has no place in the political process.”