Old friend suicide...

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gnappi

gnappi

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Years ago (in the 90's) I shot fairly regularly with several co-workers. One was rather inexperienced and had some ratty revolver. He asked if he could try some on my pistols (a Sig P229 in 40/.357 and Beretta 96D also in .40) and while he could not hit the barn with his revolver (Rossi?) he did very well (after some instruction) with my two pistols.

Over a year or so he badgered me to buy my Sig, and eventually I sold it to him (and had seller's remorse immediately) and after a while I also sold him my Beretta. This 96D was was mystifying in the fact that it was supremely accurate, more so than any pistol I'd owned to that point. It regularly won me buckazoids at a local pin match. I also had seller's remorse and asked him to sell one or both back to me... no dice he said they were both lifetime keepers. Nuts... :-(

Anyway, fast forward to long after IBM disposing of our division, I come to find out that he killed himself with with one of my pistols and since I bought them new I expected a trace from the manufacturer to bring them back to me or at least inquired as suspected stolen, but no, I never had a contact with police on it.

Sad but true... Even though it was over 20 years ago that I sold them to him, it bummed me out to know he committed suicide, worse still with one of my old firearms. It gives me pause to selling any firearms to friends.
 
It's all but impossible to know what is going on in a persons mind or whatever life changes in the intervening years impacted his decision. None of this is on you and you should not take it so personally. Yeah easy for me to say rite. If way back then you would have had red flags that made you question those sales that would be different. I have known a couple individuals that did this and NOBODY had a clue either one would do it. Oh and one did it using a car not a gun.
 
gnappi said:
anyway, fast forward to long after IBM disposing of our division, I come to find out that he killed himself with with one of my pistols and since I bought them new I expected a trace from the manufacturer to bring them back to me or at least inquired as suspected stolen, but no, I never had a contact with police on it.

Sad but true... Even though it was over 20 years ago that I sold them to him, it bummed me out to know he committed suicide, worse still with one of my old firearms. It gives me pause to selling any firearms to friends.
Click to expand...

Well, if it were a gun that I had liked then sold to them it would bum me out as well if they later shot themselves with it.

BUT, there was a 20+ year difference in time between the sale and the deed. My gosh, anything could have happened over such a large expanse of time. Don't beat yourself up about it.
 
gnappi said:
and since I bought them new I expected a trace from the manufacturer to bring them back to me or at least inquired as suspected stolen, but no, I never had a contact with police on it.
Click to expand...
In the case of suicide, when/if arms are returned, it's to the direct family.
Very seldom are the arms used ever traced--since they are typically already known to the family. Surviving family often just tells LE to keep the arms and dispose of them.

Long time friend of mine ruined his mint python by suicide, his widow sold it to a pawn shop. Later she returned to me a 1911 I had sold him. These items can carry 'weight' with them. We each have to carry the burdens we have; just part of life.
 
gnappi said:
Years ago (in the 90's) I shot fairly regularly with several co-workers. One was rather inexperienced and had some ratty revolver. He asked if he could try some on my pistols (a Sig P229 in 40/.357 and Beretta 96D also in .40) and while he could not hit the barn with his revolver (Rossi?) he did very well (after some instruction) with my two pistols.

Over a year or so he badgered me to buy my Sig, and eventually I sold it to him (and had seller's remorse immediately) and after a while I also sold him my Beretta. This 96D was was mystifying in the fact that it was supremely accurate, more so than any pistol I'd owned to that point. It regularly won me buckazoids at a local pin match. I also had seller's remorse and asked him to sell one or both back to me... no dice he said they were both lifetime keepers. Nuts... :-(

Anyway, fast forward to long after IBM disposing of our division, I come to find out that he killed himself with with one of my pistols and since I bought them new I expected a trace from the manufacturer to bring them back to me or at least inquired as suspected stolen, but no, I never had a contact with police on it.

Sad but true... Even though it was over 20 years ago that I sold them to him, it bummed me out to know he committed suicide, worse still with one of my old firearms. It gives me pause to selling any firearms to friends.
Click to expand...
That's tough. Not your burden to carry though man. There is no way you could have predicted...... if not a gun, a hose, a rope, etc...

I hope you don't carry that with you, unfortunately I've dealt with some tough deals like this and no matter how rational you can explain it to yourself with a clear head, your mind can lead you to pretty irrational conclusions that just kind of stick around.
 
CapnMac said:
In the case of suicide, when/if arms are returned, it's to the direct family.
Click to expand...
Not a great subject. After my dad was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer a good friend and neighbor was diagnosed with lung cancer. This neighbor like my dad was a WWII veteran. He mentioned to me he had a German Luger he took off a German during the war. Yes, I'll be happy to look at it. It was a later production P-08 with the straw finish. Turns out he used it to take his own life which my dad took pretty hard. The guys son was a friend of my brother and worked with the local PD to get the return of the gun. The PD complied and gave him the gun. A few years later, in major debt the kid used the same gun to take his own life. Go figure, one gun two suicides. My dad who knew his time was short never understood why his friend and neighbor took the suicide route.

Nobody can predict things like this. I never would have guessed and I knew the neighbor well. Family had to disclose the suicide when selling the house. That was another mess.

Ron
 
I've had two friends that took the suicide route. We will never understand what goes thru their mind that causes them to take such an action. Nothing you could have done would change the outcome. If someone is hell bent on doing it they will find a means. So sorry for your loss.
 
gnappi said:
Years ago (in the 90's) I shot fairly regularly with several co-workers. One was rather inexperienced and had some ratty revolver. He asked if he could try some on my pistols (a Sig P229 in 40/.357 and Beretta 96D also in .40) and while he could not hit the barn with his revolver (Rossi?) he did very well (after some instruction) with my two pistols.

Over a year or so he badgered me to buy my Sig, and eventually I sold it to him (and had seller's remorse immediately) and after a while I also sold him my Beretta. This 96D was was mystifying in the fact that it was supremely accurate, more so than any pistol I'd owned to that point. It regularly won me buckazoids at a local pin match. I also had seller's remorse and asked him to sell one or both back to me... no dice he said they were both lifetime keepers. Nuts... :-(

Anyway, fast forward to long after IBM disposing of our division, I come to find out that he killed himself with with one of my pistols and since I bought them new I expected a trace from the manufacturer to bring them back to me or at least inquired as suspected stolen, but no, I never had a contact with police on it.

Sad but true... Even though it was over 20 years ago that I sold them to him, it bummed me out to know he committed suicide, worse still with one of my old firearms. It gives me pause to selling any firearms to friends.
Click to expand...
I guess most of us would reflect back in hindsight. But in the end, it was none of your doing. And as said, if not a gun, it would be have been something else.
 
For your own peace of mind you need to disconnect yourself from the tool and from the action. You had nothing to do with either the tool - no longer yours and not in your possession, nor with the action done using it.
 
We can have emotional ties to inanimate objects. What a firearm does, it does because of the action of the person holding it. The firearm is not responsible. Yet we cannot help but apply an emotional link. I have firearms I’m quite sure have killed people. Even Americans. But because I didn’t know those people, I have no negative emotion about owning them.
 
Sorry for your loss of a good friend. Like others have said, not your fault, but I am sure it is recalled from time to time. I had a neighbor that lost his wife and several months later I carried him a meal and chatted with him while he ate. Later that evening he shot himself in the chest with a 9mm. Didn't kill him, but freaked my wife out as she said he could have shot you. He never made any comment about being lonely, not wanting to live alone or anything. You never do know what goes on in someone else's The tools we have can be target guns or weapons of war I suppose or anything in between. Just as someone can kill another with a hammer or axe.
 
Reloadron said:
Not a great subject. After my dad was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer a good friend and neighbor was diagnosed with lung cancer. This neighbor like my dad was a WWII veteran. He mentioned to me he had a German Luger he took off a German during the war. Yes, I'll be happy to look at it. It was a later production P-08 with the straw finish. Turns out he used it to take his own life which my dad took pretty hard. The guys son was a friend of my brother and worked with the local PD to get the return of the gun. The PD complied and gave him the gun. A few years later, in major debt the kid used the same gun to take his own life. Go figure, one gun two suicides. My dad who knew his time was short never understood why his friend and neighbor took the suicide route.

Nobody can predict things like this. I never would have guessed and I knew the neighbor well. Family had to disclose the suicide when selling the house. That was another mess.

Ron
Click to expand...
Suicide tends to be generational and runs in families. My wife is a forensic death investigator and has looked extensively at it since we have a distinction in the world of suicides in our community.
 
gnappi said:
Years ago (in the 90's) I shot fairly regularly with several co-workers. One was rather inexperienced and had some ratty revolver. He asked if he could try some on my pistols (a Sig P229 in 40/.357 and Beretta 96D also in .40) and while he could not hit the barn with his revolver (Rossi?) he did very well (after some instruction) with my two pistols.

Over a year or so he badgered me to buy my Sig, and eventually I sold it to him (and had seller's remorse immediately) and after a while I also sold him my Beretta. This 96D was was mystifying in the fact that it was supremely accurate, more so than any pistol I'd owned to that point. It regularly won me buckazoids at a local pin match. I also had seller's remorse and asked him to sell one or both back to me... no dice he said they were both lifetime keepers. Nuts... :-(

Anyway, fast forward to long after IBM disposing of our division, I come to find out that he killed himself with with one of my pistols and since I bought them new I expected a trace from the manufacturer to bring them back to me or at least inquired as suspected stolen, but no, I never had a contact with police on it.

Sad but true... Even though it was over 20 years ago that I sold them to him, it bummed me out to know he committed suicide, worse still with one of my old firearms. It gives me pause to selling any firearms to friends.
Click to expand...
Sorry about your old friend. But as to the gun, there would be no reason to research it by law enforcement unless it had been reported stolen at some point. You would never come up in their investigation of the event.
 
Rubone said:
Suicide tends to be generational and runs in families. My wife is a forensic death investigator and has looked extensively at it since we have a distinction in the world of suicides in our community.
Click to expand...
That would fit. I never gave it much thought but now that you mention it.

Ron
 
It’s hard to hear a story like that, and I can’t imagine being the one to tell it. Sadly suicide is far too common and not just with guns. There are plenty of straightened out curves that go unexplained, or accidents where people fall from height. I had an attempt made about 8 years ago at the place I worked. Young kid caught a felony for drugs and his family basically disowned him. He forced himself through a narrow slot in a guard and laid his head in front of a robotic transfer. Thankfully it was pneumatic and a maintenance guy was 10 ft away and saw it. Guy told us that he wanted his little brother to get money from a lawsuit and be able to make something of his life since dude had ruined his at 20 years old.

Know this @gnappi if it wasn’t your gun it would have been something else that would have likely been slow and painful, but a person who makes that decision doesn’t care how they end their suffering, they just do it however they can.
 
It’s very easy to see what you perceive are the mistakes or bad you have brought forth in this life. What is usually unseen yet of great magnitudes larger are the good you have done and how that has magnified itself through the good those folks who you have touched have brought.

Take heart in the fact that only good man would carry a weight like this even though he is no more to blame then the bridge someone jumps from.

I am sorry for the weight you carry and wish you peace.
 
A long time ago I worked with a guy who loaned a shotgun to his high school shop teacher a year after he had graduated because the old teacher told him that he was having a skunk problem at his house. (They all lived in the country in Southern Iowa) 6 months later the man committed suicide using my friends shotgun. People who are having the type of problems that lead to them taking their own lives don't think about the impact that their action has on those around them. You do not bear any responsibility for your friends actions as he would have found another avenue had he not purchased your gun.
 
A very close friend of mine took himself out a while back ; he went the rope over the garage rafter route. The loss of that kind and gentle man was devastating to me and some close acquaintances of mine , not to mention his family. Big turnout at the church.

No one gave a minute's thought to the origin of that rope.

I am very sorry for your loss. Don't compound your grief in ways that are not necessary.
 
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