Does this article seem fake to you? - 'Confessions of a Gun Range Worker'

[buck460XVR]

I think the article shows some bias, not so much because he talks of suicides at these ranges, but because he talks about it like it's something of an everyday occurrence. Don't get me wrong, 3 suicides at your workplace over a couple of years can still impact employees, but it isn't like the range manager is calling body disposal on a daily basis: "Yeah, Bob, it's XYZ Range... we got two more bodies for ya, we'll stack 'em out back".

Yes, but still, to witness three suicides in a matter of a few years in the same work venue would tend to make one a tad bias. I know it would for me.

I once heard that suicide victims many times pick their place to die depending on who they think will be the first one to find them. Kids(even as adults) many times will commit suicide in their parents house/bedroom knowing they will be the first to find them and will always think of that spot as where so and so took their life. They blame their folks for their misery and want them to be miserable also. Folks that hang themselves in jail are trying to punish those that put them there. Folks that pick the woods or some other place where police or other folks need to go looking for them, are trying to avoid having a loved one find them. They just want to die. I think folks pick gun ranges and rented guns not only because of the accessibility, the fact that only strangers will be there to find them/witness the act, but also the instrument used is one that is unfamiliar and has no ties to them or their family.

Suicide is something that very few folks understand. Most of those that attempt it don't live thru it to tell us why they did it. The use of a gun is easy and quick, but it's not the gun's choice.

 

[JC111]

Several years ago an officer I had worked with for many years killed himself with his duty piece. Many months later another officer used pills. I've been to many a suicide over the past sixteen years. Guns, pills, hanging, alcoholism (a slow ad painful form of suicide), car exhaust and one memorable suicide where the guy threw himself off of a cliff. One fella called his ex-wife got into a screaming match with her then shot himself in the head so that she could hear it. I and other officers arrived just minutes later then the ex-wife showed up. I had to tell her and she told me that she wanted the revolver (S&W 585 with 6" barrel) he had used. Evidently that was a sore point with her and that was why he called her. To taunt her about having gotten the gun in the divorce. *Sigh* Somebody is determined they're going to do it.

 

[MAKster]

The people who come suicide at gun ranges are not gun nuts steeped in the gun culture. Just the opposite. These people do not own a gun and have likely never fired a gun in their life. That is why they rent a gun at a public range.

 

[RX-79G]

No one said they were.

 

[Warp]

The people who come suicide at gun ranges are not gun nuts steeped in the gun culture. Just the opposite. These people do not own a gun and have likely never fired a gun in their life. That is why they rent a gun at a public range.

An excellent point that seems to stop whatever point that writer was trying to make dead in its tracks

 

[RX-79G]

The author wasn't making a single point. He appears to have three major issues with working at a gun range, and they aren't all connected.

 

[MAKster]

No one said they were.

The main thrust of the article was that gun owners are paranoid and groups like the NRA are promoting fantasy reasons for owning a gun which attracts mentally disturbed people who then commit suicide at his gun range.

 

[RX-79G]

No, that wasn't what the article says. The author relates a number of unrelated things that he feels makes the experience of working in a gun range negative.

Nothing is actually said about the NRA itself.

 

[Slamfire]

I asked the guys at a local indoor range if they had a suicide, and they had. A man came in and rented a handgun, took it to the bathroom and shot himself.

These are things that are not advertised by anyone, it does not help the business, and satisfying the morbid curiosity of the public can only cause unpredictable future problems.

 

[Spats McGee]

Going back to the original question, whether the article seems fake: Yes, it does. I have some reservations, part of which was sparked by this:

Eventually the range started paying a service to come pick up the bodies and scrub everything.

I'll bet dollars to a doughnut hole that in whatever jx this supposed gun range was, it's the coroner's job to come and "pick up the bodies," and that any other 'service' that does so without the coroner's permission is guilty of a crime.

And this:

I remember one time I had come in for a shift change and there was a pool of blood. We didn't have any bleach but we did have some kitty litter. I remember using that to soak up the blood. And because we didn't have the bleach, some of my members were kind enough to go across the street to the grocery store and buy some.

Came in for a shift change? The author is telling us that someone committed suicide on the range and it didn't even close down long enough to clean the blood up? Does that really sound like a range that anybody on here has ever been to?

I call shenanigans.

 

[Warp]

Going back to the original question, whether the article seems fake: Yes, it does. I have some reservations, part of which was sparked by this:

I'll bet dollars to a doughnut hole that in whatever jx this supposed gun range was, it's the coroner's job to come and "pick up the bodies," and that any other 'service' that does so without the coroner's permission is guilty of a crime.

And this:

Came in for a shift change? The author is telling us that someone committed suicide on the range and it didn't even close down long enough to clean the blood up? Does that really sound like a range that anybody on here has ever been to?

I call shenanigans.

Well, does he say the pool of blood was from a suicide? Maybe it was a nasty case of slide bite and the writer was loose with what constitutes a "pool" of blood?

Just devil's advocate...I don't believe the article as written either.

 

[Spats McGee]

Well, does he say the pool of blood was from a suicide? Maybe it was a nasty case of slide bite and the writer was loose with what constitutes a "pool" of blood?

Just devil's advocate...I don't believe the article as written either.

I'll give you that the author doesn't come right out and say it was, but reading the paragraph as a whole, I think that's the intended implication:

Gun ranges often have policies that require anyone who rents a gun to be accompanied by a friend. It's supposed to be a way to prevent suicides, but it doesn't always work very well. Eventually the range started paying a service to come pick up the bodies and scrub everything. But before that happened, Christ, what was it? Bleach and kitty litter. I remember one time I had come in for a shift change and there was a pool of blood. We didn't have any bleach but we did have some kitty litter. I remember using that to soak up the blood. And because we didn't have the bleach, some of my members were kind enough to go across the street to the grocery store and buy some. In hindsight, we had no protocols, we had no protective suits. I could have exposed myself to blood-borne pathogens.

 

[Warp]

I'll give you that the author doesn't come right out and say it was, but reading the paragraph as a whole, I think that's the intended implication:

Yes, but I have found many an anti, many a person who would write something like this, relish the opportunity to intentionally mislead and deceive without an outright black and white lie.

 

[grampajack]

I don't see what any of those things have to do with one another. Maybe they should shut down the Golden Gate bridge because people use it to commit suicide? Or maybe they should ban rope because people use it to hang themselves? Of course we'll all have to wear velcro shoes, that just goes without saying.

More disjointed and irrelevant emotional gibberish from the left. And probably not true or blown way out of proportion. Basically he has four points. There was a suicide that happened right before his shift on one single occasion, a few members committed violent crimes over the years, the members are becoming more paranoid, and the range is in a top secret scary industrial park. One of those points is an unqualified opinion, and another is completely meaningless; the location of the range has nothing to do with anything, nor does the public's awareness of its location. What the bleep does he expect, a gun range right next to Starbucks and J Crew???

 

[tipoc]

Between 1937 and 2012, an estimated 1,600 bodies were recovered of people who had jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge, located in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States.[1] The impact from the fall kills 98 percent of people who jump or fall from the bridge, as they enter the water.[2][3] As of 2005, it is estimated that 26 people have survived after jumping.[4] In 2013, 118 potential jumpers were talked down from their attempt and did not jump.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicides_at_the_Golden_Gate_Bridge

Keep in mind that not all bodies are recovered. Some folks jump without anyone knowing that they did so.

That makes over 21 suicides a year, on average, from one bridge in California.

tipoc

 

[tipoc]

Does the article seem fake?

The article by Josh Harkinson, purports to be the result of a employee at a gun range contacting Mother Jones and being interviewed by Harkinson...

Editor's note: Americans today aren't just stockpiling guns in record numbers; they are also shooting them at upward of 2,100 gun ranges across the country. In February, the pseudonymous author of this piece—a former employee at a gun range in Orange County, California—contacted Mother Jones reporter Josh Harkinson, who interviewed the author and corroborated his account (as told to Harkinson below) through official documents, news reports, and interviews with two other former employees of the gun range. The management and owner of the gun range did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

So these are the "Confessions of a Gun Range Worker".

Saying it's fake implies that some or all of the material in the article is false and maybe there is no "gun range worker".

I don't believe it's fake (though folks here have pointed out a couple of errors). It's just biased against guns and the people who own and shoot forearms and visit ranges. From the headline to the content, "stockpiling" to carzies, it presents facts selectively to lead us to certain conclusions...

We belong in the "Bucket of Deplorables".

Got nothing to do with Trump of course but does have a good deal to do with the general liberal mantra that the working class is backward, racist, illeterate, crude, "cling to our guns" and ignorant. That's the general thrust of the piece.

There is some truth in the article. Lead abatement and health concerns for workers at ranges is an issue. How to clean up blood safely is also a concern which has more and more been addressed.

The piece is not about how to address suicides at the range.

It's not about "white men" going to the NRA conventions.

It's a general biased piece against firearms and the state of the industry.

I don't know why the anonymous worker contacted Mother Jones. But the magazine is a well known liberal publication which has taken stances against the 2nd amendment and called for more gun laws.

tipoc

 

[MAKster]

No, that wasn't what the article says. The author relates a number of unrelated things that he feels makes the experience of working in a gun range negative.

Nothing is actually said about the NRA itself.

I think you need to reread the article. These are direct quotes.

"Paranoid? What would you call it when people have six months worth of food? What would you call it when people have 30-plus guns? What would you call it when they are stockpiling ammunition? The gun industry is making a killing, and it's doing its best to fan the flames."

"It all plays into people's paranoid fantasies, and guns are always the solution. They give people a sense of control in a world that is out of control. You go into the NRA convention and look around at the sea of faces— I'm sorry, it's a bunch of paranoid white guys who see their country slipping away from them. They think people like Trump, or the gun industry, are the "real" Americans. The gun industry could give a rat's ass. They are laughing all the way to the bank."

 

[harrygunner]

I know which range he is writing about. I've shot there several times, including once this summer during a visit to that state.

The staff is simply not stressed enough to be consistent with that story. I didn't see "over the top" testing/filtering of shooters prior to entering the booths.

However, they (as well as many ranges in multiple states) won't rent guns to lone individuals.

Decades ago, a range in Agoura, California had a man commit suicide with a rented gun. They immediately implemented the same rule after that.

 

[tipoc]

Oops! It was "basket of deplorables" not bucket! My bad.

tipoc

 

[tipoc]

Let's say the article is what they said, a man tells his story to Harkinson who writes it up for Mother Jones. Then it becomes the way Harkinson spins it that is the problem.

Look at the opening of the article...

I was attracted to guns as a teenager because my family had been victims of violent crime. My dad had been mugged and my family has been held up in their store at least a couple of times at gunpoint. I guess you could say it's a way of reclaiming some sense of power over a powerless situation.

Some anti gunners like to say that the reason some people turn, or cling to guns is because they feel powerless otherwise. Something is missing in their lives, they say, some weakness or need that is filled by guns. So right off this piece begins with that.

My first gun was a military surplus bolt-action, a Lee Enfield. The ATF has a category for these things: curio and relic weapons. It was the only gun that at 18 years old I could legally purchase and walk out the door with. It was fully capable of punching through a car or a cinder block.

The author presents this as if it's something we are supposed to think is ominous. Cue the spooky music...at 18 he could but a high powered military surplus rifle and walk out the door with it. Bum, bum, bummm.

Talking about the range;

I also came to enjoy the camaraderie. In some ways it's not just a range so much as a gathering place for a certain type of crotchety old man. You sit there on the bench and drink your nasty cup of coffee and trade lies and war stories. For me, it was something that I kind of didn't have growing up, because my dad wasn't always there.

So we're back to his father again. First Pops got robbed and then he wasn't there. So his father is to blame and there is a need to fill a psychological and emotional hole in his life. We're back to the idea that something is "off" about folks who like guns and shooting. It's a theme of anti gunners.

The majority of ranges in Ca. have in place measures to make it harder for suicide to use the ranges for taking their own lives. These have been getting better year by year. This is not mentioned in the piece.

In truth I have a friend who has worked at a local range for years. He is a wheelgunner. But about 5 years ago he took to carrying a Glock 19 at work rather than his revolver. I asked him why. He told me that after the panic in the wake Newtown killings alot more weird people began coming to the range. They concerned him so he took to leaving his preferred wheelguns at home. That's kind of died off. More concerning these days is untrained new shooters and hipsters.

tipoc

 

[Ed Ames]

I'll bet dollars to a doughnut hole that in whatever jx this supposed gun range was, it's the coroner's job to come and "pick up the bodies," and that any other 'service' that does so without the coroner's permission is guilty of a crime.

First, I strongly suspect they really meant clean up the remains that are not taken away with the body. Blood, brain, bone fragments, etc. Journalists seem to feel they have an obligation to get details wrong so describing that as "taking the body away" would be in keeping with their normal practices.

In other words, they meant these people: http://www.crimecleaners.com/orange-county-crime-scene-cleanup

Second...it is possible you might lose that bet. If it's the range I am thinking of, the relevant coroner's office is a division of the county sheriff's department. When my friend's mom died in that same county the coroner folks determined that the death was from natural causes and left. My friend had to call a mortuary to transport the body.

My father didn't die in that county but my experience with him was similar. A Justice of the Peace came over and wrote up a report, then left. I called the local mortuary, who came over with a suburban with a gurney in the back. I helped lift the body onto the gurney and they drove directly to the mortuary. The body was never touched by anyone in any government job.

In the case of a suicide, unless there was a question about the identity of the deceased, I don't know that the county wouldn't just leave it to whatever mortuary the family calls to pick up the body. The shooting range may have collected a business card to pass on to family members in that case, and the rest is just typical high quality journalism.

As for shift change, that doesn't imply to me the range is running as normal. It implies the working employees don't call other employees at home when something happens.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Death determined to be from from disease or natural causes receives less scrutiny than death from accident, suicide, or homicide.

Reported accidents or suicides may be disguised negligent or even criminal homicides so I would expect more investigative scrutiny in those cases than in apparently natural deaths of ill or elderly persons.

 

[tipoc]

Reported accidents or suicides may be disguised negligent or even criminal homicides so I would expect more investigative scrutiny in those cases than in apparently natural deaths of ill or elderly persons.

Except where there are several witnesses and/or video that a suicide was committed and the cause obvious. This would be the case at a public range. Further investigation may occur. The bodies are often taken to private facilities for storage (some funeral parlors have facilities on site and contract with the counties or cities) till the body is released.

It varies of course, but in some cases EMTs or officers will call a service for you or hand you a card to do so. Who pays for the service varies on circumstances. But the county does not always come and take the body away.

The point here I think is that a body can sit someplace for awhile and it's not unusual for the clean up to be done for those left behind or a service called.

tipoc

 

[ACP]

To answer the OP's question, no, the article does not appear to be made up for "BS."

You may not like it that public ranges are painted in such a negative light, but the facts speak for themselves.

 

[Cannibul]

What would I call someone who has six months worth of food stockpiled?



A devout Mormon.