Suicide gun...would you want one?

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"Ok this is weird. I haven't logged onto this site in months. The .38 wasn't destroyed. Pop asked me if he should put it in the vise and beat it to bits or give it to his old hunting buddy, Ward Chapman. I said Chappie, because beating the crap out of the gun served no real purpose."

Hello cousin. Small world.

John
 
I also have a prewar Mosin Nagant that I'm sure was used to kill German soldiers in World War II and god knows where else. Still love it
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One time while camping, I used my Mosin's bayonet to roast marshmallows. To think that the bayonet was maybe used to stab Germans to death and is now being used to roast marshmallows. :cool:
 
Back in '99 my dad was dying of pancreatic cancer. His good friend and a neighbor was diagnosed with lung cancer. This neighbor had once showed me a P-38 which was a late WW II mix master. I appraised it and that was that but I heard the story of how he came about it and dragged it home from WW II.

That neighbor used that P-38 to take his life. My dad took that hard. The family requested that the gun be destroyed of the police department who had the pistol. However, the one son went to the police department demanding the pistol back. He was given the pistol and this son grew up with my brother.

Saw my brother yesterday and he told me that the son just recently used that gun to take his own life. My brother had just heard about it. Just a little eerie. The kid was in over his head financially and lost his house. However, I will never understand suicide?

Anyway, would I have issues owning that pistol? Nope, not at all because as has been well covered the gun is just a tool, an inanimate object.

Ron
 
Sure, if I were contemplating suicide. :)

Honestly, I never knew they made guns just for that purpose. :rolleyes:

Well, I guess if I listened to The Brady Bunch and Mayor Michael Blowhard a bit more, they might convince me that there are "murder guns", "suicide guns", "crime guns" and "illegal guns"...and probably a bunch more as well.

Unfortunately (for them) I do not qualify...I still have a few functioning brain cells. And a few is all it takes. :)

Seriously, of the 77 motorcycles I have owned in my life, at least half of them were basket cases or wrecks. Were some of those accidents fatal? I hope not, but actually I have no idea, and I have never spent much time contemplating it. It is an inanimate object, just like a tree, a telephone pole or a bridge abutment.

These days it is becoming popular to plant flowers and put up a cross at the site of a traffic accident. I have no problem with that, if it brings some relief to the agrieved. At least they are not asking that we tear up that stretch of highway or road and replace it.

But at a certain point, our roads, highways and bridges will be lined up end-to-end with these personal memorials. I guess I won't be around to see that...
 
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Sure, if I were contemplating suicide. :)

Honestly, I never knew they made guns just for that purpose. :rolleyes:

Well, I guess if I listened to The Brady Bunch and Mayor Michael Blowhard a bit more, they might convince me that there are "murder guns", "suicide guns", "crime guns" and "illegal guns"...and probably a bunch more as well.

Unfortunately (for them) I do not qualify...I still have a few functioning brain cells. And a few is all it takes. :)
 
Not really?

I understand the it's just a tool, but if I had a neighbor put an eye out with a screwdriver I wouldn't be the first in line for it either....;)
 
This is one of those what I call "Broccoli" threads--You either do or you don't and there's no in between. I think it's too creepy but that's me.

Also, to me the gun that saw combat doesn't = civilian suicide so I don't buy that one (but again, that's me...).
 
I do not like broccoli much.

I can be fairly certain that, of the many 'police department confiscate trade-in' pistols which I have bought used over the years, at least one was probably used in a crime of some sort. I don't ask, I don't care.
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No.

A gun is just a hunk of metal, wood and plastic. It has no life, feelings or Soul.
The gun may have been used in some bad event but that doesn't make the gun evil or spooky or brave. It's just a tool, nothing more, nothing less.

People want to give things some kind of supernatural life but it's still just dead wood, plastic, clay, metal, whatever, not something that is alive that could be good or evil.



When I was young my Father killed himsewlf with a shotgun.
I don't know what ever happened to the shotgun but if I had it, it would only be a shotgun that my Father happened to choose to kill himself with. Nothing more, nothing less.
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I agree with M2 Carbine on this one. Even though the history of the gun is a tragic one the gun itself had no bearing on the incident itself as an inanimate object... just a tool.
If I thought that guns held bad vibes I would not own war surplus guns... especially war surplus guns that killed our GI's in combat. It's just a gun.:)
 
Actually this is an interesting question.

Yes; it would bug me...

No; I would not want to own a suicide or murder gun.
 
What do you do with a gun that was used to take their life by a family member?

I have one and the pain I feel every day hurts like hell. I didn't want one of my siblings having it so I got it from the police as early as I could.

I do struggle with it and yes, I love to shoot. I will never shoot that gun or the one I have that is just like it. Some may think that's crazy but it's what I feel.

What is the correct answer?
 
09corvette said:
What do you do with a gun that was used to take their life by a family member?

I have one and the pain I feel every day hurts like hell. I didn't want one of my siblings having it so I got it from the police as early as I could.

I do struggle with it and yes, I love to shoot. I will never shoot that gun or the one I have that is just like it. Some may think that's crazy but it's what I feel.

What is the correct answer?
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Amen.

To suggest that guns are always nothing more than inanimate objects of steel and wood is simply wrong. As just one example, the guns we have inherited from those that have went before us are cherished possessions that trigger even more cherished memories.

A gun used in a suicide could have the same sort of memories, only in a negative and far more powerful way.
 
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And when you are the one that finds your family member after they have done this it will live with you forever.

I was raised around guns and my son, son in law, and I still love to shoot. It's something that I am glad we still do.

I know it wasn't the guns fault but it was what was used that took her life.

The gun that was used is put away in a sealed box, wrapped in a towel. If you have never experienced this, and I hope no one ever has to, you don't actually know how you will handle it. It wasn't long ago and I have had many sleepless nights since.
 
09corvette said:
What do you do with a gun that was used to take their life by a family member?

I have one and the pain I feel every day hurts like hell. I didn't want one of my siblings having it so I got it from the police as early as I could.

I do struggle with it and yes, I love to shoot. I will never shoot that gun or the one I have that is just like it. Some may think that's crazy but it's what I feel.

What is the correct answer?
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If the gun causes you pain, anguish and brings up bad memories I would ask why you opted to keep it or get it back? I mentioned a gun earlier used in a suicide and subsequently used in another suicide. If a gun, any gun, had brought grief to my family I wouldn't want the thing. Living with the pain of a family suicide is bad enough, why keep a reminder around to refresh bad memories?

Just My Thinking
Ron
 
What do you do with a gun that was used to take their life by a family member?

I have one and the pain I feel every day hurts like hell. I didn't want one of my siblings having it so I got it from the police as early as I could.

I do struggle with it and yes, I love to shoot. I will never shoot that gun or the one I have that is just like it. Some may think that's crazy but it's what I feel.

What is the correct answer?
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Sell it to someone who will use it.
 
09corvette said:
And when you are the one that finds your family member after they have done this it will live with you forever.

I was raised around guns and my son, son in law, and I still love to shoot. It's something that I am glad we still do.

I know it wasn't the guns fault but it was what was used that took her life.

The gun that was used is put away in a sealed box, wrapped in a towel. If you have never experienced this, and I hope no one ever has to, you don't actually know how you will handle it. It wasn't long ago and I have had many sleepless nights since.
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You're right and I am sorry you experienced that.

I would dig a deep post hole, completely de-grease the gun, drop it down the hole and fill it in.

The absolutely last thing I would do is sell it...
 
There is also the issue of suicide being viewed as a grave and final sin (with some extenuating circumstances) by Catholic and Orthodox Christians and probably others.

For many in this world an eternally damned soul (a product of dying outside a state of grace) is far worse than anything else imaginable. That includes death from our temporal lives here on Earth.

Yeah, I'd definitely bury or destroy such a firearm.
 
There is also the issue of suicide being viewed as a grave and final sin (with some extenuating circumstances) by Catholic and Orthodox Christians and probably others.

For many in this world an eternally damned soul (a product of dying outside a state of grace) is far worse than anything else imaginable. That includes death from our temporal lives here on Earth.

Yeah, I'd definitely bury or destroy such a firearm.
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Interestingly enough, it doesn't say anywhere in the Bible that it is a sin to kill yourself. The Pope made that determination (in a century that escapes me) in order to prevent the peasants from killing themselves because life was so difficult.

I can understand someone being bothered by having a possession that was the instrument of death for a loved one. But I do agree that selling the gun would be a practical solution. Getting even with the gun by destroying, seems senseless to me.
 
For now I will keep the gun sealed in the box. It will never be sold or given away. I thought about digging a hole and putting it in concrete. Maybe one day.
Please don't judge. Unless you have experienced this you do not know what you would do. Many thoughts have gone through my mind.
 
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