Metro investigating suicide at indoor gun range

A man at an indoor shooting range just off the Strip turned a gun on himself Monday afternoon, according to Las Vegas police.

First responders were called about 4:15 p.m. to The Range 702, 4699 Dean Martin Road, between Tropicana and Harmon avenues, according to Clark County Fire Department dispatch logs.

The man, born in 1956, shot himself once in the chest and died at University Medical Center, Metro supervisor Lt. Dave Valenta said. No one else was involved or injured.

The Range 702 claims on its website to be the largest gun range in Las Vegas, with 25 individual shooting lanes. The facility was closed following the shooting, and several customers arrived to find the doors locked.

Customers said that while they weren’t surprised an incident like this occurred, they generally view the facility as safe. Most shooting lanes have a dedicated range master who is supposed to guide and watch customers as they shoot.

An employee who answered the phone at the range refused to comment, but Bill Smallwood, a gunsmith at The Range 702, told the Review-Journal in February that the business doesn’t draw many suicidal customers.

The Range 702 is one of a handful of local gun shops that have partnered with the Nevada Office of Suicide Prevention to raise awareness about gun suicides. The department leaves gun safety and suicide prevention brochures in stores, including The Range 702, and trains employees to intervene when a customer seems suicidal.

Every year since 2009, more Nevadans have died from intentional, self-inflicted gunshot wounds than traffic fatalities, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

In 2013, the last full year of available data for both categories, 317 Nevadans committed suicide with a gun, and 266 died in traffic crashes.

While Nevadans kill themselves by methods ranging from jumping from bridges and cliffs to drug overdoses, poisoning and hanging, more than 51 percent of suicides involve the use of a gun, according to the Nevada Office of Suicide Prevention.

If you or someone you know needs help dealing with depression, you can call 1-800-273-8255 anytime to be connected to a trained counselor at a crisis center in your area.

Contact Wesley Juhl at wjuhl@reviewjournal.com and 702-383-0391. Find him on Twitter: @WesJuhl. Contact Ricardo Torres at rtorres@reviewjournal.com and 702-383-0381. Find him on Twitter: @rickytwrites.