Posted: 6/18/2017 8:51:14 PM EDT
|
Last summer my kid-brother, after a long battle with substance abuse and depression took his own life. I am now the owner of his once fired Glock 17. For others that have lost a loved one to suicide by gunshot I ask the following question: what did you do with the gun? Keep it? Sell it without disclosure? Sell it with disclosure? Let the police keep it?
I really am interested to hear what you all have to say. Harp 
|
|
I don't think that it would bother me to keep it or sell it (though I would disclose when I sold it). I suppose it just doesn't bother me because it's an inanimate object.
Not the same thing, but my grandfather, grandmother, and uncle all died in the same house (all natural causes, two in the same room but decades apart). I still love that house and it wouldn't bother me at all living there, though I know that such things do creep some people out. |
|
I posess a revolver which an uncle used on himself. Even have the evidence tag kept with my gun paperwork. It's just a tool to me. My mother and her sister enjoyed being able to shoot it with me. My grandmother was glad that it was eventually passed down to me, my grandfather bought it for her when they honeymooned in Vermont.
Despite the history attached, it's still an inanimate object. Brushed nickle, 8" barrel and white grips, I actually admire it. |
|
First and foremost, I am very sorry for the loss of your brother. While I am not real close to my little brother these days, we do still let each other know we are alive every so often. Sometimes we just get busy living our own lives, and don't make the time we probably should to get together.
I can't comment from the experience in the OP, I can honestly say, if I wound up with said gun I would not have a problem keeping and using it. I don't hold special curses/stigma to a tool, nor would there be any reason to disclose suicide to a person I was selling to if I went that route. If I felt that way I probably wouldn't have a fraction of the milsurps that I do. |
| You would think of your brother and what he did to himself every time you saw it. No thanks. I'd get rid of it. Too many guns out there to be looking at the one your brother took his life with. Plus, if you're imaginative, you wouldn't be able to help picturing how that went down every time you saw the gun. You could do without that. |
|
Quoted:
It's an inanimate object. I'd carry it. What one meant for evil, I mean for good.  |
|
Quoted:
I was born and raised in Gary, Indiana which is right on Lake Michigan. In fact, our house was maybe 3-4 blocks from the lake. Quoted:
Quoted:
Throw it into Lake Michigan and have some degree of closure on one small aspect of it all. |
| As much as I like Glocks, I wouldn't keep it for the opposite reason one would keep something with intrinsic value. Like if he had a favorite watch, that would be something with intrinsic value you would want to keep to remember him by. I'd sell the pistol. If you want a Glock, just buy a new one. |
|
I sold a gun to a co-worker who took it home and shot himself in the head with it. That was an awful feeling, in a way I felt responsible for his death. His mother asked if I wanted the gun back since she didn't want it. I took it as a favor to her but it wound up in the bottom of Lake Allatoona, I couldn't keep it and felt weird about selling it again.
Sorry for your loss OP.
|
|
My cousin used a Smith .357 to end his life. My aunt (his mom) asked if I would shoot it for her to see what it looked like being fired. I shot it for her and my uncle to watch.
Morbid curiosity I guess. My aunt passed awhile back and my uncle still has the gun as far as I know. The police told them it was unusual for families to want a firearm back after a suicide. |