The ride back to our base was very subdued, very quiet. Not at all usual for us. To this day I don't understand. She wasn't even sixteen.

First Responder, your awful story brought back an awful memory, of a 21 year old neighbour who made good on his threat and shot himself in the head with his father's rifle, right in front of his ex-girlfriend and her grandmother. To punish the girl, I suppose, for breaking up with him. His father, the local fire chief, responded first to that 911 call. :-(

Could blame it on the fact that the young man just lost his job, that his girlfriend had kicked him out because he was drinking heavily, or that it was February (the most depressing time of the year for a lot of people).

Or maybe we could keep it real simple and say that if he hadn't had access to a gun, that young man would still be alive today. His family would have spared years of anguish and his girlfriend 6 months in the psych ward.

I believe that's true. And it's probably the same for that teenage girl you found. Guns just make killing too easy - if people had to stab or hang themselves etc, they'd be less likely to bring about their deaths as a means of revenge or attracting attention.

I know what it is to be depressed, to feel that everything's been lost, that no one cares or ever did care, that there's nothing more to live for. I know what it is to be in such physical pain and mental/emotional turmoil that every day is a dreaded test of endurance. I know what it's like to obsess about killing oneself - going over possible ways and means and methods and repercussions and finding none of them satisfactory.

And I also know this - if I'd had access to a gun during that thankfully brief period of my life, you probably wouldn't be reading this today.

WHen I was younger, the fact that my children were very small always brought me to my senses when I 'sink' that low. I could NEVER have inflicted my own suicide on them ... but once they were grown, believe me it was alot harder to find a good reason to keep on keepin on. So, praise be, I'm GLAD I never liked guns, and always refused to allow one in my home.

daylia