Would you consider Russian Roulette suicide?

It’s not enough that we have to fight the proliferation of guns in this country that kill thousands each year, but we also have to watch out for the dunderheads that toy with disaster by playing Russian Roulette.  Many win but many also lose, apparently the latter not a large enough number to maintain statistics.  No matter how you look at it, the act is stupid, and WikiAnswers describes the person that would do it as certifiable.  Case in point.

Russian Roulette

On Sept. 5, a 35-year-old man, Dion Von Mays, put a gun to his head in a San Bernardino, Calif. apt. and blew his brains out.  Mays is at least the fourth victim of playing Russian Roulette in the past eight months in the U.S., once again the casualty of a gun free society where anyone can own a gun and take it anywhere they want, doing anything they want to with it.  There is no indication that Mays suffered from mental illness, making it just another stupid act with a gun.

This country is already fighting a gun control battle that appears to be gaining momentum, and is certainly enriched by an incident such as this.  Mays could do what he did to himself simply because it is so easy to obtain firearms.  Whether he acquired the gun legally or illegally, he got it and had the means to kill himself. And there was no firearms regulation to prevent this obviously unstable person from doing what he did.  Even worse if the whole thing was just for the thrill.

And there have been more recent Russian Roulette deaths.  Thorin Montgomery, age 17, fatally shot himself in the head this last July in Florida.  Cole McConoughey, only 15-years-old, blew his brains out in Pennsylvania soon after Montgomery.  Kevin Hudgens, also 15, fatally shot himself and his 15-year-old friend was charged with possessing a gun as a felon.  Michael McCloskey, 27, killed himself in the game in Alaska while binge drinking with a friend.



This guy can't wait for the
cigarette to kill him



Hopefully this will not start a copy-cat series of incidents to see who can outdo the ones before him.  If there is, we can only thank the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) and its wacky leader Wayne LaPierre for the carnage.  The NRA has fought shamelessly for looser gun laws in the wake of a group of mass shootings dating all the way back to the Columbine massacre in 1999.  Since then we have had VA Tech, Tucson, Aurora, Colo. and the Wisconsin Sikh Temple. 

In the headline I asked if you would consider Russian Roulette suicide.  Well, the answer is that the game is looked upon as at least attempted suicide, unless you are successful—doesn’t seem like the proper term—enough to spread your brains all over the room.  And in most cases suicide isn’t judged illegal, except in cases of insurance, etc.  But there are still two factors needing further investigation: playing the game drunk and for the thrill of it.  A later post.