{"id":3544,"date":"2008-06-17T08:39:37","date_gmt":"2008-06-17T13:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/?p=3544"},"modified":"2008-06-17T08:39:37","modified_gmt":"2008-06-17T13:39:37","slug":"shooting_ranges_dont_kill_people_people_do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/06\/shooting_ranges_dont_kill_people_people_do.html","title":{"rendered":"Shooting Ranges Don’t Kill People, People Do"},"content":{"rendered":"

Way to spoil a nice evening at the shooting range<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The 20-year-old college-student son of a globetrotting UN staffer fatally shot himself in the head at a popular Chelsea rifle range that had sold him ammunition, rented him a high-powered rifle — and left him on his own, The Post has learned. <\/p>\n

The bizarre suicide of Patrick Karorero happened June 3 inside the West Side Pistol Range on West 20th Street, which caters to Wall Street types, law-enforcement officials and shooting hobbyists. <\/p>\n

It’s where Robert De Niro, playing cabby Travis Bickle in the 1976 movie “Taxi Driver,” was filmed staring down a barrel of a gun. <\/p>\n

The range’s owner, Robert Derrig, did not return calls for comment, and the NYPD said only the tragedy was “under investigation.” <\/p>\n

The mayor’s office, which has waged a highly publicized campaign against gun violence, also declined to comment. <\/p>\n

Sources familiar with the case provided the following account: <\/p>\n

Karorero, who had first visited the range on May 20, paid a $25 range fee and purchased three boxes, or 150 rounds, of 9mm ammunition for an additional $45. <\/p>\n

He was then rented a Hi-Point 9mm carbine rifle for another $40 and left alone to practice. <\/p>\n

The Hi-Point is the same type of rifle wielded by one of the gunmen in the Columbine HS massacre. <\/p>\n

At about 9 p.m., some two hours after showing up, a jittery Karorero waited for several other target shooters near him to leave the area. <\/p>\n

Then, after looking distractedly to either side, he fired a rifle shot into his head. <\/p>\n

The bullet tore a hole in the ceiling of the range, which is in the basement of an office building.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Way to spoil a nice evening at the shooting range: The 20-year-old college-student son of a globetrotting UN staffer fatally shot himself in the head at a popular Chelsea rifle range that had sold him ammunition, rented him a high-powered rifle — and left him on his own, The Post has learned. The bizarre suicide […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-just_horrible"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}