Police to act upon repeated shooting range accidents

Police are studying measures to enhance safety at live shooting ranges after a man killed himself Sunday.

The Namdaemun Police Station in Seoul said Tuesday that the man, a 36-year-old film production worker, shot himself at the Myeong-dong Shooting Range in Seoul on Sunday evening.

He entered the shooting range after filling out personal information, as required by regulations. He then used a stun gun he had brought along on the shooting range employee accompanying him before shooting himself.

The shooting range in Myeong-dong had undergone a police safety inspection on Sept. 4.

As in all shooting ranges, the muzzle of the gun is fixed so that it cannot be turned to other directions, but this did not prevent the man from shooting himself.

Accidents at shooting ranges are not uncommon. In 2001, customers at live ammunition shooting ranges in Seoul and Incheon took their own lives.

In 2004, a woman in her 30s was severely injured after she attempted suicide using a pistol at a shooting range in Bangbae-dong, Seoul.

A criminal in a 2006 bank robbery in Yeoksam-dong, Seoul, was caught by police after running away with a pistol and 22 bullets from a live ammunition shooting range.

In 2015, a man in his 20s broke into an indoor shooting range in Busan, stabbed the female owner, and took off with a pistol and bullets. He was caught four hours later.

At the time of the Busan shooting range, anyone could easily gain access to the firearms at shooting ranges as there were no locks, raising concerns over lax regulations on firearms control.

A day after the accident, police came up with measures such as suspending business of those who do not place latches on the devices that fix the guns

By Kim So-hyun (sophie@heraldcorp.com)