The spike in suicides at Shooters is probably an anomaly. While no national statistics are kept on gun range suicides, the percentage is probably very low, according to health experts.

But the number of suicides involving firearms is not. Nationwide, 42,773 Americans killed themselves in 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Half of them did so with guns – more than the number of people who were killed with guns in homicides and accidents combined, according to the Washington Post.

Wisconsin mirrors that rate with 874 suicides last year and 410 of them involving firearms – 47 percent.

One problem is that suicide often is an impulsive act. The other is that firearms are very lethal and effective. The Post story last summer said “according to CDC data, which includes suicide attempts that were serious enough that the person ended up in the emergency room or dead, 90 percent of the people who shoot themselves die, but only 4 percent of people who poison themselves die. The overall death rate for people who attempt suicide is 11 percent.”

And suicides are on the rise in our country. The suicide rate has gone up 17 percent since 2000 – while it has dropped in other industrialized countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and France.

Those statistics and trends make efforts like The Gun Shop Project even more important. The task may be daunting, but Shooters and other ranges and gun shops are making a good faith effort to run their businesses responsibly and run out the clock on those impulsive actions that too often end in tragedy.