The woman at the counter of Keith's Sporting Goods wanted a handgun. She wasn't interested in price, quality or how to use it safely. She spoke slowly that day in June as she made one request: Would the clerk load it?

Maria Ward doesn't judge her customers. Americans have a right to buy firearms, after all. But this woman seemed traumatized. Ward worried she planned to hurt someone.

"I'm sorry," Ward told her. "I'm not going to sell you a firearm."

Ward, who owns the Gresham gun store with her husband, then did something she'd never done before. She warned the Oregon State Police not to allow anyone else to sell Brenda Nyhof Dunn a gun. But the agency, which performs background checks for most gun sales in Oregon, told Ward there was nothing it could do under the law.

The next day, Nyhof Dunn drove to Dick's Sporting Goods in Gresham. She bought a rifle and ammunition, according to the police report, which included a receipt from the transaction. She paid $10 to have the Oregon State Police perform a background check, which she easily passed. Hours later, she fatally shot herself. She was 36.

Lawmakers since last year's Newtown massacre have focused on expanding the types of gun sales that require checks on a buyer's criminal record or history of mental illness. Yet such checks weed out surprisingly few people with mental illnesses that can lead them to harm themselves or others.

Oregon and federal law prohibits people from buying firearms if they've been involuntarily committed by a court, found guilty except for insanity, or determined unable to aid in their own defense. Oregon officials estimate that 29,000 people have been disqualified for these reasons.

No restrictions apply to people like Nyhof Dunn, whose battles with bipolar disorder and major depression drove her to voluntarily enter residential psychiatric care 13 times in the final year of her life. The month she died, Multnomah County sheriff's deputies visited her home after she told a 9-1-1 operator she planned to hang herself in her parents' barn.

An estimated 44 percent of the 656 Oregonians who killed themselves in 2011 suffered documented cases of mental illness, based on medical examiners' reports. And about 143,000 Oregonians experienced serious mental illness in the last year, based on survey data from 2010 and 2011.

Keeping suicidal people from turning guns on themselves can ensure they live longer lives, researchers say.

That's because suicide often is not a persistent desire but a passing urge that family, doctors or even police can interrupt, according to public health experts.

An estimated 90 percent of people who survive a suicide attempt do not go on to commit suicide later, studies show. But few who try suicide by gun survive -- 15 percent, according to a national study of 2001 data

, compared with 98 to 99 percent of Americans who chose pills or cut themselves.

"Firearms are intrinsically lethal," said Catherine Barber, director of the Harvard School of Public Health's Means Matter, a public education program on firearms and suicide. "They are fast. They don't allow a change of mind or the possibility of rescue."

Maria Ward, who owns Keith’s Sporting Goods in Gresham with her husband, refused to sell Brenda Nyhof Dunn a firearm last year after Nyhof Dunn asked a store employee to load the gun. Ward took the extraordinary step of calling the Oregon State Police, which administers the Firearms Instant Check System, to warn the agency not to approve a firearm sale to Nyhof Dunn. The agency told her it could not stop the legal sale of a firearm. Nyhof Dunn went onto purchase a rifle at another area store and fatally shot herself. Said Ward: “I gave her name and said, ‘You should not sell her anything.’ I suggested not to do any background check or anything.”

Nyhof Dunn's 70-year-old father, a retired builder who generally opposes gun control, continues to grieve his daughter's death.

"She had so much to give," said Gordon Nyhof.

Said Nyhof, "There was no reason she should have been able to buy a gun."

History of illness



Nyhof recalls his daughter's childhood in rural Multnomah County as a happy one. She was the kind of girl who easily attracted friends. She took up piano in first grade, developing an interest in music that carried into adulthood.

As a freshman at a Midwestern Bible college, Nyhof Dunn struggled with grief after the death of her mother but seemed to manage, said her stepmother, Rachel Cain-Nyhof. When Nyhof Dunn felt overwhelmed by graduate school -- she was pursuing a degree in psychology -- she withdrew from the program.

She settled in Grand Rapids, Mich., bought a home and landed her dream job working with disabled people at Goodwill Industries. One family photograph shows Nyhof Dunn smiling in front of the house, her left hand perched on her hip, just after she moved in.

Nyhof Dunn married, but her family said the six-year union crumbled. A deeply religious Christian, she opposed divorce and viewed her inability to salvage her marriage as a personal failure. It took a disastrous toll on her mental health, her family said.

In June 2011, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She voluntarily admitted herself to a Michigan hospital for psychiatric care on three occasions that year.

She moved back home with her family in Oregon by the end of 2011.

But her problems only worsened. In a six-month period, from late 2011 through early summer 2012, Nyhof Dunn was voluntarily hospitalized five times. Her stays ranged from a few days to more than three weeks, according to medical records kept by the family.

At one point, she took five medications a day to stabilize her mental state, her stepmother said.

Brenda Nyhof Dunn and her father, Gordon, in a photo that was taken around 1980. The pair went fishing in Promontory Park in Clackamas County.

Days before her suicide, Nyhof Dunn's parents drove her to a Washington clinic, where her family said a doctor suggested she transition from psychiatric medications to vitamin supplements. Her father and stepmother said the visit left them hopeful but plunged Nyhof Dunn deeper into despair.

Limited restrictions



Most

in response to last year's shooting rampage in Newtown has focused on banning some semi-automatic weapons and expanding the types of gun sales that require background checks. Oregon lawmakers are pushing to expand background checks to

, allow

concealed handgun licensees from carrying their firearms on school grounds and prohibit licensees from openly

.

Those efforts, suicide prevention experts say, do little to protect people from themselves. Yet 73 percent more Americans killed themselves with guns in 2010 than were fatally shot by another person. "The national discussion around firearms is almost totally focused on homicide and massacres," said Lisa Millet,who oversees the Injury and Violence Prevention Section of the Oregon Health Authority. "We are not even talking about suicide."

Connecticut and New York, meanwhile, added new mental health provisions to their gun laws after Newtown.

Under

, gun owners must securely store their firearms if someone in the home is at risk for suicide or is a danger to others.

now requires mental health professionals to alert authorities if a patient is "likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others." The provision can lead authorities to suspend or revoke patients' firearms licenses and even

. Some advocates for the mentally ill fear the law will keep people from speaking openly with therapists.

Hawaii, home to some of the country's most restrictive gun laws, requires residents to obtain a permit prior to acquiring a firearm.

requires applicants to sign a medical waiver, allowing authorities "access to any records that have a bearing on the mental health of the applicant." [The National Conference of State Legislatures has compiled a full list of

.]

"There are situations where the person has mental illness in their background, but if their doctor certifies that they can safely own, we will give them the permit," said Christopher Young, supervisor of the criminal justice division of the Hawaii Attorney General's Office.

Hawaii ranks 48th in the nation for firearm-related suicides, based on data from 2006 through 2010. Suicides by firearm account for 20 percent of suicides in Hawaii, compared with

.

Sensing something wrong



Nyhof Dunn returned home the day she tried to buy a gun at Keith's and told her family. She said she wanted to kill herself.

"What happened?" Rachel Cain-Nyhof asked her stepdaughter.

"They turned me down," Nyhof Dunn said.

She also tried to buy a firearm at Big 5 Sporting Goods, the family said they later discovered.

Cain-Nyhof was so grateful to the owners of

, she called to thank them.

"They said something didn't seem right," Cain-Nyhof said. "It wasn't a background check gone wrong. They just sensed something was wrong."

Gordon Nyhof and his wife, Rachel Cain-Nyhof, at their home in Orient, a rural community in Multnomah County. Nyhof’s daughter, Brenda Nyhof Dunn, fatally shot herself in July 2012, after struggling with mental illness. She used a rifle she purchased hours earlier. Nyhof Dunn’s extensive history of mental illness, psychiatric care and suicidal threats did not preclude her from legally buying a firearm. “If you are a person who is not safe in your life, that should be taken into consideration when you buy a gun,” said Cain-Nyhof.

The Oregon State Police approves, delays or denies gun purchases after a check of statewide and federal databases to see, among other things, if a buyer has outstanding warrants, felony convictions or involuntary commitments for mental illness.

Ward, the gunshop owner, said in an interview that she went as far as warning the state not to perform a background check on Nyhof Dunn if she turned up at another dealer.

"You should not sell her anything," Ward recalled telling a state police employee.

Mathew Oeder, who oversees the state police

, could not provide The Oregonian with specifics about Nyhof Dunn's case. However, Oeder said the agency cannot delay or deny a person's firearm purchase based on the observation of a firearms dealer.

"We will not at all recommend that," he said. "We tell them, 'You need to tell us if you are proceeding with this transaction or not.'"

He added: "We are not here to make that decision for them."

Stopping a bullet



Choices made in the hours before a suicide attempt can determine who lives and who dies.

Nine out of 10 suicide survivors of nearly lethal attempts said less than a day passed between the time they decided to end their lives and when they attempted suicide, one study found.

Specialists in suicide prevention say telling the public about the risk of guns is essential. Consider that the probability of death by suicide is two to five times higher for people who live in homes with guns than for those who do not, said Dr. Matthew Miller, an associate professor of health policy and management at Harvard's School of Public Health.

It's not that gun owners are more suicidal, researchers say, but that guns are more lethal than any other means.

Suicide prevention resources

Crisis hotline for Portland and Multnomah County: 503-988-4888

Washington County: 503-291-9111

Clackamas County: 503-655-8585

Clark County: 360-696-9560

Other Oregon locations:

Lines for Life: 503-972-3456

Urgent walk-in clinic: Cascadia Behavioral Health Care, 2415 S.E. 43rd Ave. (43rd and Division), Portland; 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily

Though suicide victims are far more likely to use a gun already in the home, a small percentage buy one in the days or hours before their death. A study of suicides by firearm from 2007 through 2009 in New Hampshire found 8 percent of victims purchased a gun within a week of their death, most within hours of the act.

"That meant it was 5 or 6 occurring a year in New Hampshire, and that is 5 or 6 deaths if you are selling in the state that you don't want on your watch," said Barber.

Armed with the data, public health experts took their message to New Hampshire gun store owners, asking them to make suicide hotline information available in their stores and teaching them to spot the signs of someone who might be suicidal.

Ralph Demicco, owner of

in Hooksett, N.H., gladly displays the information. But he said prospective gun owners' mental health problems shouldn't automatically disqualify them from buying a firearm.

"What if you have a young lady who has a difficult pregnancy?" he said. "She is a mess for a month, and then she gets all better and now she is a productive mother and wife. We have got to safeguard her in case she would ever want to exercise what we believe is her constitutional right to have a firearm."

Final journey



To Nyhof Dunn's family, her last day was a good one. It came as a relief. The day before she seemed to disappear into her own dark world.

She told her parents she planned to visit the library that afternoon and returned home in time to attend church services.

That evening, the family watched television, shared popcorn and headed off to bed.

Gordon Nyhof walked his daughter back to the motor home where she slept, just a few feet from the family's home. He took her hands in his and said a prayer.

"Today was a good day," he remembered telling his daughter. "And you are going to have a whole lot more."

The following morning, she was nowhere to be found. The Nyhofs scoured the neighborhood. They called police.

Sometime after saying goodnight to her father, Nyhof Dunn, a rifle at her side, made the lonely walk to a field next to East Orient Elementary, her old grade school, where she shot herself in the head.

More

The Nyhofs realized their daughter hadn't visited the library the day before. Instead, she'd bought a gun at Dick's, whose corporate headquarters did not respond to interview requests from The Oregonian.

Later, the couple found the receipt for the Henry Lever Action rifle, a $299.99 American-made firearm used for target practice and shooting small game, along with 100 rounds of .22 caliber ammunition.

She only needed one.

"If she had gotten past that day," said Cain-Nyhof, "who knows?"

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