• Dr_Fetus_Jackson@lemmy.world
        16·
        9 days ago

        My wife’s beloved and jovial grandfather committed suicide with a .38 revolver after a prolonged bout of health issues that left him feeling desperate and dependant on his family for care. My wife’s father finds his dad dead with pistol laying next to him. After the funeral, we’re going through the possessions of the estate, and seeing that pistol laying on the table and watching everyone relive that loss was just terrible.

        15 years later, my wife’s father dies of heart issues. Invariably, we find it again amongst her father’s possessions. It compounded the feeling of loss already being felt by the sudden and unexpected death of her father.

        My brother-in-law has it now and has already had one stroke. He is petty shitty at taking care of himself and we expect he won’t be around too much longer. My wife and I know we get to revisit that damn gun again. Should it come to us, I’ll melt it with a torch into slag and drop it into a lake to rust into nothing.

        I realize that we’re the last ones to know and feel what pain that weapon was at the center of. Our kids weren’t even alive when it was used that way, and they’d likely see it as a family curiosity piece. That said, like our family members, it needs to be put to rest once and for all. It’s been a part of too much pain.

    • ryathal
      28·
      10 days ago

      It happened to a friend of mine. I don’t think it was intentional. Guns are common heirlooms, suicide definitely makes it awkward though.

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
          10·
          10 days ago

          You know that, even in the US, you can’t just sell a gun online and ship it to their house, right?

          In fact, someone without a federal firearms dealer’s license can’t transfer a handgun to ANYONE who lives in a different state at all.

          • pinkystew@reddthat.comEnglish
            9·
            10 days ago

            Oh. In that case I’ll give it to my son and tell him on Christmas day that his uncle killed himself with it.

            • Jumuta
              9·
              10 days ago

              “santa killed your uncle with it to make sure it works”

          • Arbiter@lemmy.world
            4·
            10 days ago

            You can sell a gun online, the transfer just has to go through an FFL holder who will run required background checks.

          • vaultdweller013
            11·
            10 days ago

            I think you could, black powder weapons are regulated weirdly. But yeah anything that uses modern powder would need to be sold to a gun shop.

            • modus@lemmy.world
              1·
              9 days ago

              Silencerco took advantage of this once and made the Maxim 50. I don’t think many people bought it, but it was made just to utilize that loophole.

        • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
          6·
          10 days ago

          I thought it was meant figuratively (the dead person passing on the revolver), so all the atributes listed were about someone who killed himself only after having children. Instead of just ending the curse.

          Edit: ohh, sorry, I was super unclear with the “and live” (should have said at least like “and lived long enough”).