Ammo Believed Suicidal Man’s Own

A man who killed himself in the gun department of a Costa Mesa sporting-goods store with a new shotgun apparently brought his own ammunition, police said Friday.

The 28-year-old man, who has been identified only as a transient, went into the Big 5 Sporting Goods store on the 2300 block of Harbor Boulevard around 9 p.m. Thursday, shortly before closing time, said Costa Mesa Police Lt. Tom Winter.

He asked a clerk for a single-shot 12-gauge shotgun, Winter said. The clerk checked the gun to make sure it was not loaded and handed it over.

The man then apparently slipped in his own shell and shot himself in the head as shoppers looked on in horror. He died at the scene.

Police said they believe the man brought his own ammunition because the fatal shell was found to be of a type the store does not sell. An investigation is planned.

Winter said he could recall no similar suicide. “It’s very bizarre,” he said.

The store was closed Friday morning as biohazard crews cleaned up the scene and the store’s security officers conducted their own investigation.

Gary Meade, general counsel for El Segundo-based Big 5 Corp., called the shooting “totally unforeseeable and totally unexpected.”

“What we know so far shows the store personnel followed store policy with respect to showing a firearm,” Meade said.

“We always check a firearm to make sure it doesn’t have ammunition in it before showing it to a customer.”

There was little the store could have done to prevent the tragedy, agreed Andrew Molchan, president of the National Association of Federally Licensed Firearms Dealers in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

“I suppose you could always keep a [trigger] lock on every single gun,” he said. “But then the customer couldn’t really look at it.”

A prospective gun buyer typically wants to feel the gun in his hand and get an idea of the smoothness of the trigger, he said.

“It’s like test-driving a car,” he said. “You can’t test-drive a car while having it chained up in a lot at the same time.”

Molchan said he could not recall a similar shooting. He said fatal accidents are surprisingly rare at gun shops, considering the number of people who handle guns every day in such stores.

Between 1980 and 1997, when the association provided insurance against accidental shootings to all its members, there were only two such fatalities reported, he said.

A crisis intervention team provided by the company was on hand Thursday night to counsel a handful of store employees and customers who witnessed the shooting.

Company officials said the clerk who handed over the gun was given a temporary leave of absence. “He’s obviously very upset,” Meade said.

Times correspondent James Meier contributed to this story.