The Agoura Hills Target Range hasn't seen just one suicide within its walls since it opened in 1982. When Robert Kramer shot himself there on August 18th, it was the seventh suicide that's occured at the shooting range.

Over the years, Robert Kramer, 57, periodically visited the Agoura Hills Target Range. Although Jim Davis, owner of the range, hadn't seen Kramer for several months, he had known him for more than 15 years and was always happy to see his old friend come in to shoot.

Kramer visited the range at 5040 Cornell Road on the afternoon of Fri., Aug. 18. After chatting for about 15 minutes and going to his car to retrieve a mutual friend's phone number for Davis, Kramer returned to the indoor facility at about 3 p.m. He fired a few rounds at targets, then placed a 22caliber semiautomatic pistol in his mouth and shot himself. He died instantly.

Davis said that Kramer was with another man, who fled the scene when he saw what had happened. Range members are not allowed to rent a gun and shoot alone. Two or more people must be present at all times, Davis said.

Kramer, a former Calabasas and Westlake Village resident before he moved in with a woman in Sherman Oaks, reportedly is the seventh person to take his life at the gun range since the range opened in 1982. Six of the suicides have occurred since 1995.

"I know that he was depressed," said his girlfriend, who asked to remain anonymous. "He fired a few rounds, then turned the gun on himself."

She said Kramer had two sons, ages 15 and 18, who live with their mother.

Guns aren't the cause of suicide. That's definitely not what we're saying. Suicide, unfortunately, has been around long before guns, and will be around long after we pass stronger gun laws to get rid of them. But guns make suicide, and all other types of violence, easy. That's one reason why gun ranges are such likely places for these terrible incidents.

Detective Sgt. Tim Youngern of the Lost Hills Sheriff's Station said gun range suicides are difficult to prevent.

"They have all the tools they need," Youngern said. "They aren't accidental shootings, they're deliberate acts."

Target ranges, in fact, are a common location for suicides and suicide attempts in California. In 2005, a man threatened to commit suicide at an indoor shooting range in Oceanside, and a 23year-old San Jose woman shot herself last month at an indoor Milpitas range. According to a Mercury News article about the event, the woman's death was "at least the third suicide in the past decade at the range."

An employee at Shooters Paradise in Oxnard, who requested anonymity, said on average there is one suicide at a shooting range every four to six years. The statistic, he said, was based on an insurance company study. Another employee said two people in 20 years had killed themselves at the Oxnard site.

Is there a law that we can pass against this? We could call for mental health background checks on everyone who rents a firearm at a range, if the range doesn't already perform them. We could require shooting ranges to have a psychiatrist on staff to evaluate members or visitors. But the bottom line of this problem is that there is no solution: as long as guns are involved, death shows up, too.

Davis said he strictly follows all gun laws and tries to determine if a customer might be mentally unstable. Background checks on criminal behavior and mental illness are conducted on members, and he will not rent a gun to anyone who seems ill or appears to have used drugs or alcohol. Customer cards kept at the range and detail members' proficiency with firearms.

First time visitors to the range must fill out paperwork and wait seven days to shoot. For those who want to purchase firearms, the scrutiny is even more intense. Due to previous suicides at the range, Davis and personnel at the Lost Hills Sheriff's Station tried to develop a profile of those who might make such an attempt. But Kramer didn't fit that profile.

Firearms aren't safe in any hands. Even at a shooting range-- the most controlled environments guns can appear in, guns can be and are used to kill. The only way we'll deal with this problem is by dealing with the direct cause. We can't end suicides, but we can end gun suicides: by getting rid of guns.