WESTMORELAND, Tenn. (WSMV) - Susie Lowman knew her son was in a dark chapter in an already troubled life.

Last Christmas, Susie’s son, Eric Rich, kept looking at an ornament that commemorated the baby he’d lost.

“He was just tired. Tired of the mental struggles that he dealt with,” Susie said.

Rich’s battles with alcoholism and mental illness had plagued him all his adult life, but he’d been sober for quite some time, meaning he could no longer drown his sorrows.

Among them — his, at times, fractured relationship with his two children. A convicted felon, he hadn’t been the model father, although she knew he loved them all.

“He wasn’t a present father in their life,” Susie said. “I think because he didn’t know how to love.”

But Susie and her husband, David Lowman, took solace in the fact that because of Rich’s felony criminal background, he could not have access to a gun.

In fact, Susie said Rich was so financially strapped, he couldn’t afford a gun.

So on January 13, when the call came that Rich had taken his own life, the Lowman’s were devastated, but also confused.

Rich had taken his life by using a gun.

“How did he get his hands on a firearm? He has a record. He’s a felon,” David said.

The Lowman’s then learned where he had taken his life: at a gun range in Gallatin.

A police report reads that he died at the Ares Tactical gun range.

The Lowman’s said that their son rented a gun and took his own life.

“No parent should have to bury their child,” Susie said.

A WSMV4 Investigation found Rich’s death is hardly unique.

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We found reports of suicides at gun ranges in six states: Tennessee, Florida, Virginia, Michigan, Colorado and California.

Various publications, including Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention , Suicides at Shooting Ranges , and Shooting of Firearms Trainer by NYC Woman Exposes Gun Range Loophole , site statistics from the CDC’s violent death database showing suicides at gun ranges across the nation, but the data is at least five years old.

In Hanover, Virginia, Amy Bryant Carroll’s son killed himself at a gun range .

“He texted me, I love you very much. Then, 45 minutes later, he killed himself,” Bryant Carroll said.

That same week, Karen Williams’ son also killed himself at the same range.

“How’d he get a gun? He has paranoid schizophrenia?” Williams said.

Both families said the men had been committed to mental institutions but were still able to rent guns at the range.

“This is a common thread across the U.S.,” Susie said.

Suicides at gun ranges have prompted the Firearm Industry Trade Association to develop manuals to help gun ranges not only to post suicide prevention materials inside their buildings, but also how to help staff cope after a suicide.

The owner of Ares Tactical in Gallatin wrote in an email to WSMV4 Investigates, “We do not feel comfortable talking at this time.”

The Lowman family now wants Tennessee to allow gun ranges to conduct background checks on people who rent guns at ranges.

WSMV4 Investigates reached out to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to ask how gun ranges could be granted the ability to conduct criminal background checks.

A spokesman for the TBI responded in an email, “Currently, there is no mechanism that allows for a check of the relevant federal database. We have, however, been involved in conversations here in Tennessee – and with our federal counterparts – about potential options. Part of the conversation with federal stakeholders is whether it would even be possible to make that happen with state legislation.”

The Lowman family takes small comfort in knowing that Rich donated his organs to save other people’s lives.

It does not, however, ease the pain of his loss.

“This is a new way that people are ending their lives,” Susie said.

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