Since the brother gave the gun up voluntarily, there's no real time limit on how long the police can or will hang onto it. According to the American Center for Suicidology, firearms accounted for 59.1 percent of all suicides nationwide in 1995. Seventy-eight percent of all firearm suicide attempts are fatal, according to an AMA article of 1995. Closer to home, the Santa Cruz Suicide Prevention Service reports that eight of the 14 suicides that occurred in Santa Cruz County between January and August of this year were firearm suicides. Littering on the beach.
Bad things happen every day, too.
Things can go wrong, accidents will happen. In the six stories above, there's a hint of possibility. Maybe it was luck, or someone blinking. Someone could have moved a finger, someone could have made a corpse. But no one did.