Firing bullets at a gun range — as a Marine reservist was doing Saturday when he allegedly killed ex-Navy SEAL and "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle — can ignite combat flashbacks, a leading expert on post-traumatic stress disorder said Monday, adding, however, that hunting and target practice can be therapeutic for veterans if their shooting buddies intimately know war.

“The question being asked is: Wouldn’t the shooting of a weapon out in the open trigger feelings, nightmares, flashbacks? The answer is, yes, it can,” said Dr. Harry Croft, a San Antonio-based psychiatrist who has talked with more than 7,000 veterans diagnosed with PTSD. “But the hope would be that those would be triggered in a situation that’s safe, where other people are there who understand PTSD and could help the person cope with the thoughts that may come back to them.

“In situations like a shooting range, the sounds may set off a hyper-vigilant response, maybe flashbacks and nightmares at night. But it doesn’t make you violent, like you’re going to kill the person around you. And if the person around you is a Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL who knows and can support you, then that experience can have a more positive effect,” Croft said.

Eddie Ray Routh, 25, a Marine Corps corporal from 2006 to 2010 who deployed to Iraq in 2007 and Haiti in 2010, was arraigned Sunday on two counts of capital murder in the deaths of Kyle, 38, and Chad Littlefield, 35, at a shooting range in North Texas. Both men were killed with a semi-automatic handgun.

According to Erath County Sheriff Tommy Bryant, Routh "may have been suffering from some type of mental illness from being in the military himself." Bryant added that Routh's mother possibly contacted Kyle to try to help her son. The sheriff also learned, he said, that the three men might have been at the range “for some type of therapy that Mr. Kyle assists people with.”

Organized veteran hunting excursions and shooting clubs — meant to be part bonding experience, part brief return to comfortable turf and tools — have proliferated across the country in recent years, particularly as American troops departed Iraq and as they continue to pull out of Afghanistan. Croft estimated that about 20 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have a form of PTSD, ranging from mild to severe.

“I talk all the time about the importance of good support systems for those suffering from PTSD, and articulate, bright, fellow military members like Kyle might have an ability to help a young troop with PTSD more than most (others) might,” said Croft, who co-authored “I Always Sit with My Back to the Wall: Managing Traumatic Stress and Combat PTSD.”

“That’s why it would be very rare if, all of a sudden, (the suspect) got triggered feelings and then would turn the gun and shoot this guy in the back. Something happened that we don’t know or understand, I believe,” said Croft, who has never worked with Routh. “This behavior is totally atypical for people with just PTSD. There can be rage, anger, aggression, agitation, even violence, yes. But it’s generally directed toward family members or one’s self, in terms of this suicide epidemic. Rarely is it outside of that circle.”

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has occasionally partnered with the Tampa, Fla.-based Black Dagger Military Hunt Club to hold shooting programs for veterans. In July, the club is sponsoring the trap shooting competition for the 2013 National Veterans Wheelchair Games in Tampa, providing ammunition and clays. Black Dagger, made up of ex-military members, also holds four to six shooting events per year. Every participant is briefed beforehand by “range safety officers" and supplied weapons. The veterans then work one-on-one with expert shooters, said founder Dave Winters, a 20-year Air Force member who retired as a senior master sergeant.

“We tell them: If at any time you feel uncomfortable about what’s going on out here, if the noise is too loud, put your weapon down, talk to your range safety buddy and just indicate that you need to walk away,” Winters said.

“We’ve had several who were real uneasy about approaching it at first, but once they saw that it was a comfortable thing, (and of course that) no one is shooting at them, that’s what I think helps them. It kind of normalizes them,” Winters said. (One Afghanistan veteran in the club), who feels like no one can relate to him, said that when he’s back out at the range, shooting and talking, it's just like when he was in his unit. It just makes them feel a lot better.”

In central Florida, the Sportsmen’s Foundation for Military Families escorts combat veterans — and their spouses, children, parents or siblings — onto leased land for weekend hunting trips.

“We never cater to just the veteran. Two veterans — or a group of veterans — who are out in the woods together, that does not improve coping skills, generally speaking. What improves their coping skills is their family,” said Barry Hull, a retired Navy commander and F/A-18 Hornet pilot who flew on the first night strike of Desert Storm. He has helped the Sportsmen's Foundation on the business side and attended several hunts.

The group is based on the concept that hunting trips “give the veteran and family a sense that they can once again be like they were, that those good days can be had again, particularly with those who have physical injuries and limitations,” Hull said.

“What improves a veteran’s coping skills is their family. And I know a lot of people want to say, 'Well, they're my military family.' They’re really not your family. Your family is really what I would call the classical definition of family — that's it for the long haul,” Hull said. “If you can develop those coping skills, communication picks up at home. We know that just simply being able to identify your demons lowers the effect (of PTSD). And that's what we do when we get the family out there on these adventures.

“The worst thing you can do is get a bunch of veterans out there in the woods, whooping and hollering and telling war stories, maybe drinking some beer, and not including the family. What does it do? It drives a bigger wedge between the veteran and the family. It's another distance maker,” Hull added. “What does that do? It adds more stress.”

Related:

• Ex-Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle died pursuing his passion
• 'American Sniper' author Chris Kyle fatally shot at Texas gun range
• Florida guide uses hunting as rustic therapy for combat veterans

Erik S. Lesser / EPA

Ron Moon, co-owner of CJI Guns in Tucker, Ga., holds a pair of 100-bullet-capacity magazines for an AR15 assault style semi-automatic rifle on Wednesday.

Anticipating staunch resistance from gun-rights groups to any effort to ban assault-style rifles, some pro-gun control lawmakers are instead trying to leverage the national outrage over the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., to enact federal legislation outlawing high-capacity ammunition clips.

House Democrats, emboldened by President Barack Obama's call Wednesday for quick, "concrete” proposals to curb gun violence, are pushing House Republicans to quickly consider a ban on high-capacity clips.

The move follows the massacre of 20 schoolchildren and six adults on Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary school. The gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza carried three guns, primarily using a Bushmaster XM-15 — an AR-15/M4-type rifle -- which police said was fed by 30-round magazines. He also was armed with a Glock 10mm handgun and Sig Sauer 9mm handgun. Although authorities didn't reveal the models of those weapons, both of those handguns allow high-capacity clips -- including 15-round magazines for one model of 10mm handgun that's sold by Glock.  

The bill’s list of co-sponsors this week grew from 113 to 135, according to a spokesman for Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., the measure’s author. In 1993, a man armed with a gun and several 15-round magazines shot and killed McCarthy’s husband, Dennis, aboard a Long Island, N.Y., commuter train. Five others also died and 25 were wounded. 

“We've been here before,” McCarty said Wednesday on Capitol Hill. “All too often, we see these mass killings and yet all our lives go on. Everybody is asking: Is this time different? It is ... This time is different because there is so much anger.”

“We can get the job done,” added House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., one of the bill’s co-sponsors. In an interview Tuesday with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Pelosi predicted: “Right away we could pass ... the ban on the assault magazine.”

Related: 

NRA blames media, music and more for culture of violence

Obama demands 'concrete proposals' on gun violence by January

In the other house of Congress, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., is simultaneously pushing for a rapid vote on his almost identical proposal to outlaw the possession, import or sale of any ammunition clip that hold more than 10 rounds, saying: “These high-capacity magazines, which were used in Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, Virginia Tech and so many other tragedies, were designed for one purpose only — to shoot and kill quickly.”

From 1994 to 2004, high-capacity ammunition magazines were illegal as part of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, but that provision lapsed when the legislation expired. Congressional Democrats have made several attempts to similar legislation barring possession of rapid-fire assault-style weapons since then, but those efforts have failed.

Legislators also have pushed legislation banning specific types of bullets – with one notable success: In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation that outlawed armor-piercing "cop-killer" bullets. 

But other recent ammunition-cutting proposals have failed to gain traction in Congress. Last summer, a bill filed Lautenberg and McCarthy sought to significantly curb the ability of Americans to buy unlimited amounts of ammunition via the Internet. That bill never made it beyond the Senate Judiciary Committee, a spokeswoman for Lautenberg said this week.   

So in a country where the right to bear arms is held sacred, firearm foes are refining their pitch to focus on the delivery mechanism. One of their main talking points is asking why such high-capacity clips are necessary.

“I've been a hunter all my life, and there's no reason to have a magazine that holds 30 shells,” said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif. “Call it what it is: an assault magazine. And we don't have any reason to assault anyone in our communities, in our neighborhoods. ... Why do you need 30 shells in a magazine?"

“Who needs these? The answer is sports shooters,” responds Mark Walters, co-author of "Lessons from Armed America" and host of a syndicated radio show “Armed American Radio." “For example, if you were target shooting or practicing for an upcoming (shooting competition), it’s nice not to have to change magazines on a regular continual basis."

What’s more, many ranchers use firearms like AR15s — manufactured to carry 30-round magazines — to protect their herds from coyotes and clear their land of prairie dogs, added George Hill, an employee at Basin Sports in Vernal, Utah.

The talk of banning “assault magazines” emanating from Washington appears to be driving sales of the high-capacity clips, according to Walters and Hill.

 “I came in at 8 this morning and I have been non-stop on selling AR15s and ammo. Nonstop,” Hill said Wednesday afternoon. “Those (30-round clips) have been going out, and I’ve been selling those two, three, 10 at a time. Everybody’s worried about the politics behind it and that’s generating a lot of these sales. They’re worried about it being banned.

“I would be real happy to only sell Benelli goose-hunting guns and Browning deer rifles. And that’s normally what we sell this time of year. But the politics has super-heated the tactical market. Normally, I sell somebody 50 rounds, maybe 100 pounds. Instead, I’m selling them 500 or 1,000 rounds.”

While Walters and Hill each oppose the proposed ban on high-capacity clips in principle, they argued as well that such a crackdown won’t slow gun violence in this country.

“This is all symbolic legislation that will do nothing. Absolutely nothing. If I could say something different, I would admit that,” Walters said. “But the facts don’t bear that out. It’s just feel-good legislation being backed into a horrible event.”

They note that gun ownership has increased over the past decade, with the number of instant criminal background checks conducted by retailers required by federal law rising each year. In November alone, more than 2 million such point-of-sale investigations were performed nationally on people seeking to purchase firearms — the most in any single month since federal officials launched the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) in 1998, according to the FBI. By comparison, gun retailers and federal authorities completed 842,932 background checks in November 2003.

“There are millions of rounds of ammunition already in the public’s hands — high-capacity or standard-capacity magazines already in the public's hands,” Walters said. “If they pass this ban, in the days prior to the date (it goes into effect), stores will sell 10 years’ worth of these capacity magazines.

“But beyond that, it’s irrelevant. A seasoned, experienced firearms enthusiast, including myself, can change a magazine out, including a tactical reload, in under a second,” Walters said.

Moreover, such ammunition doesn’t degrade over time, he added.

“It’s a plastic magazine with a spring. Magpul (based in Erie, Colo.) makes the most popular 30-round magazines, PMAGs, which are selling for $13.99,” Walters said. “I have five of them being reserved at my store because they’re selling like crazy. I know I could keep them in my safe forever. I can open it in 20 years, take it out of the plastic bag, and if I want to use it, I can use it.”

Any federal ammo ban — or mandated purchase limits on certain clips or bullets — would simply create an “underground market,” Hill said. Today, scores of gun enthusiasts — including many hunters — make their own bullets as a hobby. They’re called “reloaders.”

“People have been making ammunition themselves since the 1880s. That’s something anybody is capable of doing with a little bit of know-how,” Hill said. "Those kinds of bans are like throwing a steak on the grill for like 10 seconds and calling it cooked. It just looks like it’s cooked but it’s not.

“You can reload. Or, you can order online and get stuff from outside the U.S. It’s too late for any of that,” Hill said. “And it never works.”

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Florida Gov. Rick Scott has shot down a request by Tampa's mayor to allow local authorities to ban guns from the city's downtown during the Republican National Convention in August.

Citing Second Amendment protections in the U.S. Constitution, Scott told Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn that conventions and guns have co-existed since the nation's birth and would continue to do so during the four-day event beginning Aug. 27.

"It is unclear how disarming law abiding citizens would better protect them from the dangers and threats posed by those who would flout the law," the Republican governor said in a letter on Tuesday.

Local officials need Scott's permission to enact the temporary restrictions after state lawmakers last year passed a measure that prohibits local governments from adopting gun ordinances that are stricter than state law.

Florida has some of the most lenient gun laws in the United States and by some counts leads the nation in gun ownership, with about 6.5 percent of all adults licensed to carry a concealed weapon, state records show.

New applications for concealed gun permits have quadrupled since 1998.

In a letter to Scott, Buckhorn said the Tampa City Council had banned a host of items from the area surrounding the convention facility, a list that includes water guns, poles and pieces of wood.

"One noticeable item missing from the city's temporary ordinance is firearms," Buckhorn wrote. "In the potentially contentious environment surrounding the RNC, a firearm unnecessarily increases the threat of imminent harm and injury to the residents and visitors to the city."

Scott said he was confident law enforcement officials, who are expected to number nearly 4,000, would be able to protect the public without having to enforce a blanket gun ban.

That city officials have banned other items is irrelevant, he said.

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"The choice to allow the government to ban sticks, poles but not firearms, is one that the people made in enacting their state and federal constitutions," Scott wrote. 

Weapons will not be allowed in the convention center itself or in the immediate area surrounding the site. Security in that venue is being handled by the U.S. Secret Service. 

The City Council wants to extend the restrictions to all of downtown, including areas that have been designated zones for protesters expected at the event. 

"As governor, you have the duty to meet dangers presented by events such as the RNC where there is a threat of substantial injury and harm to Florida residents and visitors to the state," Buckhorn wrote.

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