SELF DESTRUCTION OF INSURED   475

The bullet entered the left breast and pierced the heart. Powder burns on the clothing just over the wound indicate that the muzzle of the weapon was very close to the person of the deceased at the moment of discharge. The pistol was but a few inches from the right hand as the body lay on the floor. Death at the hands of an-other is clearly negatived. There is evidence that for some time and even during that day the deceased had been making plans for the future. There is nothing in the case of melancholia, despondency, and no more than a possibility of temporary depression: the inference being rather that Mr. Garbush was cheerfully and optimistically inclined. The absence of proof of motive is complete. The circumstance that death found Mr. Garbush just inside the show window of his store, with people passing on the street and customers likely to enter, is also persuasive that the act was accidental rather than intentional. Those facts, we feel, with the strong presumption against suicide, put the verdict where we cannot say that it has no reasonable support in the evidence.

The strongest argument for defendant is that the mechanism of the pistol is an efficient preventive of accidental discharge. It is of Colt construction, characterized by two safety devices. One is a catch, so placed as to be easily operated by the thumb, pushed on or off, as the grip is held in the right hand. The other is a sear lock in the rear of the grip designed to make discharge impossible unless it be squeezed forward and there held while the trigger is pulled. There is merit in the argument, but not enough to over-come, as against the verdict, the contrary circumstances already referred to. The possibility that the automatic safety device was at the time being and for some undisclosed reason inoperative is not negatived. The mechanism is efficient but not infallible. The hypothesis of carelessness is not out of the question. An automatic pistol is always dangerous to its possessor. The one here involved was much used in the store as a demonstrator. It is easy, if the utmost care is not exercised habitually, to permit a cartridge to remain in the magazine and get thence to the chamber without the knowledge of the user. The weapon, so inadvertently loaded, could then be easily but accidentally discharged in the handling. That very thing has happened to others. True, we are dealing now with improbabilities. But the hazard of accidental discharge is so far present that, with the other facts of this case, we cannot say that a verdict was demanded, as a matter of law, for the defense, which had the burden of proof of self-slaughter. * * *

Our conclusion [in Hawkins v. Kronick, 157 _Minn. 33, 195 N. W. 766] was that the presumption against suicide, while a strong one, does not control the fact issue where there is substantial proof from which rational consideration may reach the conclusion of suicide. In that case, a determination of suicide by the triers of fact must stand. But, after a contrary determination of the fact issue, such