Nine year old accidentally kills gun instructor with Uzi

[awesome possum]

Wait. That statement is nonsense. First of all, the gun range was used by locals as well. The 5 year olds getting gun lessons there were the children of New York tourists. Second, if you don't think the girl's parents were gun owners, I'd say you were nuts. Non-gun owners don't take their children to gun ranges, and they bloody well don't take children to shoot Uzis.

Nonsense. Those poor parents had so much pent up frustration from left coast vegans taking away their guns that they immediately stopped at the first gun range they saw while on vacation so that they could remember what holding freedom in their hands was like before their freedom was stripped away from them by the evil government.

[Suttree]

If the parents had experience with and had handled guns themselves they would have realized how bat shit insane it was to give an Uzi to a 9 year old.

*cough*

“It is pretty standard in the industry to let children shoot on the range,” Mr. Scarmardo said in an interview. “We are working with the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office, and we’ll make a decision if we’ll make any changes after we review all the facts.”

Mr. Scarmardo said that the girl’s parents “were very familiar with weapons” and that Mr. Vacca and a tour guide had driven the family to the shooting range from their hotel in Las Vegas.

[KiDisaster]

Wait. That statement is nonsense. First of all, the gun range was used by locals as well. The 5 year olds getting gun lessons there were the children of New York tourists. Second, if you don't think the girl's parents were gun owners, I'd say you were nuts. Non-gun owners don't take their children to gun ranges, and they bloody well don't take children to shoot Uzis.

This I have to disagree with. Plenty of people who come to America on vacation from countries that don't allow ownership of guns in any form will go to ranges to see what it's like. We've got a place down here in Miami that offers the "Full Auto Experience" that's a pretty big tourist attraction believe it or not. Non-gun owners from New York could just as easily have the same interest in trying it.

I don't know if these particular parents were gun owners or not*, just saying that wanting to shoot a gun does not mean you are a gun owner or have any knowledge or experience of/with them.

ETA: Apparently they were, thanks Suttree, but in general the point still stands.

[daskool]

Where did you get the idea that I have an issue with killing things? Acknowledging that guns are used to kill things doesn't mean I'm against killing things.

Well my most humble and govling apologies to you ser.

Nonsense. Those poor parents had so much pent up frustration from left coast vegans taking away their guns that they immediately stopped at the first gun range they saw while on vacation so that they could remember what holding freedom in their hands was like before their freedom was stripped away from them by the evil government.

It's the lack of iron in the diet. Low hemaglobin leading to insufficient oxygenation to the brain parts.

[daskool]

*cough*

Well consider me schooled. This is my home state, personally I've never seen a little kid being allowed to handle a full auto pistol on a range or anywhere else for that matter. I started out shooting BB guns and didn't handle a 22 til I was in my teens, all of my age group were the same. I guess there's no accounting for people.

[Wise Fool]

Case in point, lady carrying a pistol in her handbag is just the same as a someone carrying a backpack full of anthrax.

lol what? No it isn't.

[Weeping Sore]

It's the lack of iron in the diet. Low hemaglobin leading to insufficient oxygenation to the brain parts.

Aren't those left coast vegans really lacking hot lead in the body? For which you'd love to give them aggressive supplementation? Come on, admit it.

[daskool]

Aren't those left coast vegans really lacking hot lead in the body? For which you'd love to give them aggressive supplementation? Come on, admit it.

If the initial impact of the high velocity round doesn't get you the after effects of lead poisoning surely will.

[Glaurung]

Isn't it me that if you unt with automatics you'll have to spend way too mcuh time picking bullets out of the carcass? (not to mention it increases the risk of contaminating the meat)

RE: American attitudes to guns. I come from a rural area, lots of people hunt, and people do start shooting early. But they do so with air guns (largely because the big moose-guns pack way too much of a kick for small children) not fucking automatic weapons. These are military-grade firearms, the only place you'll likely to see them is if you're in the army (or some of the more specialized police units, but even then most policemen only use their service pistols) having kids shoot them is nuts. Heck, having ADULTS shoot them is nuts. They have no practical use whatsoever for hunting, or even target shooting.

Yeah, you would have to pick the bullets out of the carcass, but most hunting is done with shotguns and when you clean small game you have to pick out the pellets. With an Uzi, the bullets would be slugs, so they should be easy to pick out as you clean the meat. Accuracy is very important with hunting though for 2 reasons. 1st, it is possible that with an Uzi you might not kill the animal and it runs off with a few holes in it...it will probably suffer for a long time and eventually die plus you'll be out a few meals. 2nd, you want a rifle for the accuracy because a person who is a decent shot can put the animal down with one clean shot and it's dead before it knows what happened. The animal doesn't suffer and you have dinner on the table.

Regarding your 2nd part, I think you described most people in the US. I grew up rural and learned shooting air guns/bb guns early on. I took safety courses and got my permit before I picked up anything stronger than a pellet gun. I've never shot an automatic weapon in my life. Even those who I would label as gun nuts think it is crazy for a child to be shooting an Uzi. Those who would be ok with it are an extreme minority.

I did a quick search but couldn't track down the history of the age provisions. The current Firearms Act was passed in 1995. I did see that "not until 1935" was it illegal to sell a gun to someone under 16.

If your friend was shooting at age 8, either she's an aboriginal person or her parents were trappers. :) Or her parents were teaching her illegally. That's totally possible, of course, if she grew up in a rural area, but not in the city because no gun range would allow her to be there.

She wasn't aboriginal or a trapper. I would imagine she probably learned illegally. She did grow up in a rural area, so it probably wasn't very difficult to do.

I suspect our difference of opinion is in large part due to being in Europe, because corn syrup isn't a major concern here whereas giving any kind of gun to a child, let alone an Uzi, and letting them fire it on their own would be seen by the majority as absolutely mental.

But, ya know, the fact that it isn't seen as particularly worrying in America (until things like this happen, of course) is one of the reasons I find the States very, very weird and wouldn't be comfortable ever living there.

Doesn't it also depend on where from Europe you're from? My brother in law is from the UK and he tells me stories about shooting with his grandpa when he was a kid. I do think though that even in the US, most think that letting children shoot powerful guns isn't a good idea, especially an Uzi. I wouldn't let headlines and message board topics warp your idea of America though. I've never felt uncomfortable living anywhere in the US. The fear of being shot has never been a fear of mine and I've lived in some bad neighborhoods. There are a handful of areas where you would want to avoid, but the vast majority of the US is quite safe and the fear of being shot is about as overblown as the fear of flying.

[Galactus]

Yeah, you would have to pick the bullets out of the carcass, but most hunting is done with shotguns and when you clean small game you have to pick out the pellets. With an Uzi, the bullets would be slugs, so they should be easy to pick out as you clean the meat. Accuracy is very important with hunting though for 2 reasons. 1st, it is possible that with an Uzi you might not kill the animal and it runs off with a few holes in it...it will probably suffer for a long time and eventually die plus you'll be out a few meals. 2nd, you want a rifle for the accuracy because a person who is a decent shot can put the animal down with one clean shot and it's dead before it knows what happened. The animal doesn't suffer and you have dinner on the table.

Most huntin here is Moose (which doesen't use shotguns much, IIRC) but fair point.

I do know anothr reason not to have too many bullets (apart from quick kill, etc.) is to redue the chane of rupturing an intestine and such, which can be tricky to deal with and spoilt a lot of the anima.

Doesn't it also depend on where from Europe you're from? My brother in law is from the UK and he tells me stories about shooting with his grandpa when he was a kid. I do think though that even in the US, most think that letting children shoot powerful guns isn't a good idea, especially an Uzi. I wouldn't let headlines and message board topics warp your idea of America though. I've never felt uncomfortable living anywhere in the US. The fear of being shot has never been a fear of mine and I've lived in some bad neighborhoods. There are a handful of areas where you would want to avoid, but the vast majority of the US is quite safe and the fear of being shot is about as overblown as the fear of flying.

I've seen kids shoot, but lmost entirely usuing air rifles (for training purposes, basic gun safetyetc.) and then "graduating" to proper rifles in their teens.

[ljkeane]

Doesn't it also depend on where from Europe you're from? My brother in law is from the UK and he tells me stories about shooting with his grandpa when he was a kid.

He definitely wasn't shooting an uzi, but yeah, I don't think there are any specific laws against letting children shoot guns in the UK. I remember going clay pigeon shooting when I was about 11 or 12 I think.

[hauberk]

I started target shooting with my dad when I was 5. Both with a bolt action .22 and with a .25 semi-automatic pistol. Safety was always the first concern. As a gun owner, he wanted me to be very aware of what a gun could do and how to approach being around firearms safely but, at the same time to not fear them. I find the absolute morale authority being exhibited here by some to be pretty freaking appalling, particularly since it seems to frequently also be from a position of practical ignorance.

To my knowledge, target shooting, aside from dealing with the occasional varmint, is all that he's ever done and it's also all that I've ever done.

I saw a comment on how the instructor should have been behind and to the right. That may have been safer, for at least a second or two, but the uzi throws hot brass up and to the right (while the gun itself will lift and go left consistently), likely into the face of anyone standing in that position and probably cause them to lose control as well.

I'm going to assume, because that's all that anyone can do at this point, that the instructor gave the girl an opportunity to shoot the weapon on single shot in order to familiarize her with the way the gun moved and see how she handled the kick. Unfortunately, single shot isn't going to make anyone familiar with the buzzsaw vibration of full auto.

At the end of the day, I'm OK with youth learning to shoot and I don't have a big issue with youth, or anyone else, having the opportunity to fire exotic weapons. I do, however, think that there need to be some limits and additional safety factors. Those might be age/height/size limits for certain weapons, safety tethers that keep the weapon pointed down range or below a certain angle of incline. All of that should be on top of a double helping of caution, awareness and common sense.

[TerraPrime]

In the only video footage we have, the girl shot 1 round (or 2 rouns?) under single-shot. Then immediately after that the instructor switched it to continuous fire mode. That seems monumentally unwise. I'd have said that she can't shoot in continuous firing mode until she can shoot single shots safely and accurately without assistance.

[hauberk]

TP:

No arguments there. That said, we also don't know if the video started late, was selectively cut to show the last 1-2 shots. Regardless, 1-2 shots single is undeniably too few to become acclimated to the jackhammer to follow.

[The Fallen]

I completely agree. NY state's insane (and unconstitutional) gun laws are partly to blame. If the parents had experience with and had handled guns themselves they would have realized how bat shit insane it was to give an Uzi to a 9 year old.

As a NYer I'm glad I don't have to worry about a bunch of idiots running around with guns. It's bad enough with all the illegal guns.

If you want a gun and have a legitimate reason then you can get one. I'm all for responsible gun ownership. I'm not sure why gun enthusiasts insist on a free-for-all, innocent lives lost be damned.

[Gronzag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxWWJaTEdD0

[A Song of Mice and Liars]

As a NYer I'm glad I don't have to worry about a bunch of idiots running around with guns. It's bad enough with all the illegal guns.

If you want a gun and have a legitimate reason then you can get one. I'm all for responsible gun ownership. I'm not sure why gun enthusiasts insist on a free-for-all, innocent lives lost be damned.

Because where would the USA be as a nation, without the Second Amendment being respected?

I love the fact that the second amendment was written, in a time where the kind of guns people have access to nowadays, were not even being imagined.

The world has changed and a country where a nine year old is allowed to handle a God Damn Uzi, ffs, is an insane place to be!

[Littlefingers In The Air]

A Song of Mice and Liars, you have the single greatest name on these boards. That's all I have to say at this time.

[Fragile Bird]

The New Yorker's The Borowitz Report sums it up quite nicely. Below is the entire article. :)

Funny how the editor started breaking up the quote when I wanted to add spaces between the paragraphs. Stupid edit function. :p

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Across the United States on Wednesday, a heated national debate began on the extremely complex issue of children firing military weapons. “Every now and then, the nation debates an issue that is so complicated and tricky it defies easy answers,” says pollster Davis Logsdon. “Letting small children fire automatic weapons is such an issue.”Logsdon says that the thorny controversy is reminiscent of another ongoing national debate, about whether it is a good idea to load a car with dynamite and drive it into a tree.“Many Americans think it’s a terrible idea, but others believe that with the correct supervision, it’s perfectly fine,” he says. “Who’s to say who’s right?”Similar, he says, is the national debate about using a flamethrower indoors. “There has been a long and contentious national conversation about this,” he says. “It’s another tough one.”Much like the long-running national debates about jumping off a roof, licking electrical sockets, and gargling with thumbtacks, the vexing question of whether children should fire military weapons does not appear headed for a swift resolution.“Like the issue of whether you should sneak up behind a bear and jab it with a hot poker, this won’t be settled any time soon,” he says.

[Galactus]

Because where would the USA be as a nation, without the Second Amendment being respected?

I love the fact that the second amendment was written, in a time where the kind of guns people have access to nowadays, were not even being imagined.

The world has changed and a country where a nine year old is allowed to handle a God Damn Uzi, ffs, is an insane place to be!

This is worth noticing: A "Brown Bess" Flintlock Musket (the kind the Redcoats would have used) could, under optimal conditions, fire around 2-4 shots a minute. (a period rifle would be slower) an Uzi, depending on particular model, can fire between 650 and 900 rounds per minute... (admittedly you'll run out of ammunition long before you can fire for a minute)