9-year-old girl accidentally kills shooting instructor with Uzi

Wow, so why the disparity then? Why are firearms the only lethal object parents are held criminally responsible for. Equity among ignorant acts is all I am interested in. The fact that the lethal object that is responsible for the least child deaths is the most scrutinized is completely insane.

 

9 year olds can probably handle a hunting rifle, might have been a necessary life skill 75 years ago in some parts.

 

Not a big issue but the media frequently has lead stories about people getting mauled because they did stupid things with animals.

 

Anyway I'm not sure how much there is to debate here. I think everyone agrees it is stupid to allow a 9 year old girl to fire a fully automatic weapon.

 

I went surfing for the first time in 2007 or so. I was in my 30s. It was in San Diego, the waves weren't anything crazy, and I rented a nerf/foam-type board for beginners. On that same California trip, I then went to visit a cousin in Northern California. The waves there were massive. I had one of my cousin's boards to use, which was designed for people FAR more advanced than I was, and my cousin didn't grasp my level of being an absolute-beginner to surfing. I responded to his encouragement and figured I'd be okay, and I damn near drowned as a result. Lesson learned.

I have no idea how old I was the first time I fired a weapon of any kind, but my progression and experience was pretty much exactly like rimrocker and Buck said: BB gun -- pellet gun -- single-shot bolt action .22 -- .22 revolver -- 20 gauge -- and then on to bigger stuff.

Point being, you have to start small, and display proper safety and competence before moving to the next level.

This is absolutely a stupid, senseless, completely avoidable tragedy.

 

My big issue is with the BBC. They had this story between the ceasefire in Gaza and the meeting between Russia and Ukraine in the list of important news headlines that they read off every hour.

The BBC was has a serious hard on for gun control in the US. They were still covering Sandy Hook for a week or two after all the US news outlets had moved on, which is weird because it didn't happen in their country.

Personally, I find their surveillance state with all the cameras to be every bit as revolting as they find my guns, but I don't log into British websites and tell them all how horrible it is. If they like it, good for them.

For the record, I have no problem with people getting prosecuted, or this being a news item. It is just the kind of think that you find in the "Metro" or "Local News" section in newspapers, if it is anything other than the hot button topic of gun that sets everybody off. I don't see how you can justify it as front page headline news, anywhere but Arizona unless you are pandering.

 

It seems to me that an Uzi is not designed to be used by a 9 year old child. There are many things I wouldn't want a child doing, even with adult supervision. Automatic weapons in the hands of children just seems foolish, even with "expert" supervision.

Gun nuts will disagree of course.

 

Except the proprietor of the Uzi shooting range lol.

 

And apparently her parents too. Besides those it seems like the vast majority of people feel this was a stupid thing to do.

 

Part of the tragedy of this situation is that reasonable discourse over the regulation of firearms will once again be lost in the extremes of anti-gun and unfettered gun right extremists.

With other higher risk endeavors we don't have anywhere near the level of irrational extremism. Nobody gets up in arms about the "right to drink" when age of access is restricted. People don't complain when we slap age restrictions on viewing movies, flying unaccompanied, renting hotel rooms or driving vehicles.

Yet as soon as the discussion turns to guns, it's always a "all or nothing" debate that seems to consume the discourse.

Guns aren't going anywhere any time soon in American culture. That's a reality that I think everyone needs to accept given the cultural significance of gun ownership in the US.

However, is it automatically an attack on the 2nd amendment to do something like restricting the age which a child is allowed to operate a fully automatic weapon? Would it really be unreasonable to make it illegal for persons under the age of 16 to fire automatic weapons at a firing range? Or to restrict access to a shooting range to the age of 10 or 12?

Yes, many learned how to shoot at the age of 5, 6, 7 or 8... however in the vast majority of cases this was controlled shooting environments with long guns or single shot, low caliber pistols.

We're happy to make it illegal for a parent to give alcohol to minors when they're under age. No, it doesn't stop every parent from giving their children alcohol, but it does send a clear message that society does not approve and that there will be legal consequences should it come to the attention of law enforcement.

I would be perfectly fine with restricting weapon usage for children to .22 caliber and under weapons under the age of 12, and making it illegal to allow access to fully automatic weaponry to the age of 16 on or off gun ranges. I'd even be okay with restricting access to semi-automatic weaponry to the age of 16 at shooting ranges -- if parents want to let their 15 year old shoot a their semi-automatic pistol at their cabin, that's up to them.

However, I am not in favor of the idea of letting under-sized, under-developed, under-coordinated children fire fully automatic weapons under any circumstance. Sure, you could make it "safer" by requiring that there is never more than 3 rounds in the magazine, or requiring a bipod/tripod mount, or requiring cable mounts on the guard, or instituting national gun instructor programs with stricter training requirements, however if you have to go THAT far to make the operation of an automatic weapon safe, does it really make sense to be an option? In theory you could make the firing of a RPG "safe", but that doesn't mean it should be an option to let a 9 year old shoot an RPG.

We institute laws that curtail our freedoms all the time in order to protect children and other members of our society. That's why we have seat belt laws, speed limits, and safety inspections. There should be a middle ground where we accept the inevitability of gun ownership yet still are reasonable about gun regulation.

One can only hope.

 

Why do civilians even need to learn how to fire an Uzi?

I still don't get why it's ok to own and buy automatic guns like an uzi but illegal to have rpg's. I mean, I'd feel a lot safer if I could carry around an RPG since that way if the criminal had a gun and was using his car to shield himself...an RPG would smoke that mofo out.

 

The parents of this little girl should be held responsible for this tragedy.

Why would you want to put a semi-automatic weapon in the hands of a 9 years old?

 

I think bulk of the blame should lie with the instructor. He could have shown more discretion. He could have refused. What he was thinking, we will never know.

 

It was an automatic weapon, not semi-automatic. Semi-automatic means you pull the trigger, and the recoil or off-gassing is used to eject the spent casing and load a new bullet in the chamber. You then have to pull the trigger again to shoot another bullet. Automatic is when you press the trigger, and it does everything semi-auto does, but then keeps going, firing more bullets until you pull your finger off the trigger. This is all opposed to bolt action, for instance, where after the bullet is fired you have to manually work a lever to eject the casing and load a new bullet.

But to your point, I can see it several ways - the parents could have been gung ho about it. Alternately, I can see a scenario where the parents are concerned, but the kid is excited and the shooting instructor does everything to convince the parents that it is totally safe. I can remember similar things as a child where my parents were concerned, but an "authority figure" gave reassurances that overcame their initial concern.

Ultimately, the most blame resides with the dead instructor, IMO. As the instructor, he is the final arbiter of what is safe. I would only consider going after the parents if, for instance, they pushed the girl to do it, or if they convinced the instructor to do it again his better judgement.

 

Grenades are regulated much in same way as a full auto. The difference is the paperwork and 200 dollar tax needs to be done PER grenade.

 

They call them "destructive devices". I know of several launchers that have been sold at auction recently and others that will be sold soon. I also know of someone that owns a Flak.38 20mm antiaircraft autocannon, with several High Explosive rounds. There are some legal weapons out there that I have no doubt would cause people to freak out.

Gunbroker, owned by eBay, has a special category:

http://www.gunbroker.com/Destructive-Devices/BI.aspx

Here's the deal - Since 1986, there have been no new legal civilian class III weapons. The ATF technically has the power to declare a "registration period" for new civilian registered weapons, but they will never do it. So eventually all these guns will wear beyond the point of repair, or people will lock them up so they don't get worn. So you will get your way. All new weapons are transfered on either special Class III dealer paperwork, or paperwork that is for government agencies, or for companies that use the weapons as part of their business (I.e. Blackwater).

The other thing is, as part of the civilian ownership paperwork, you have to get signed off by the chief of local law enforcement. In Houston, that is chief of HPD. From what I understand, he simply doesn't even think about signing off, unless you know somebody.

But the truth of the matter is, Class III weapons have the best safety track record out there. I believe there is a grand total of one crime (murder suicide) in 50+ years involving these weapons, and the accident record, both in terms of relative to the number of guns and as a total figure is fractional compared to other guns.

Focusing your fear on Class III is like someone who focuses their fear on airplane crashes, but has no problem driving a motorcycle, even the chance of dying on a motorcycle is many, many times that of an air accident.

The most dangerous guns are the guns that used to be called "Saturday night specials" - cheap little handguns you can pick up new for in the range of $100.

 

Deadly combination.

UZI, young girl, and stupid gun instructor.

 

Lucky she didn't shoot herself too...

 

This needs to be repeated, and repeated....

If people want gun "control" in the States, you have to start with handguns. Mandatory training, license, registration, and prosecute the hell out of anyone that doesn't abide.

 

Agreed.

The parents are idiots IMO but the fault here lies with the dead instructor. It's fair to say he lost his head in this situation.