9 year old kills her instructor with an Uzi

[finn]

There was a another one (6.5 +) shortly before or after in Peru as well.....

Meanwhile this:

https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/24824 ... nstructor/

I have to ask WTF were they doing giving a nine year old an Uzi to play with? Maybe this should be in some category dealing with Darwin Awards!

[SerScot]

Here's the story:

www.cnn.com/2014/08/26/us/arizona-girl- ... ?hpt=hp_t2

From the article:

CNN) -- A 9-year-old girl learning to fire a submachine gun accidentally killed her instructor at a shooting range when the weapon recoiled over her shoulder, according to Arizona authorities.

The instructor, 39-year-old Charles Vacca, died at a hospital late Monday night after he was shot in the head.

The Mohave County Sheriff's Office said the girl was with her parents. The website of Bullets and Burgers, the shooting range where the accident happened, says children between the ages of 8 and 17 can shoot a weapon if accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Police identified the weapon as an Uzi, an Israeli-made submachine gun.

Apparently, the instructor let her fire the weapon on semi-automatic, then when he turned it to fully automatic she lost control of the weapon as it slewed to the left and the instructor was shot in the head, and died.

What the hell was he thinking? I was 12 when I went to a target range the first time and fired a .22 cal. pistol. It still had some kick. Putting a weapon that large into the hands of a 9 year old and then letting her attempt to fire it on full automatic that is just grossly irresponsible. What the hell was this guy thinking?

[Ananda]

I saw that, too. They were probably thinking the same thing that the NRA guns for the blind video was thinking. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-271802 ... dings.html

I also saw a black power gun club exercising their open carry thingie in dallas in the news the other day. Think NRA will support them? Considering it does take only 15 seconds for police to decide to shoot and kill someone in the us from the moment they show up till the person lies dead, I'd be scared like hell to be black and doing open carry in the us. Imagine a guy in the dreaded hoodie with baggie trousers walking into that restaurant from the other thread with his assault rifle thingie while also being black. Good luck!

[SerScot]

Ananda,

Just make sure to wear pantaloons and a tricorn cap while doing your "open carry". You should be safe then.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

That story is very similar to the poor 11-year-old boy whose father let him shoot a Mac 10, except the recoil in that instance made the gun arc up, over, and back around to pointing at the boy's head.

Children that young should be shooting pellet guns or possibly some small caliber rifle like a .22 which is single shot only. They do not have sufficient body mass or upper body strength to handle significant or sustained recoil.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Children that young should be learning to shoot pellet guns or .22 rifles like SerScot mentions. I think you said pistol, actually, but anyway it should be a small caliber single-shot weapon at most. They have neither the mass nor the upper body strength to handle sustained recoil.

Mr. Vacca is now picking up his Darwin award in person.

[SerScot]

Hashi,

This case appears to be one of the few where Gun Haters and Gun Enthusiests agree. Mr. Vacca was reckless beyond belief in handing that child a weapon set to full automatic fire.

A friend on another board pointed out a sad irony. Had she been firing an actual machine gun Mr. Vacca wouldn't be dead because Machine Guns are normally mounted to something and that would have prevented her from sweeping the weapon past his head while firing.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Exactly. My wife and I were discussing this in the car on the way to drop me off at work and we agree that the Uzi is typically found in the hands of minimally-trained militants who know only how to spray and pray.

People underestimate recoil. My boss went to a special event once and got to fire an old-fashioned Thompson (well, the gun was new but it was built in the same manner). He said that trying to control that weapon was like trying to hold a horse still with your bare hands.

[sgt.null]

I started with a .22 back in the Boy Scouts. what the hell is wrong with people nowadays?

[Orlion]

At least the guy who made the mistake is the one who suffered the consequences.

What if someone else's kid (or even just someone else) was killed instead?

[michaelm]

Even though I have been in the US 14 years now, I still find the obsession with guns incredibly bizarre.

I think in many other countries giving a semi automatic weapon to a 9 year old would probably result in child services getting involved.

Why the hell anyone would think this is OK is beyond me. It's sad that someone died, but it a situation that should never have arisen in the first place.

[Orlion]

I started with a .22 back in the Boy Scouts. what the hell is wrong with people nowadays?

I imagine if it was not pure idiocy that it was some idiot form of "gun rights" dogma. Whose is hard to say (instructor or parents) if, once again, it wasn't just pure idiocy.

[SerScot]

michaelm,

I was target shooting with a .22 pistol when I was 12. Under proper, non-insane, conditions there is nothing wrong with teaching a child to safely use a firearm.

Handing a 9 year old a fully automatic weapon is the definition of unsafe.

[sgt.null]

I've been shooting since I was in the boy scouts. we shot .22's. we were taught gun safety first. at no point were we given a weapon that we couldn't handle. shot an ar-15 in my teens. it is insane to hand any child aweapon that is obviously beyond their means to control. most gun owners are very safe and responsible. the idiots give us bad names.

[SerScot]

This is a video of the incident (it does not show the instructor being shot):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSRyFyPc-20

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Both the parents and the now-deceased instructor were idiots. The instructor for giving such a weapon to a young child and the parents for not stopping it as soon as they saw it happen.

"Hey, look! Our daughter has an Uzi. Cool! Let's video this!"

Don't mind me--just merging some posts from the "In the News Today" thread into this one, given that it has its own topic. Carry on.

[SoulBiter]

The missing safety guidelines in this are mind boggling.

[Ananda]

At least the guy who made the mistake is the one who suffered the consequences.

Not quite, the little girl is the one who will suffer over this. The instructor is dead. She has to live knowing she shot him in the head. She is the victim who suffers the most harm (and the instructor's family). And, her parents were there filming the whole thing which implies tacit approval at the very least.

Lately, the us has seem to have gone insane. What is with these people forcefully asserting their 'gun rights' by doing all this stupid stuff (e.g. going to restaurants with assault rifles, attending political protests with rifles, marching the streets with rifles, advocating gun rights for *blind* people, saying that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to have a good guy with a gun, advocating armed people in schools, etc. etc.). Is this a reactionary fear of the 'kenyan, communist, socialist, maoist, muslim, anti-christ, fascist, dictatorial' president or something?

[SoulBiter]

At least the guy who made the mistake is the one who suffered the consequences.

Not quite, the little girl is the one who will suffer over this. The instructor is dead. She has to live knowing she shot him in the head. She is the victim who suffers the most harm (and the instructor's family). And, her parents were there filming the whole thing which implies tacit approval at the very least.

Lately, the us has seem to have gone insane. What is with these people forcefully asserting their 'gun rights' by doing all this stupid stuff (e.g. going to restaurants with assault rifles, attending political protests with rifles, marching the streets with rifles, advocating gun rights for *blind* people, saying that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to have a good guy with a gun, advocating armed people in schools, etc. etc.). Is this a reactionary fear of the 'kenyan, communist, socialist, maoist, muslim, anti-christ, fascist, dictatorial' president or something?

I quite agree on the victim here.

On the other, these are the exceptions that hit the headlines. Guns are used safely every day by every day people. Those people don't get news time.

Funny, on this site people (not necessarily you Ananda) will say , dont judge all muslims by the extremist ones that make the news, but are quick to label gun owners by a very very few extremists.

[Ananda]

At least the guy who made the mistake is the one who suffered the consequences.

Not quite, the little girl is the one who will suffer over this. The instructor is dead. She has to live knowing she shot him in the head. She is the victim who suffers the most harm (and the instructor's family). And, her parents were there filming the whole thing which implies tacit approval at the very least.

Lately, the us has seem to have gone insane. What is with these people forcefully asserting their 'gun rights' by doing all this stupid stuff (e.g. going to restaurants with assault rifles, attending political protests with rifles, marching the streets with rifles, advocating gun rights for *blind* people, saying that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to have a good guy with a gun, advocating armed people in schools, etc. etc.). Is this a reactionary fear of the 'kenyan, communist, socialist, maoist, muslim, anti-christ, fascist, dictatorial' president or something?

I quite agree on the victim here.

On the other, these are the exceptions that hit the headlines. Guns are used safely every day by every day people. Those people don't get news time.

Funny, on this site people (not necessarily you Ananda) will say , dont judge all muslims by the extremist ones that make the news, but are quick to label gun owners by a very very few extremists.

SB, I personally don't judge all gun owners by the exception cases. The main point I was bringing up is that what is acceptable and reasonable seems to be moving toward the fringe. There were fox 'news' and the mnbc or whatever before 9-11 but these people trying to make extreme stances with their gun rights seem to be embraced now as normal and, more than that, encouraged. What happened? Is it just that the politics worked people up about Obama and how he would take their guns? That was the narrative, as Cail would say, that was/is being put out there by the corporate media.