Author Topic: Shooting of instructor by 9-year-old girl stirs debate over guns  (Read 2600 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline flowers

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18,798
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/08/27/girl-accidentally-kills-gun-instructor/

Quote
PHOENIX –  "All right, full auto," the firing-range instructor tells a 9-year-old girl. She braces the Uzi submachine gun and opens fire at a black-silhouette target. But the recoil wrenches the fully automatic weapon upward, and the instructor is shot in the head and killed.

The death has set off a powerful debate over youngsters and guns, with many people wondering what sort of parents would let a child handle an Uzi.

Insttructor Charles Vacca, 39, was standing next to the girl Monday at the Last Stop outdoor shooting range in White Hills, Arizona, about 25 miles south of Las Vegas, when she squeezed the trigger.

Sam Scarmardo, a former Lake Havasu City Council member who operates the shooting range, said Wednesday that the girl's parents had signed waivers saying they understood the rules of the range and were standing nearby, video-recording their daughter, when the accident happened.


Offline GourmetDan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7,277
Re: Shooting of instructor by 9-year-old girl stirs debate over guns
« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2014, 05:44:24 pm »
The death has set off a powerful debate over youngsters and guns, with many people wondering what sort of parents would let a child handle an Uzi.

Ooh... Ooh... a bad thing happened, therefore we need more laws...


"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." - Ecclesiastes 10:2

"The sole purpose of the Republican Party is to serve as an ineffective alternative to the Democrat Party." - GourmetDan

Offline EC

  • Shanghaied Editor
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 23,804
  • Gender: Male
  • Cats rule. Dogs drool.
Re: Shooting of instructor by 9-year-old girl stirs debate over guns
« Reply #2 on: August 28, 2014, 06:24:36 pm »
Apparently, we do. Would you let a 9 year old on the range with an Uzi on full auto? Especially a rather skinny 9 year old?
The universe doesn't hate you. Unless your name is Tsutomu Yamaguchi

Avatar courtesy of Oceander

I've got a website now: Smoke and Ink

Offline NavyCanDo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6,494
  • Gender: Male
Re: Shooting of instructor by 9-year-old girl stirs debate over guns
« Reply #3 on: August 28, 2014, 06:38:08 pm »
It really makes our job of protecting  the 2nd amendment  very tough, when some of us in the battle act irresponsibly,  like making a horrific error in judgment like this, which the media and anti-gun people will use to their advantage.    But it’s not just accidents like this that harms the cause, but willful acts like walking into a Starbucks with an AR-15 to prove a point. We have to be responsible gun owners.
A nation that turns away from prayer will ultimately find itself in desperate need of it. :Jonathan Cahn

Offline EC

  • Shanghaied Editor
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 23,804
  • Gender: Male
  • Cats rule. Dogs drool.
Re: Shooting of instructor by 9-year-old girl stirs debate over guns
« Reply #4 on: August 28, 2014, 06:43:45 pm »
Navy - I agree.

It's the 3% rule. In any area of behavior, 3% are dicks and the rest are solidly responsible.

Being responsible and sensible doesn't sell papers.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2014, 06:44:27 pm by EC »
The universe doesn't hate you. Unless your name is Tsutomu Yamaguchi

Avatar courtesy of Oceander

I've got a website now: Smoke and Ink

Offline alicewonders

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13,021
  • Gender: Female
  • Live life-it's too short to butt heads w buttheads
Re: Shooting of instructor by 9-year-old girl stirs debate over guns
« Reply #5 on: August 28, 2014, 06:49:27 pm »
It really makes our job of protecting  the 2nd amendment  very tough, when some of us in the battle act irresponsibly,  like making a horrific error in judgment like this, which the media and anti-gun people will use to their advantage.    But it’s not just accidents like this that harms the cause, but willful acts like walking into a Starbucks with an AR-15 to prove a point. We have to be responsible gun owners.

So true Navy.  I still remember the "We're here - We're Queer - And we're in your face!" - and what a turn-off that was to me. 

These kinds of incidents do set the cause back.  You gotta have some common sense!
Don't tread on me.   8888madkitty

We told you Trump would win - bigly!

Offline GourmetDan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7,277
Re: Shooting of instructor by 9-year-old girl stirs debate over guns
« Reply #6 on: August 28, 2014, 06:55:20 pm »
Apparently, we do. Would you let a 9 year old on the range with an Uzi on full auto? Especially a rather skinny 9 year old?

Because the only way to stop stupid people from doing stupid things is to pass more laws...


"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." - Ecclesiastes 10:2

"The sole purpose of the Republican Party is to serve as an ineffective alternative to the Democrat Party." - GourmetDan

Offline EC

  • Shanghaied Editor
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 23,804
  • Gender: Male
  • Cats rule. Dogs drool.
Re: Shooting of instructor by 9-year-old girl stirs debate over guns
« Reply #7 on: August 28, 2014, 07:05:15 pm »
Because the only way to stop stupid people from doing stupid things is to pass more laws...

I wish common sense lived up to the first part of it's name, instead of being a vanishingly rare beast.

I've let 9 year olds loose with Tick and Tock (my old shotguns, since passed on to others. My new ones have different names.) But my God, I was right there behind them to help with the recoil and they never went onto full auto. They have fired my pistol of choice - a Sig 556. Using both hands and single shot only.

It's being responsible as a parent/grandparent. I know you get it.
The universe doesn't hate you. Unless your name is Tsutomu Yamaguchi

Avatar courtesy of Oceander

I've got a website now: Smoke and Ink

Offline evadR

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,190
  • Gender: Male
Re: Shooting of instructor by 9-year-old girl stirs debate over guns
« Reply #8 on: August 28, 2014, 09:31:05 pm »
Anything this stupid doesn't deserve to live. Put him at the top of the list for the Darwin Award. He has removed himself from the gene pool.
November 6, 2012, a day in infamy...the death of a republic as we know it.

Offline xfreeper

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,544
Re: Shooting of instructor by 9-year-old girl stirs debate over guns
« Reply #9 on: August 29, 2014, 12:47:05 am »
Apparently, we do. Would you let a 9 year old on the range with an Uzi on full auto? Especially a rather skinny 9 year old?
The strategy of passing a law that affects hundreds of millions every time one stupid, reckless and irresponsible person causes a catastrophe is simply a convenient excuse seized upon by those looking for a way to control the masses or push an agenda.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2014, 12:47:37 am by xfreeper »

Offline NavyCanDo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6,494
  • Gender: Male
Re: Shooting of instructor by 9-year-old girl stirs debate over guns
« Reply #10 on: August 29, 2014, 06:53:11 pm »
I haven't read the range rules where this happened - but that's where action needs to happen. And its common sense like all range rules, and can be applied by all ranges within a county or state. And I don't think any 2nd amendment supporter will have an issue with it.  Adding a line to the range rules like in the example below #6, #7 

5. Any shooter under the age of 15 years old must have an adult in the booth behind the shooter at all times.
6. NO shooter under the age of 18 shall handle or shoot a fully automatic weapon.
7. All shooters of fully automatic weapons must have in their possession a Class 3 License – no exceptions.
8. No practice drawing from a holster
« Last Edit: August 29, 2014, 06:53:47 pm by NavyCanDo »
A nation that turns away from prayer will ultimately find itself in desperate need of it. :Jonathan Cahn

Offline xfreeper

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,544
Re: Shooting of instructor by 9-year-old girl stirs debate over guns
« Reply #11 on: August 29, 2014, 10:56:32 pm »
What does a class 3 license have to do with safe shooting?

Offline Atomic Cow

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18,221
  • Gender: Male
  • High Yield Minion
Re: Shooting of instructor by 9-year-old girl stirs debate over guns
« Reply #12 on: August 29, 2014, 11:00:36 pm »
What does a class 3 license have to do with safe shooting?

Nothing at all.  I've fired an MP5 on full auto, it was fun.  Before I did it, I fired off a magazine in semi-auto and three shot burst. The SWAT officer then went over proper firing on full automatic before letting me do it.  (This was when I worked for A&M, my office was in charge of the gun range where local police departments would practice since it was the only one where they could fire full auto without causing a problem.)

Small children should not be firing automatic weapons, or even large caliber semi-automatic ones.  They aren't physically capable of controlling it.  The girl should have been shooting a .22 pistol, carbine, or rifle.
"...And these atomic bombs which science burst upon the world that night were strange, even to the men who used them."  H. G. Wells, The World Set Free, 1914

"The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections." -Lord Acton

Offline flowers

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18,798
Re: Shooting of instructor by 9-year-old girl stirs debate over guns
« Reply #13 on: August 30, 2014, 03:06:20 pm »
No way that little girl should have been shooting that gun. Her parents are idiots. Now that poor girl has to live with this the rest of her life.