When I was in second grade I was in the school yard throwing rocks at a wall when a kindergartner strayed in my path and I beaned her right in the head. There was, to my mind at least, an awful lot of blood, but, thankfully, it was just a minor cut and she didn’t even require stitches. That was nearly 32 year ago and when I think about it I still feel bad about beaning her in the head. In case you’re wondering about the point behind this little tangent it’s this; if I care about a minor injury I gave someone over three decades ago I recognize that she’ll always remember the time she accidentally killed someone. I bet that little girl I beaned still remembers the time some asshole hit her in the head with a rock.
However, plenty of children suffer serious trauma of one kind or another and grow up to be adults who are functioning member of society living meaningful lives. Suffering a trauma of some kind doesn’t necessarily mean your life is ruined. And I think it would be very unhealthy for anyone around her to treat her as if her life was ruined because of this.
Can New Jersey Children’s Protective Services go after these parents? They traveled interstate to take a 9 year old to a gun range to use a federally licensed fully automatic firearm and a man was killed. This must be child endangerment. The kid could have been injured too.
An 18-year-old is still not a 9-year-old. A BB gun? Yes. A hunting rifle? Sure. A fully automatic weapon? I don’t think so. It’s not because she’s a girl – it’s because she’s a kid. Kids aren’t miniature adults.
The uzi was designed for lightweight, easy concealment, for use by the Isreali Security Services.
It’s light weight means there is no mass to absorb the kickback from a 9mm round.
When was a kid, I was in a Boy Scout Troop which had an agreement with the local NRA. I recovered.
Point is - we were given old M1s re-bored for 22 LR, single round. Those monsters were so heavy, we could only fire from prone position - no 8 yr old is going to lift it to his shoulder.
We learned how firearms work, how to load, how to aim. and we didn’t accidentally shoot anybody.
All with zero chance of going wild.
Do the parents of these small kids with uzis ever fire such a weapon? Feel the kick?
And the “look jimmy - an uzi just your size!” idiot is beyond comprehension - the smaller the weapon, the greater the kickback. It took the 8 yr old three rounds before the gun was upright enough to shoot his head.
Not really. It was designed to be simple to manufacture (all stamped metal) and simple to use, not necessarily to be the most effective or precise weapon. 1950s Israel could not afford expensive arms Israeli Special Forces adopted it later, for a while.
The Uzi in question was owned by the owner of the gun range. The Uzi in question never left the gun range (until it was taken as evidence, probably). So, it was legal for the owner or his agent to rent it to someone else to use on the range.
There were 2 stocks available for that size Uzi. There was a wooden stock and a folding metal stock. Very few with wooden stocks made it to the US. I can’t imagine anyone removing a folding stock from one, it’s part of it’s panache and isn’t in the way when it’s folded.
And Uzis got a bad rap in the US and ganstas will refer to any small full auto (like MACs or Tec 9s) as Uzis. IMI (Israeli Military Industries) did make a semi auto carbine version of their Uzi for sale in the US. Besides having a 16.5 inch barrel to make it legal (in the US, you can’t have a stock, fixed or folding, on a pistol. You can on a carbine, but to be a carbine, it’s got to have a minimum 16" barrel) but the semi auto fired from a closed bolt, not an open bolt like the full auto version. A completely different action, so it wouldn’t be a case of just swapping out some parts to turn it into a full auto.
I don’t think you people are seeing the problem here. The problem is that if you testicle-less lightweights didn’t frown so much on guns, this girl would have been given a loaded Uzi with the safety off and set to automatic in her crib. Then, by age 9 she would have been able to handle one properly.
Just like every red blooded terrorist kid. You don’t see any terrorist kids accidentally shooting their face off. The key is to start training before birth.
I’m sure the whole purpose of the trip was just to take her to a shooting range in another state most of the way across the country. :rolleyes:
While I personally wouldn’t let a 9yo fire anything more than a pump BB gun the parent were paying for lessons from a so-called professional. IF I was going to do that, I’d expect a professional would know what he is doing by 1) training her properly & 2) following all safety precautions, including standing in the proper place to prevent her from doing something unsafe with the gun.
I feel confident that he won’t make this mistake again.
The whole point of the place was to let people play with automatic weapons. To call it “instruction” is a complete misnomer. This is not an “intro to safe shooting” program. It’s pure entertainment. And not remotely appropriate for the child that is now going to be permanently scarred for life.
The person supervising the shooter was suppose to stand to the side the gun is held on and keep it from recoiling.
And the reason this is done was demonstrated in this unintended training video.
Israeli Special Forces adopted it later, for a while.