[url]http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada/shooting-instructor-dies-after-being-accidentally-shot-girl
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Thoughts on this utterly tragic event? Specifically how does one (either for/against gun rights and or control) rationalize this event from the perspective of the parents and 9 year old girl?
i'm not looking for anything
this whole thing seems completely senseless for me.
why you would ever put a gun into a hands of a person under the age of 18 outside of a life/death situation should be a crime.
yeah, and her parents should get a get off free slip? They are complicit in this also.
That poor girl, it's just horrible she has to live through this. Idiot instructor, and horrific parenting.
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The instructor is a fucking idiot.
i'm not looking for anything
this whole thing seems completely senseless for me.
why you would ever put a gun into a hands of a person under the age of 18 outside of a life/death situation should be a crime.
Hundreds of thousands of kids handle firearms safely under supervision every year. The fact that one instructor is an idiot does not justify far-reaching conclusions.
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She was much too small to handle it properly. He should have been teaching her with a .22 or something similar that she was capable of handling. I know plenty of kids who handle weapons way younger than 18 and go hunting with their parents. That's really not an issue as far as I'm concerned. Kids are fully capable of learning how to handle guns responsibly and need to be trained when there are guns in the home. This guy just screwed up. I'm sure he won't make the same mistake again.
yeah, and her parents should get a get off free slip? They are complicit in this also.
That poor girl, it's just horrible she has to live through this. Idiot instructor, and horrific parenting.
I assume the parents had faith in the instructor. If you send your kid to school and a teacher molests her, is that bad parenting? Nothing unusual about putting faith in trained authority figures
It's not abnormal in other parts of the country. Kids hunt at a pretty young age, in homes and particularly in areas where guns are ubiquitous it's actually arguably safer than waiting until they're older (again, certainly not true in the Northeast). I wouldn't be inclined to do it with my children, but I wouldn't judge everyone who does otherwise harshly.
At least it's better than what happened a few years back when an 8 year-old was shooting a mini-uzi at full auto and was killed when he lost control of the weapon.
but....
why the fuck should a 9 year old be firing an Uzi in any capacity? this is not an ATV ride, it's not a roller coaster, it's not a fishing excursion, it's not taking a deers life to feed the family. there is no reason to me that I can agree with that says a 9 year old person should be firing a weapon of any kind. dumb instructor, dumb parents, dumb all the way around if you ask me.
a 9 year old that grows up handing guns does not go to Vegas from New Jersey to fire at a range with an uzi. Apples and Oranges. this one stinks to high heaven, it's a tourism thing and firing guns for the fuck of it ruined several peoples lives this week.
I expect my 7 year old daughter will shoot a. 22 rifle with me for the first time this weekend. It'll be under my supervision and the supervision of a qualified instructor. We'll shoot some arrows on the archery range too. Don't get me wrong, kids shouldn't be allowed to handle any weapons without strict and competent adult supervision. But, really, wouldn't you say that about most things with young children?
but....
why the fuck should a 9 year old be firing an Uzi in any capacity? this is not an ATV ride, it's not a roller coaster, it's not a fishing excursion, it's not taking a deers life to feed the family. there is no reason to me that I can agree with that says a 9 year old person should be firing a weapon of any kind. dumb instructor, dumb parents, dumb all the way around if you ask me.
a 9 year old that grows up handing guns does not go to Vegas from New Jersey to fire at a range with an uzi. Apples and Oranges. this one stinks to high heaven, it's a tourism thing and firing guns for the fuck of it ruined several peoples lives this week.
Yeah I don't disagree with that. Safety safety safety with kids, no f-cking reason they should be shooting something like that. I was talking more generally.
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In comment 11826834 Bill in UT said:
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She was much too small to handle it properly. He should have been teaching her with a .22 or something similar that she was capable of handling. I know plenty of kids who handle weapons way younger than 18 and go hunting with their parents. That's really not an issue as far as I'm concerned. Kids are fully capable of learning how to handle guns responsibly and need to be trained when there are guns in the home. This guy just screwed up. I'm sure he won't make the same mistake again.
yeah, and her parents should get a get off free slip? They are complicit in this also.
That poor girl, it's just horrible she has to live through this. Idiot instructor, and horrific parenting.
I assume the parents had faith in the instructor. If you send your kid to school and a teacher molests her, is that bad parenting? Nothing unusual about putting faith in trained authority figures
this is a godawful analogy, but the principle of your argument is dead wrong. Sending my child to school means she is no longer under my supervision.
Letting my child shoot a gun while I video tape is directly under my supervision.
The crux of your argument is that children need to be supervised in any kind of discipline. Whehter it is athletics, learning, homework, whatever.
My issue is that this child has to live with this event with the rest of her life. Her parents are awful; horrific quite frankly.
I'm not so old that I no longer remember that I once supervised a bunch of 1st and 2nd graders during recess when I was in grade school. Not so much younger than the girl in that video. These kids have generally zero perspective and real life understanding of what happens when you pull that trigger. theres no amount of training at that age that can make them understand that-- there's no taking back what happens once you pull it.
I'd like to see anyone who argues otherwise show me evidence that they do, because I cant imagine anyone who works in the child psychology or developmental field advocating that children as young as 7 be taught to operate a gun.
the instructor did not break the law letting a 9 year old shoot an uzi
I don't think age is the issue. I think teaching correctly with the right equipment and in the right environment is the issue.
But I'm not a bad parent because I am teaching my kids to properly handle weapons.
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The instructor is a fucking idiot.
i'm not looking for anything
this whole thing seems completely senseless for me.
why you would ever put a gun into a hands of a person under the age of 18 outside of a life/death situation should be a crime.
Yes you are. You're looking to stir shit up on BBI. See, that wasn't that hard now was it??
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to simply say a 9 year old can be taught to operate a gun safely? no?
I expect my 7 year old daughter will shoot a. 22 rifle with me for the first time this weekend. It'll be under my supervision and the supervision of a qualified instructor. We'll shoot some arrows on the archery range too. Don't get me wrong, kids shouldn't be allowed to handle any weapons without strict and competent adult supervision. But, really, wouldn't you say that about most things with young children?
Exactly. I was trained to shoot by my father with a .22 when I was 7. And he progressed me through the stages until I was 21 and bought my first handgun. The instructor giving an automatic weapon to a 9 year old is ridiculous.
Sorry Steve. Hyperbole and leaps of logic rule. You've been around here long enough to know that.
Kinda like a car...you're more likely to die in a car accident if you drive a car, use a car, etc, than if you don't
That's all I take from it. It's an inherited risk.
Whatever, I believe in the second amendment. Commie!
I agree that a 9 year old has no business shooting an automatic anything, no matter how experienced in shooting he/she is. However, to say that a 9 year old shouldn't ever be taught how to handle a gun isn't right either, as a proper instruction given with proper equipment (a .22 is probably the level one wants to stay at) is valuable in instilling a sense of gun safety.
It sucks that this instructor lost his life, but that is a direct result of his complacency and carelessness. And for the parents of the child, they should have been a bit more common sensical when they took their child to a gun range. Now this little girl is going to be scarred for life and the instructor's family will no longer have their father/husband. Sucks all around.
I agree that a 9 year old has no business shooting an automatic anything, no matter how experienced in shooting he/she is. However, to say that a 9 year old shouldn't ever be taught how to handle a gun isn't right either, as a proper instruction given with proper equipment (a .22 is probably the level one wants to stay at) is valuable in instilling a sense of gun safety.
It sucks that this instructor lost his life, but that is a direct result of his complacency and carelessness. And for the parents of the child, they should have been a bit more common sensical when they took their child to a gun range. Now this little girl is going to be scarred for life and the instructor's family will no longer have their father/husband. Sucks all around.
Do you think if you could go back in time to just yesterday, and interview that instructor that he would think of himself as careless and complacent? Serious question.
Of course not, no one ever thinks that they are complacent, but that's the key factor of being complacent...that you don't think you're being careless.
Not trying to say this is an analogy, but I've been taught (and taught others) that complacency kills. Whether it's on the battlefield or even riding a motorcycle, being complacent can/will get you killed.
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Do you think if you could go back in time to just yesterday, and interview that instructor that he would think of himself as careless and complacent? Serious question.
Of course not, no one ever thinks that they are complacent, but that's the key factor of being complacent...that you don't think you're being careless.
Not trying to say this is an analogy, but I've been taught (and taught others) that complacency kills. Whether it's on the battlefield or even riding a motorcycle, being complacent can/will get you killed.
Agreed sir......how could he have been anything but complacent...letting a waif of a 9 year old girl handle a weapon like that? It's just so odd to me that in all likelihood, the guy saw absolutely nothing wrong with what he was doing, until that last fraction of a second.
One of the key factor in becoming complacent is overestimating your own experience, abilities, knowledge, etc. at the cost of underestimating the unforeseen difficulties. I'm sure he thought that he had the situation under complete control since he's probably done something like this before (maybe not with a 9 year old girl...who knows) and they turned out ok. But when you're dealing with something as lethal as a gun, you always keep your guards up and never take anything for granted.
I spoke of riding a motorcycle above, and one of the best advice I ever got when riding one was "the moment I don't feel a bit of nervous anxiety when I am about to ride my motorcycle is the moment I stop riding." That should be the same for owning and using a gun.
The instructor is a moron, there's nothing here to discuss.
An alien from another planet might also wonder why you can carry a pistol in uniform but doing the same thing in some states in this country out of uniform can get you a felony and a few mandatory years in jail.
Exactly. Safe weapons handling is the sine qua non of shooting. Smart people who know what they're doing do it by the book every time because a "whoops!" moment on the range gets people killed. I'm far from a certified instructor but I know goddamned well that a 9 year old child doesn't have the bone structure and physical strength to control an automatic weapon. I absolutely intend to teach my children marksmanship when they get older, but it will be with an easily-controlled .22, not a submachine gun.
this, however goes well beyond that and is what I'd consider negligence at a minimum.
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visiting from another planet would find it completely bizarre that in the US you need to be 21 years old to legally purchase alcohol but a 9 year old can legally practice firing a powerful deadly automatic weapon.
An alien from another planet might also wonder why you can carry a pistol in uniform but doing the same thing in some states in this country out of uniform can get you a felony and a few mandatory years in jail.
Perhaps, but the alien may also recognize that certain individuals are tasked with professionally maintaining order in society requiring them to carry pistols and when they are off duty as civilians they do not have the same privileges.
Just because you shot a .22 when you were 7 doesn't rationalize this. I slept on a mattress in the back of a station wagon on long trips as a kid. Yeah, and I didn't die because we didn't get in an accident. But I know I'm not taking that risk with my kids. Why anyone feels the need to have their 9 year old shot a gun is beyond my comprehension.
But au contraire...many jurisdiction allow them such privileges even then.
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In comment 11827131 Les in TO said:
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visiting from another planet would find it completely bizarre that in the US you need to be 21 years old to legally purchase alcohol but a 9 year old can legally practice firing a powerful deadly automatic weapon.
An alien from another planet might also wonder why you can carry a pistol in uniform but doing the same thing in some states in this country out of uniform can get you a felony and a few mandatory years in jail.
Perhaps, but the alien may also recognize that certain individuals are tasked with professionally maintaining order in society requiring them to carry pistols and when they are off duty as civilians they do not have the same privileges.
You say privilege, I say right. Black letter. In the Constitution. Yes restrictions, but there is a disconnect when you attempt to exercise your right and end up in jail for a couple years for your trouble.
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In comment 11827131 Les in TO said:
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visiting from another planet would find it completely bizarre that in the US you need to be 21 years old to legally purchase alcohol but a 9 year old can legally practice firing a powerful deadly automatic weapon.
An alien from another planet might also wonder why you can carry a pistol in uniform but doing the same thing in some states in this country out of uniform can get you a felony and a few mandatory years in jail.
Perhaps, but the alien may also recognize that certain individuals are tasked with professionally maintaining order in society requiring them to carry pistols and when they are off duty as civilians they do not have the same privileges.
Why the fuck are we speculating what an alien race would deem acceptable?
You can't prove to me 100% that my kid isn't going to guzzle the liquor in your cabinet - or the cleaning supplies under the sink - and die that way. Both of which have a much higher chance of occurring than of getting at a locked firearm and separately locked ammunition.