I’m as gun nut as you get and if you don’t believe me I’ll shoot you
But let’s stop handing small kids full auto guns:
A 9-year-old girl accidentally killed an Arizona shooting instructor as he was showing her how to use an automatic Uzi, authorities said Tuesday.
*snip*
Vacca was standing next to the girl at the Last Stop outdoor shooting range in White Hills when she pulled the trigger and the recoil sent the gun over her head, investigators said.
I’ve taught many a kid to shoot. No way I’d hand them a gun with a happy switch. If they got to that point, you crouch behind them and make certain you have control of the gun too.
August 26th, 2014 at 7:50 pm
This is outrageous negligence on the “instructor’s” part and I’d applaud the result were it not for traumatizing the young one.
August 26th, 2014 at 8:13 pm
+1 on SPQR, and he paid the ultimate penalty… Sadly that little girl will ALSO have to live with that.
August 26th, 2014 at 8:28 pm
Well that sucks all around. That after all the videos we’ve seen of inexperienced shooters losing control of various firearms, and stories of some shooting themselves with double action handguns in recoil.
Last Stop outdoor range…
August 26th, 2014 at 9:29 pm
She was there with her parents, at an accredited range, with a professional instructor.
Yet apparently there wasn’t a single adult in the bunch.
August 26th, 2014 at 9:45 pm
I took a six year old shooting with an MP15-22 last weekend. His father knows next to nothing about guns, but wanted to shoot and his kid was part of the team. I held the fore-stock for every single shot the kid took. I have a 35 foot berm as a backstop and made sure the kid’s first shots damn near hit dirt.
The kid actually showed promise: he learned the sights and was knocking steel in under 25 rounds. He idolizes shooters on the top-gun like shows on TV, according to his mom (a friend of my wife).
But 100 rounds later, I was still holding the fore-stock for every single shot the kid took.
To be fair, I also had an ALS patient on stack that weekend. He got tired every now and then and liked to rest the rifle on his hip, but after two brain surgeries he was able to aim and hit. Slowly. I didn’t hold his rifle, but I talked to him and his son and and told them I would snag the rifle the moment his loaded muzzle aimed above the berm. I simply cannot have rounds escape my range. They understood.
Teaching or managing shooters requires a balance between fun and risk management. You can do both at the same time, but the moment you ignore “safe” you are fucked. This guy who let a 9 year old go full auto is the reason I am so careful. I had 5 shooters last Saturday who had never shot with me before – shooting for over 3 hours – and I barely got off 30 rounds. You cannot take this lightly. And FWIW, I have told state and federal cops to holster on my range so I could learn them some discipline. Never had a complaint, yet.
Guns are fun, but only if the first steps are managed and controlled. That little girl will likely have issues for the rest of her life. I think you just don’t forget killing someone at the age of nine.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:10 am
If I were teaching full-auto shooting to newbies, I think I would rig up some kind of a strap around the barrel, or some other method of ensuring that the muzzle stays pointed in a safe direction under full-auto recoil until said newbies prove themselves capable of controlling it.
August 27th, 2014 at 2:12 am
I work the local machine gun shoot ever year as a Ro. When a child come up to shoot there is at least 4 people there to help. The person who owns the gun and three ROs. The guns owner help the shooter with the gun(showing them how it works and help support the gun). There is a RO on both sides with the hand over the muzzle to stop it if it goes to high. The third RO stands behind the shooter to make sure the recoil does not push them back. They also can’t shoot a gun like the Uzi without the butt stock on the gun. What I’m trying to say is that if you are going to give a full auto gun to some one that does not know what they are doing, then you need to make it next to impossible for them not to hurt themselves or anyone else.
August 27th, 2014 at 8:05 am
I could see letting a young kid try a belt-fed machine gun on a bi-pod or tripod. Not much chance of the thing getting out of control – and a twist of the belt stops the proceedings.
No way would I hand a kid a full-auto machine pistol. I wouldn’t give one to most adults I know.
August 27th, 2014 at 8:13 am
I think the same thing happened at a Massachusetts gun range a couple of years ago , also involving a youngster and an UZI . I think that time the kid was killed and Massachusetts decided to pass another inane law .
August 27th, 2014 at 8:43 am
My guess is that the grip safety was disabled. Jack.
August 27th, 2014 at 9:01 am
There are reasons Youth Model 22LR single shot rifles are manufactured, and avoiding this type of disaster is one of them.
August 27th, 2014 at 9:10 am
I’m going to blame BATF for this one.
All the paperwork to have a NFA weapon, and they didn’t manage to figure out that this guy shouldn’t have one.
ATF has failed its mission. Disband it, repeal the federal laws, and let each state decide how to regulate automatic weapons.
August 27th, 2014 at 12:12 pm
FWIW, the Last Stop shooting range is NOT a normal “shooting range”. They are on Highway 93 just inside Arizona on the way to Las Vegas – and they are competing with the Las Vegas ranges in extracting money from tourists who come wanting to shoot “machine guns”. Nothing they do consists of actual training, just folks wanting to exercise a fantasy or three..
August 27th, 2014 at 1:16 pm
That was my guess, that this was a full auto tourist trap.
August 27th, 2014 at 4:22 pm
“…this was a full auto tourist trap.”
“was” being the operative word. Good.
August 27th, 2014 at 10:26 pm
‘ think the same thing happened at a Massachusetts gun range a couple of years ago”.
Yep, it did.
Sooner or later ‘gun trainers’ are gonna realize giving a kid a submachinegun is asking to be shot with same gun.
As Karl Marx said, “History repeats itself, first time as tragedy, second time as farce.”
This guy should have known better.
August 28th, 2014 at 9:23 am
They were both mini uzi in both death cases…
August 28th, 2014 at 9:46 am
Actually the boy in Mass had a micro uzi.
August 28th, 2014 at 11:50 am
I have taught many people to shoot over the years, including children and and old people, and I always put my hands right behind their elbows to make sure that the gun is always pointed downrange.
This is tragic.