A Clearly Necessary Reminder October 27, 2008 Cara This is why you don’t give an eight-year-old child an Uzi, no matter how much “adult supervision” he has. And why doing so ought to be illegal. Dear god. It seems to me that a little boy needn’t have died in order to figure that one out.
It’s a heartbreaking story, thank you for posting it. For all those gun-totin’ maniacs out there preaching against gun-control, how do they explain or rationalize something like this? Just an accident, just a fluke? Not one child should die in order to ‘protect’ our Second Amendment.
When i first saw the headline i thought for sure it was here: http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20081027-NEWS-81027007
WTF? How does anyone believe that’s a good idea? When I first saw the post, I assumed some drunk idiot let their kid play with their gun (which would be bad enough). But at a fair, with a certified instructor? How is it that our society is fucked up enough that 8 year old can play with machine guns and it’s all legal “safe” fun? You know, maybe shooting uzis shouldn’t be considered “fun” in the first place. Just a thought.
Check out this version of the story: http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20081027-NEWS-81027022 Francis Mitchell, a trustee and shooting range officer: We plan everything as safe as we can. This one incident got away from us, and it’s too bad…If the father OK’d it, then it was his choice to make.” Peter Robbins, the former director of the Barnstable Police Academy and a former firearms instructor: “It’s a wonderful experience to expose younger people to firearms safety through these clubs. That’s what these clubs are about”
OMG – An Uzi kicks like a mule. Many adults would have trouble handling one. What the fuck were they thinking? This is coming from someone who thinks shooting guns is a lot of fun.
I doubt it is legal. I mean, I’m sure there’s not an actual law on the books specifically banning letting eight-year-olds fire uzis or AKs or whatever, but this seems like it would pretty clearly fall under reckless endangerment. Most weapons like that are made for adult men to fire; you wouldn’t need to be the sharpest tack in the box to come to the conclusion that an eight-year-old likely lacks the upper-body strength or arm length to control it properly and/or the judgment to stop pulling the trigger if loss of control occurred.
I had this long post written. Then I read the article. Thus I deleted what I said before. Those people are absolutely morons.
I doubt it is legal. I mean, I’m sure there’s not an actual law on the books specifically banning letting eight-year-olds fire uzis or AKs or whatever, but this seems like it would pretty clearly fall under reckless endangerment. I would hope so, but I figured that if it is illegal, CNN would have mentioned that in the article. It really seems like even if it is technically covered by other laws, there ought to be specific laws on the books barring giving children access to firearms.
“I would hope so, but I figured that if it is illegal, CNN would have mentioned that in the article.” Unfortunately, CNN isn’t exactly a paragon of reporterly thoroughness these days. Given this line from the article–“Although the death appears to be an accident, police and the Hampden district attorney’s office were investigating, officials said.”–I guess that they’re a) double-checking the story to be sure it was an accident and b) seeing if it would be feasible to charge one or more parties as negligent or reckless.
I do realize that as someone who doesn’t believe that every household should have a gun, or that guns are even necessary for private use, I am probably misssing the point when it comes to the ‘joy’ of gun shows/expos. That said though, why the hell does ANYONE need to know what it’s like to play with machine guns? They belong in the military, and should never be for private use anyway.
Yeah when I heard about this story it really saddened. This is one more senseless death at the hand of a gun. I am awaiting the NRA’s defense of this. I am sure that they will once again scream that this is no reason for gun control, or that liberal softies are using it to scare the guns right out of the hands of the population. When you think about it though, is there really any need for anyone to shoot an UZI, much less a child? Guns are not toys and I wonder how many people need to die for this to finally be recognized. The framers of the constitution had muskets there is a big difference between that and the weaponry that is available today. I simply cannot understand why people cannot see the difference.
I’m not really sure a case like this needs a special law. Children can use firearms safely with the proper supervision, but this is a case of reckless endangerment. I doubt many people would object to letting an 8 year old drive a little lawn-mower engine go-cart on a track with a helmet, but it would be a criminal lapse in judgment to think that meant you could put them behind the wheel of a car. Same principle applies here. The adults who lead to this thing happening are the kind of people who give responsible gun owners a bad name.
The framers of the constitution had muskets there is a big difference between that and the weaponry that is available today. I simply cannot understand why people cannot see the difference. Actually, most of the significant differences between muskets and modern firearms have more to do with accuracy, reliability, safety, and ease of repair and use than with destructive capacity. Beside that, I think one of the things that a lot of people miss about the second amendment is what it’s original purpose was. The second amendment is not primarily about hunting, self defense, or recreational gun use. Those are the current common uses of firearms, and the second amendment has been construed to protect them because the actual right it was designed to protect is quite a bit more extreme. The founders inserted the second amendment into the bill of rights because they believed that the people had a right to armed, violent revolution. These were men who had themselves recently been involved in armed insurrection. In order for such a right to make any sense, the people would have to have access to arms that would allow them to revolt. In 1776 that meant the cutting edge technology of large-caliber, smooth bore, flintlock muskets. Now, I’m not advocating armed revolution (nor do I expect to see one in the future, thankfully), but it pays to understand the context of the discussion. For a lot of people the second amendment is about having the agency (or the perception of agency) to resist oppression with force. Having a 250 year old musket might be great fun for a history buff, but it doesn’t mean a whole lot in terms of agency when police have M4s in their trunks and criminals carry 9mm pistols.
I can’t believe that a certified instructor would allow a child to fire an Uzi, since the “starts firing and can’t stop” and control issues have been a major known flaw of the design since its inception 60-odd years ago. It’s a peculiarly bad choice that should/would have been obvious to any trained personnel.
Actually, most of the significant differences between muskets and modern firearms have more to do with accuracy, reliability, safety, and ease of repair and use than with destructive capacity. It’s also harder to mow down an entire classroom with a musket.
The founders did not believe in the right of people to hold armed rebellions. If they did, then they would not have reacted with such alarcrity to the Whiskey Rebellion. The second amendment was a half-assed sop towards the sentiments of colonial autonomy–and a proper interpretation more or less meant that the locality had a right to have guns and not be coerced into something by the centralized state. Which is a bit different than any advocating of armed overthrow.
The founders did not believe in the right of people to hold armed rebellions. Oh come on, its right there in the Declaration of Independence But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. The publishing of that document was followed by an armed rebellion. Four years after the Revolutionary war Jefferson wrote in regards to the war “God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.” Might that be an outmoded and archaic idea? Even Jefferson seemed to think so within a few years, but arguing that a bunch of people who had just engaged in rebellion were anti-rebellion seems contrary to logic whether they later decided to make an example of tax protesters who were trying to compel speech and disrupt the mail or not.
You know, I was being pedantic in the classic version that the famed xkcd ‘toon depicts. Thus, I will!resist!the!tempation to say other than that William seems to conflate revolutionaries with Troskyists.