August 27, 2014 at 11:11 pm
A firearms instructor has died after he was shot by a nine-year-old girl when she fired an Uzi at a shooting range in the Arizona desert.
Mohave County sheriff’s officials said 39-year-old Charles Vacca, of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, died at the hospital on Monday after he was shot at the Last Stop outdoor shooting range.
Mohave County Sheriff Jim McCabe told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Vacca was standing next to the girl when she pulled the trigger. The gun recoiled and it went over her head.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/26/arizona-girl-shoots-kills-firearms-instructor
Poor child is going to be carrying this with her for the rest of her life.
By: hampden98 - 29th August 2014 at 19:34
At what point in parenthood do you decide it’s time to take your children to a gun range to fire a machine gun?
I guess it’s a cultural thing but apart from an air pistol when I was 15 I’ve never fired a gun.
By: Mr Creosote - 28th August 2014 at 17:25
I nearly posted something like this, but I was wary of dragging up all the old arguments we used to have here about gun control. I guess the pro-gun lobby will say it was just an accident, accidents happen, etc, etc , but it’s just absolute bloody madness to encourage 9 year old kids to play with Uzi sub-machine guns in the first place.
By: Lincoln 7 - 28th August 2014 at 11:11
I.M.H.O. The Instructor was an idiot. I have taught many kids of that age to shoot weapons on a Range. After going through the Safety Procedure. When the kid was about to discharge the weapon, I made sure I was standing behind that person, and with both hands just about 2 or 3 inches away from their shoulders, mainly because of the recoil. and that’s where he should have been. Sad, but you always, on a Range have to try and pre empt any situation, obviously, he didnt. Once again, the 2nd Crops up again.
Jim.
Lincoln .7
By: Dr Strangelove - 28th August 2014 at 09:03
Maybe a risk assessment was low on the agenda that day.
By: AlanR - 28th August 2014 at 08:59
Not too clever for the instructor to be standing where he was.
By: Mahone - 28th August 2014 at 07:26
She was apparently taking part in a special kids activity called, quite seriously, “Bullets & Burgers”.
Total madness.