8-year-old's Uzi death at gun show

[Woem]

The title in itself contains a couple of words that shouldn't be used near eachother. The story behind it is even worse. Read it for yourself: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/10/christopher-biziljs-famil_n_351732.html

My European brain has issues understanding this. So first of all we have a family that thinks it's a good to take an 8 year old kid to a gun show. Then we have 15 year old instructor who is demonstrating an Uzi. This teen clears the Uzi and gives it to the 8 year old to try it out. Apparently up until this part there is no problem at all. I do see a problem with a teen being a gun instructor, or a kid going to a gun show, or a teen giving a gun to a kid to try it out. But again, that must be my European close-mindedness.

Now here is the real issue: the gun jams, and the kid shoots himself in the head. Quote from the article:

The boy's family claims the gun was defective and unreasonably dangerous, and they blame the failure to properly service it.

So the big issue in this whole story is that the gun jammed and as a result of that, the kid shot himself. It's no problem that the kid is at a gun show in the first place, or that a teen is handing out guns to kids, or that the kid is trying out guns. That's all just fine. But because it wasn't cleared properly the Uzi was deemed unreasonably dangerous. So when an Uzi is cleared properly it is reasonably dangerous for a kid to try out? If the kid hadn't shot himself it would have been a successful family trip. This really blows my mind. No pun intended.

 

[Niska]

...Really that's just...Oh wow I cannot believe that. An 8 year old should be at home watching cartoons. Not at a gun convention where 15 year old gun instructors hand guns out for children to try...

 

[Dragon_of_red]

Well... ive pretty much given up on this world now, who wants to come live on my new planet?

Thats is really sad, and who even thinks this will be a good idea, ever, thats just really sad, im depressed now.

 

[Lord George]

Yet the Americans are still so firm about defending their right to bear arms, you never seem to hear about guns saving people just constant tragic accidents and attacks with them.

 

[Woem]

Yet the Americans are still so firm about defending their right to bear arms, you never seem to hear about guns saving people just constant tragic accidents with them.

Really? That seems interesting. Confirmed cases of robberies being averted, all sorts of basic crime being deterred, etc etc, all of that doesn't "save people"? All of it is constant tragedy?

Guns are a tool. That tool feeds plenty of people (the Inuit for example), allows for stability OR unrest, and everything else. Power tools cause all kinds of accidents and tragedies, does that mean they have no use?

Don't mistake me for a gun nut either. Fuck if I care if people have guns or not, but this kind of argument is simply silly. Canada has more guns per person than America, yet significantly less crime. Obviously, the guns aren't going off by themselves, now are they?

There is a difference between adults using firearms to protect themselves or to avert crime, and seeing guns as having a high entertainment value. If you're taking a family trip to a gun show, then you're blurring that very important line. Guns are not toys.

 

[Kif]

Okay, that is pretty fricken' awful and my European agrees with the OP on all points... however, there must be a large chunk of sensible Americans who can also see that from the start that whole situation was wrong.

It's unreasonable to assume that such stupidity is typical of America and not displayed elsewhere in other forms... Darwin awards have a catalogue of idiocy, it's highly unfortunate that the main bulk of the stupidity in this case was not from the victim but the victims guardians... if you can call them that.

 

[Lord George]

Yet the Americans are still so firm about defending their right to bear arms, you never seem to hear about guns saving people just constant tragic accidents with them.

Really? That seems interesting. Confirmed cases of robberies being averted, all sorts of basic crime being deterred, etc etc, all of that doesn't "save people"? All of it is constant tragedy?

Guns are a tool. That tool feeds plenty of people (the Inuit for example), allows for stability OR unrest, and everything else. Power tools cause all kinds of accidents and tragedies, does that mean they have no use?

Don't mistake me for a gun nut either. Fuck if I care if people have guns or not, but this kind of argument is simply silly. Canada has more guns per person than America, yet significantly less crime. Obviously, the guns aren't going off by themselves, now are they?

Hmm well then maybe your right and its a problem with Americans culture and society, which does point to it being a good idea to place stricter gun laws to stop them all shooting each other until they can sort out there society.

 

[Fasckira]

The gun clearly wasnt that defective if he managed to shoot himself in the head. On top of that, in which possible scenario could the instructor be held responsible when an 8 year old decides to look into the barrel of a gun to see why its not firing?

Theres lot of people to blame in this incident, but ultimately it boils down to this:

Dont give an 8 year old a loaded uzi.

It sounds like common sense, but it seems to have been skipped here. Theres no reason why he should have been allowed to fire it if it was loaded in the first place anyway.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Yet the Americans are still so firm about defending their right to bear arms, you never seem to hear about guns saving people just constant tragic accidents with them.

Every country has a cultural taboo that the rest of the world looks at and thinks; Those MORONS.

America has "the right to bare arms", Japan has "whaling". It's so embeded in their culture because it defind their history.

Thank God I live in Europe. Then again, we have our own cultural kinks.

 

[ethaninja]

This is outrageous. But, alas, a ticket for the Darwin awards.

 

[Aardvark]

Maybe if more 'defective' guns could find their way into circulation, the problem of bad parenting of this magnitude will solve itself before it becomes a problem.

 

[Brett Alex]

tl;dr: this wasn't sad or tragic at all.

Not in the slightest. Parents really should just get over it, they can always have another kid, yeah? He was only 8 after all, probably didn't even really develop much of a personality in those short years.

Simply pointing out that more deaths occur from cars than firearms doesn't make it any less sad. A firearm death like this was entirely preventable, there was no reason at all for the child to die.

If you were arguing against a gun control laws, thats when you break out the "Motor-vehicles-are-more-deadly-than-firearms" rhetoric; it doesn't apply in quite the same manner to this issue.

 

[rabidmidget]

...How?