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

[TheEvilCheese]

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

Ill come, do you have donuts?

 

[Icerain]

Uruhu, please stop using the Piagetian theories of development so much, they've been largely discredited for a good while now.

Guns cannot be compared to other tools for a simple reason; their purpose is to kill. If I give a child a power tool in a controlled environment (admittedly still not a good idea) it is because I want them to learn how to use it; for example, I would give them a saw so that they can learn to cut wood.
So if you look upon guns purely as tools, then the only reason to give a child one is to teach them to kill. And I for one am certainly not comfortable with that.

I'm....not. And please spell my name right, it is operant conditioning.

Apologies for the misspelling. Concrete thinking and so forth are Piaget's theory of development, operant conditioning is simply to do with positive and negative reinforcement for certain behaviours. Any response to the main body of my post?

 

[Maxman3002]

The use of the uzi was a teaching tool. It is quite accepted as a teaching tool and learning tool, because of the high recoil, etc etc.

Which means it had a definite purpose.

Thankyou for that responce. I have learnt a lot about the laws across America and the uses of guns but the point were you suggest its acceptible to give an 8 year old an UZI under controlled conditions in a populated zone to teach him of the high recoil of a high powered gun is the point where I have nothing more to learn from you.

Is there a reason why you are trying to single handedly arguing with every person on this thread? I thought you wernt a gun nut

 

[TheEvilCheese]

wait, they gave an 8-year old a gun?
and were surprised when he 'lost control'?

And they blamed the guy who worked there?


Why?


*shoots self and blames the bullet*

 

[NezumiiroKitsune]

Will someone set the troll on fire? It's annoying me ¬_¬

 

[IckleMissMayhem]

I'm on the fence about gun control, but this is ridiculous. No child so young should be permitted to handle a firearm, especially not one as dangerous as an Uzi.

So a bb-gun or an air rifle or a pellet gun or a paintball gun is any better?
None of those are "firearms".

Kids will find ways to kill themselves with anything.

Actualy all of them are classified as firearms, atleast by Australian law last i checked.

And UK law.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

Wow. As tragic as the death of a child is, my natural cynicism is making me crack up. Ururu117 brings up excellent points: this is the product of people being *stupid*, not of guns being fundamentally evil or some shit.

Alcohol and cars, completely separately, make the numbers killed every year by guns look like chump change. Combine the two, neither designed to kill or injure people, and you make gun death statistics look laughable.

Simple response from the judge to address the problem here: slap the parents for being retards and letting their kid use an automatic weapon being handled by a 15 year old.

Kids aren't allowed to *drive* for a reason. When you give a child something designed to make you move faster but is liable to kill people when mishandled, then why on earth would you give a child something that was originally designed to kill people when you *properly or improperly* use it.

 

[cobra_ky]

I was thinking the same thing about the "controlled environment" thing. Now there's something I'm wondering. I don't know a thing about guns but the article states the gun jammed twice before eventually going off. Are those two jams not enough for the teen instructor to intervene?

He did intervene; he cleared the jam, and handed the gun back to the kid, who subsequently blew his own head off. I don't believe the gun jamming, or the line officer being 15, had anything to do with this child's death.

"Controlled" means that everything that can be restricted while still permitting the goal has been.

If the goal was to allow the child to shoot the gun, on his own, your condition would preclude the goal, and therefore be impossible. The environment was as controlled as it could be to allow the goal.

Why should letting an 8-year-old fire an Uzi be an allowable goal?

Considering the 8 year old could have OWNED a gun in Montana, it isn't insane at all.

Considering it was against the law to let him fire that gun in Massachusetts, it is.

 

[Woem]

The use of the uzi was a teaching tool. It is quite accepted as a teaching tool and learning tool, because of the high recoil, etc etc.

Which means it had a definite purpose.

Thankyou for that responce. I have learnt a lot about the laws across America and the uses of guns but the point were you suggest its acceptible to give an 8 year old an UZI under controlled conditions in a populated zone to teach him of the high recoil of a high powered gun is the point where I have nothing more to learn from you.

Is there a reason why you are trying to single handedly arguing with every person on this thread? I thought you wernt a gun nut

This expresses my thoughts exactly. I think I've seen enough about pointy sticks, quantum randomness, power tools and vaccinations.

 

[Vault boy Eddie]

Goddamn VIDEOGAMES STRIKE AGAIN!!!

 

[Sombra Negra]

Hahhaha, hilarious! Doubly hilarious with some of the commentary here!

Why not go to a gun show?
How is an art exhibit any more or less wrong for an 8 year old, considering guns kill far less children then the bus he had to take every day of his life?

This was a hilarious tragedy which is made even more hilarious because it will provoke people who don't think logically to say "well gosh, if only he hadn't been allowed near guns"!

Yes, guns are terrible instruments of life and death, but when we live in a world where the car is far more of a blood god than anything actually designed for destruction, the rules may just be a bit different from what your intuition tells you.

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

So, you think the un-needed death of an eight year old isn't tragic, but hilarious?

No fucking wonder Jack Thompson wants to ban violent games, how much have people like you been de-sensitized to stuff like this? And before you start telling me about how cars are worse, they are, but what point is there behind allowing more people to die than necessary? Using guns as tools to defend yourself with is one thing, but letting children use them as little more than playthings is another entirely. It's just stupidly negligent.

How is it stupidly negligent when using guns at a young age leads to all sorts of benefits?
Sounds more like a preventive measure, like vaccines, at that point.

Yes, some get hurt by them, but the general populous benefits.

And I am not desensitized. Simply because I have a different opinion than you does not mean I am morally ambiguous or have any sort of abnormality. People have stratifications based on experience and such; this is not necessarily desensitization. For example, you could be ultrasensitized.

It's stupidly negligent because, evidently this kid wasn't schooled in gun safety. Parents should know about this, but why not ask the child itself if they know what they're doing? If they're old enough to handle a deadly weapon, they should be old enough to know how to use it. And, last I checked, shooting yourself in the head is Doing It Wrong. Also: your heart is made of cold, unfeeling steel, you lovely person. Not sarcasm.

Why thank you, it is nice to hear I am lovely sometimes.

It isn't negligent; feeling how a gun fires is the quickest and easiest way to get a child interested in guns, which is the easiest way to get them into gun safety, which is the easiest way to statistically lower their likelyhood of getting hurt from guns.

It is simple logic, and works identically to vaccines.

Perhaps a child should be thought gun safety before it is allowed to fire one. And I'm really not sure if it should be "interested" in them in such a fashion that it believes it has entertainment value or a coolness factor. I agree that guns are tools, but they are not toys. You wouldn't want your kid running around dual-wielding pointy sticks or scissors either.

And you also don't want kids running around with scissors at all.
Which is why you teach them how to use them.

How do you get them to care?
By getting them interested.

This is how lives are saved.

In this case, obviously, a life was lost.

The thing is, if this child wasn't given a gun in the first place, there would be no need for them to learn gun safety, and they wouldn't have died in this fashion. Stopping viruses is easier by maintaining good hygiene than getting vaccinated, since you seem so fond of that simile. Note that I'm not accusing weapons of inherently being something evil in nature, but it's more about how people, intelligently or otherwise, use them.

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

Goddamn VIDEOGAMES STRIKE AGAIN!!!

Videogames and Gansta Rap. Won't someone please think of the children?

 

[Woem]

I was thinking the same thing about the "controlled environment" thing. Now there's something I'm wondering. I don't know a thing about guns but the article states the gun jammed twice before eventually going off. Are those two jams not enough for the teen instructor to intervene?

He did intervene; he cleared the jam, and handed the gun back to the kid, who subsequently blew his own head off. I don't believe the gun jamming, or the line officer being 15, had anything to do with this child's death.

You are correct, I posted that before I read the related article [http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/family_of_christopher_bizijl_s.html]. In short the gun just slipped from his shoulder, felt and clumsily went off with the child's family and instructor just steps away. There's nothing they could have done, except for not allowing the kid in the position of wielding an Uzi in the first place.

 

[cobra_ky]

Common sense was never part of it; pure logic was.

Tools are tools, and when the inherent risk of using them is controlled by say, a lack of free variables in say, a controlled environment, then there is no reason one would be in any way worse than another.

And where has common sense, exactly, supported YOUR argument?
You have begged the question at every turn without answering it.

Why is a gun inherently "wrong" to be in the hands of a child, in a controlled environment?

The quick answer is, there is no inherent wrongness in showing a child any tool or allowing a child to use a tool in a controlled manner. What that tool is designed to do is irrelevant; that it is a tool, and can be used productively, is.

Because a child has yet to demonstrate both the mental and physical maturity necessary to control that tool and use it safely.

And the 8 year old could fire the gun. Maybe he couldn't control it, but shooting with it was easy. Just because you can't control a weapon doesn't mean that you can't use it. There is always a risk when it comes to weapons, and it doesn't matter who wields it, the risk will still be there.

...this is ridiculous.

6 year olds have driven cars before. they've caused all sorts of damage but they've proven capable of using them. But because they can't control them, we impose a minimum age on drivers, and then license them only if they can prove themselves competent to drive.

Wow. As tragic as the death of a child is, my natural cynicism is making me crack up. Ururu117 brings up excellent points: this is the product of people being *stupid*, not of guns being fundamentally evil or some shit.

Alcohol and cars, completely separately, make the numbers killed every year by guns look like chump change. Combine the two, neither designed to kill or injure people, and you make gun death statistics look laughable.

Simple response from the judge to address the problem here: slap the parents for being retards and letting their kid use an automatic weapon being handled by a 15 year old.

Kids aren't allowed to *drive* for a reason. When you give a child something designed to make you move faster but is liable to kill people when mishandled, then why on earth would you give a child something that was originally designed to kill people when you *properly or improperly* use it.

that seems to be the exact opposite of what ururu is aruging.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Canada has more guns per person than America, yet significantly less crime. Obviously, the guns aren't going off by themselves, now are they?

Can you cite your source for that statistic, please?

 

[NezumiiroKitsune]

I think the lesson humanity has learned today is that 8 year olds shouldn't be allowed to use guns. Knowing this, our race will flourish!