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

[josetaco]

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.

uzi's have a problem with jamming due to somthing in the gripp safety the one I fired had the grip safety taped down to avoid it, the gun itself is sound but the safety is faulty at least the one I fired was, causeing it to jam
but even I as an american gun enthusiast does not think that an 8 yearold should have been fireing one, that is all on the parents {not guns}

 

[Vault boy Eddie]

Goddamn VIDEOGAMES STRIKE AGAIN!!!

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

I bet he saw that in MW1 and tought it would be cool, at least that's what the media will say.

 

[Bigeyez]

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.

Again, the ever important example of art comes to mind.
The risk going to an art exhibit by car is greater than the risk of going to a gun show by walking, yet one would intuitively suggest that the art is inherently less risky.

Your logic seems to be very common sense but not very reasonable, with this simple example in mind.

Not to mention, who says guns can't be tools AND have entertainment value? Power tools have entertainment value, and so do many other tools, such as cars, boats, and soldering irons to name a few. It seems a bit silly to designate one particular tool as having no ability to entertain because its function is to cause death.

Having been to a gun show numerous times, and being suitably entertained, I would think this would be proof enough to the contrary.

The kid was 8 years old....He SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN HOLDING A GUN, PERIOD. Would you let your 8 year old operate a car? Would you let your 8 year old operate power tools? Would you let your 8 year old operate a boat?

For one second stop trying to be a snarky ass and actually THINK about what your saying. It really doesn't matter what statistics you can pull out of your rear to try and show how guns are safe. IT'S STILL AN 8 YEAR OLD KID HOLDING A GUN. It's incredibly stupid on both the family and organizers to let an 8 year old child pick up something they can potentially kill themselves with, be it a gun, power tool, sword, whatever. The real tragedy here is that the parents will probably win the suit against the 15 year old (and whoever was in charge of him) and win oodles of money, when in reality they are just as responsible over their sons death.

 

[Superlordbasil]

Lets plat statistics

ratio of guns causing injury or killing to guns saving people.

1:0

1 being the fact that guns kill and injure etc 0 being in order to save people they need to cause injury and or death

statistics are not infallible 'logic' they whatever you pretend them to be. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

 

[Nivag the Owl]

Just a quick question. Ururu117, do you actually think that the 15-year-old handing a gun to an 8-year-old is common and acceptable practice? Or are you just arguing that it's unreasonable but the result of it in this particular case is being over-blown?

 

[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.

Exactly why the child has to be taught, which includes USING THE TOOL

so would you give an infant a handgun? see my earlier analogy to driving.

 

[Superlordbasil]

The main problem i have with you should learn how to use guns idea is that its like saying 'you should know how to kill people son' because thats the only purpose they serve. Call me a wet liberal but why should kids know how to kill people?

 

[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?

They are also parts of around fifteen different competing theories, several of which have good traction with current child psychology.

I was referring to you spelling my name correctly when I referred to operant conditioning. It makes me feel significantly better to be addressed by name as it implies I am on equal footing.

As for your main point, I have addressed it a hundred times before.
All tools have a purpose.
The purpose is not implicated in their superclass as a tool.
Therefore, from their superclass status as a tool, they are all comparable.

Or, in simpler terms, just because it is used to kill doesn't mean it has any implication. Anything you associate with it is pure feeling and emotion, not logic.

I may be a little wide of the mark of what you're trying to say here, but isn't this essentially comparable to:

All objects have a heat
That heat is not implicated in their superclass as objects
Therefore, from their superclass status as an object, they are all comparable

Or, in simpler terms, there's no difference between sitting a child on a couch and sitting them on a fire.

Again, apologies if I've mistaken the thrust of your post, but surely the whole point of each individual tool is its purpose. I wasn't implying that a gun is necessarily more dangerous, simply that I can see no reason why a child would reasonably need to be handling one in the first place. The introduction of weaponry to children at such a young age may be one of the reasons for the gun culture in America.

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

Goddamn VIDEOGAMES STRIKE AGAIN!!!

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

I bet he saw that in MW1 and tought it would be cool, at least that's what the media will say.

I gotta solution, why don't they just ban the games, or better yet, put a fucking age rating on them!

 

[MiodekPL]

One less stupid American to me. Maybe if they all (or only the dumb ones) shoot themselves USA would be a better place. But for now...

 

[Daveman]

It isn't overstepping at all. I think it is hilarious. How is stating my opinion overstepping anything, massively or not?

And I wasn't speaking in absolutes, I was speaking in percentages. If you can't get this idea, you may need to take a statistics course.

More than that, ecstasy actually has a higher disabling effects rate than peanuts.
Which seems to counteract your argument.

Even more than that, you don't know that the kid wouldn't have died the next day of cyanide poisoning from eating too many bitter almonds. Just like with vaccines, there is always a small but quantifiable risk involved. Would you suggest no one get vaccines because there is a small risk, and mourn the kids who DID die from the vaccine by saying "oh, if only he hadn't gotten that flu shot!"

Silly arguments, straw mans, and false dilemmas abound!

1) [sarcasm]free kiddies for paedos, there I said it. I didn't overstep a line. Lots of people don't enjoy sex. Some couples both don't enjoy sex, so if one person enjoys it it is fine irrespective of how the other person feels, especially if they're young because kids don't matter because you can always just beat them if they refuse[/sarcasm] and I get booted from society

the lesson: there is a line you don't cross. saying you find the death of a young child funny is crossing that line.

2) there's absolutely no mention of percentages anywhere in you're argument, you just said it's more likely he'd get killed by a bus than a gun. also, "it's in percentages" doesn't actually mean anything. percentages of what? you go on the statistics course.

3)the ecstasy comment was an example of stupid statistics and how they can appear to make things seem worse than they are. as in, more people are known to suffer from nut allergies compared to people who receive negative effects from ecstasy.

4) Your vaccine analogy is weird. I find it difficult to compare guns to viruses when we deliberately make guns and distribute them to everyone (well, you americans do). we can't stop all virus production, but we can with guns. so why don't we? also, if the kid died from the flu shot he'd almost certainly have died from the actual flu. not really applicable to guns when they're quite a lot more avoidable than an airborne transmitted illness.

furthermore, basically what this guy says, as I end up repeating it on every one of these silly gun related forums

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.

 

[Bigeyez]

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.

Again, the ever important example of art comes to mind.
The risk going to an art exhibit by car is greater than the risk of going to a gun show by walking, yet one would intuitively suggest that the art is inherently less risky.

Your logic seems to be very common sense but not very reasonable, with this simple example in mind.

Not to mention, who says guns can't be tools AND have entertainment value? Power tools have entertainment value, and so do many other tools, such as cars, boats, and soldering irons to name a few. It seems a bit silly to designate one particular tool as having no ability to entertain because its function is to cause death.

Having been to a gun show numerous times, and being suitably entertained, I would think this would be proof enough to the contrary.

The kid was 8 years old....He SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN HOLDING A GUN, PERIOD. Would you let your 8 year old operate a car? Would you let your 8 year old operate power tools? Would you let your 8 year old operate a boat?

For one second stop trying to be a snarky ass and actually THINK about what your saying. It really doesn't matter what statistics you can pull out of your rear to try and show how guns are safe. IT'S STILL AN 8 YEAR OLD KID HOLDING A GUN. It's incredibly stupid on both the family and organizers to let an 8 year old child pick up something they can potentially kill themselves with, be it a gun, power tool, sword, whatever. The real tragedy here is that the parents will probably win the suit against the 15 year old (and whoever was in charge of him) and win oodles of money, when in reality they are just as responsible over their sons death.

In america, you can get what is known as a farmers license for vehicles. This allows you to use vehicles, such as cars and trucks and tractors, on or near a farm. In many midwestern states, this license can be accessed as young as 10-12.

Boat licenses can be aquired even earlier.

A helicopter license has no age requirement.

Power tools can be bought from any hardware store at any age in almost every state in the union.

I am thinking. I am using LOGIC not INTUITION. If you'd stop and think for a moment, objectively think, you'd realize that your arguments are all ageist and have no actual weight besides "feeling".

So according to your "logic" we should let 5 year olds pilot helicopters because there is no age requirement and more people die in car accidents then they do in helicopter crashes. We should also have 5 year olds operate circle-saws and auto-hammers because you can purchase them at your local Home Depot and there is no age requirement. Oh and because more people die from cholestoral then power tools, so obviously power tools are completely safe and should be operated by anyone at any age.

There, am I thinking by your logic now?

Christ almighty, and I wonder why things are so fucked in the world.

Edit: You can't seriously think it's ok for an 8 year old to be hand a LOADED gun to basically play with right? Especially when his only supervision is his half-retarded parents and a 15 year old....