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

[Hazy]

The family of an 8-year-old boy who fatally shot himself at a gun show in western Massachusetts say the Uzi submachine gun jammed twice before he lost control of the weapon and fired into his head.

So if he managed to shoot himself in the head, he must have looked into the barrel. I.e. He ignored the NUMBER FUCKING ONE rule of handling firearms: DO NOT POINT IT AT YOURSELF.

[sub]And don't pull the "He's only 8, he wouldn't have known any better!" card. By the time I was 5, I knew how to properly handle a firearm. If you do not know how to properly handle one (Since the boy killed himself, he obviously did not) then you have no business touching one. Simple as that.[/sub]

Tragic that he died, but the parents should have known better than to let their 8 year old child who was not ready, go to a gun show. Let alone operate a live weapon.

 

[LeonLethality]

I...but...how....why...

Sorry. I can't comphrend the stupidity that those parents and that 15 year must have between them. because of it they lost their son.

I just need to go kick a wall now.

nicely put good sir, and I will join you at the wall

 

[anthony87]

You realize there HAVE been VERY YOUNG people who have gotten helicopter licenses.
Like, far younger than you or I.

WOW...good God. I realize I'm argueing with a wall, so I'm just going to go ahead and cut out of this conversation and not waste my time any further.

Just remember, when you have kids make sure to give them loaded firearms to play with! It's totally safe! In fact go ahead and buy them acetylene torches for their 2nd birthday! They'll have a blast, and remember more people die from lighting strikes then acetylene torches, so they're perfectly safe for a 2 year old to use!

I'm pretty sure Ururu117 isn't human. He is one of those supercomputers designed to debate no matter the argument.

She.

I'm pretty sure Ururu117 isn't human. She is one of those supercomputers designed to debate no matter the argument.

Fixed, now go get a soul please ^^.

 

[Dahemo]

I'm slightly dismayed by some of the callousness permeating this post. Yeah, he was only 8, why don't they just get over themselves?

This could become rant-esque so I'll just say that if you don't see something wrong with the previous sentence, there is something wrong with you.

However, the parents will never take the blame for this, because in America, and increasingly in the UK, no accidents happen anymore, there is always blame to be placed somewhere, and where's there's blame, there's a claim. That's the tragedy, that what is clearly a failure by everyone involved can't just be treated as such, there has to be a lawsuit.

A waste of young life...

 

[Comma-Kazie]

You realize there HAVE been VERY YOUNG people who have gotten helicopter licenses.
Like, far younger than you or I.

WOW...good God. I realize I'm argueing with a wall, so I'm just going to go ahead and cut out of this conversation and not waste my time any further.

Just remember, when you have kids make sure to give them loaded firearms to play with! It's totally safe! In fact go ahead and buy them acetylene torches for their 2nd birthday! They'll have a blast, and remember more people die from lighting strikes then acetylene torches, so they're perfectly safe for a 2 year old to use!

I'm pretty sure Ururu117 isn't human. He is one of those supercomputers designed to debate no matter the argument.

She.

I'm pretty sure Ururu117 isn't human. She is one of those supercomputers designed to debate no matter the argument.

Fixed, now go get a soul please ^^.

Yeah, I'm not sure if she's related to Rush Limbaugh or just his personalized incarnation of GLADoS, but I'm pretty sure it's not entirely her fault--early-age indoctrination is a sad reality in the conservative parts of the United States.

 

[LiftYourSkinnyFists]

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.

I Tried to read your posts, but there is a somewhat obvious lack of sense in your posts "Your logic seems to be very common sense" Were you a writer for Yoda in Star Wars?

You sir, are an obvious troll and an idiot... what do you find entertaining about a Power-tool? Electric Screwdrivers sure do make me laugh! Oh and that mallet can sure make you think!

Comparing going to a Gun show by walking and an Art Show by Car is a horrible example, you failed to realize, it's the people who are responsible and those around them who cause the accidents, not the Car or the guns.


tl;dr this guy is a prime example of the human stupidity that caused this accident in the first place.

 

[mechanixis]

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.

Exactly! So why not keep your infant in a pen full of broken glass and wolverines, they're gonna kill themselves anyway! Hell, let's just shoot them up with smallpox in the delivery room, save us some time!

There's a degree of subtlety you don't seem to grasp here. Your argument completely ignores that fact that while yes, it is impossible to ensure a child's complete safety, there is value to steering children from potentially harmful situations. At birth, human beings are the least capable of independent survival of any animal; young children are simply not experienced enough to make responsible and considered judgments about things like ethics and safety, which is why it is the parents' job to watch over them until they've developed to the point where they can reason for themselves. In our society, that age is usually around eighteen, if not later.

 

[The Maddest March Hare]

-snip-

While I admire your ability to replace common sense with cold logic, in both this post and the discussions occurring throughout the rest of this thread, you repeatedly refer to a gun as a tool. A gun is a "weapon". It's very purpose is that of lethality. You argue that a 10 year old with a power tool is the same as an 8 year old with a gun. Unless health and safety laws are considerably lax where you are from, the power tools we were allowed at 10 consisted of sanders and a fixed drill, all under the supervision of a well trained teacher, not a 15 year old. These tools, while indeed being able to inflict considerable damage, are not created for the sole purpose of taking the life of another creature. While many of your arguments are consistently flawed, this one stands out to me as the worst misuse of logic in all of them.

An 8 year old being handed a hammer could indeed prove to be a bad move, causing harm to them, or maybe even being fatal if something went horribly wrong. But the purpose of the hammer was for them to use it to work, maybe helping their dad with some DIY. And they would be supervised by an adult.

An 8 year old being handed a gun may, as you say, have a lower statistical chance of killing the child (based on your argument that more deaths are caused by tools or cars than by guns) but the danger is far greater. A gun has one purpose, and that is to kill, it cannot be used for anything else. Shooting a target is still shooting a weapon. It is considerably different to hitting a nail with a hammer.

Also, how many of the deaths caused by guns, that you so readily compare to every day activities, were intentional? Now how many of the deaths by power tools were intentional? I'd say that the number of intentional gun deaths are now shockingly higher than the number of intentional tool deaths. That's once again caused by the fact that guns are designed only to kill.

And I finish my rebuttal to your arguments with:

I think invoking tl;dr automatically renders any argument you make irrelevant because it's like saying "I couldn't be bothered to think about this!"

You are really talking nonsense. This wasn't just about the kid being near guns, it was about handing him one. That's like the bus driver turning to the kid on his first day of school and saying "Hey, kiddo, wanna drive? Because driving is awesome." You obviously entered this argument wanting to defend the right to bear arms and rationalized the rest of it from there.

You are just...hilarious.

I'm sure you will read this and respond once again in a way that somehow keeps the blame firmly from the fact the child was handed a gun to maintain the right to own one, to which I dearly look forward to. You have given me a good laugh so far. In a cold, soulless and illogical way.

 

[theurbansailfish]

Reread the amendment the founders used two distinct words, 'militia' and 'people' the 'people' in the second amendment are the same 'people' in the first. This is sad and tragic, but the right to bear arms is, among other things, intended as a last resort in the defense against a tyrannical government, foreign or domestic. We are not generally under threat of a foreign government, but our government has found ways around the Constitutional ban on having a standing army so it is possible that, down the road, the Second Amendment could be very necessary.

 

[ma55ter_fett]

I... I can't think of anything clever and ridiculous to say.

This is just too werid.

 

[anthony87]

You realize there HAVE been VERY YOUNG people who have gotten helicopter licenses.
Like, far younger than you or I.

WOW...good God. I realize I'm argueing with a wall, so I'm just going to go ahead and cut out of this conversation and not waste my time any further.

Just remember, when you have kids make sure to give them loaded firearms to play with! It's totally safe! In fact go ahead and buy them acetylene torches for their 2nd birthday! They'll have a blast, and remember more people die from lighting strikes then acetylene torches, so they're perfectly safe for a 2 year old to use!

I'm pretty sure Ururu117 isn't human. He is one of those supercomputers designed to debate no matter the argument.

She.

I'm pretty sure Ururu117 isn't human. She is one of those supercomputers designed to debate no matter the argument.

Fixed, now go get a soul please ^^.

Souls don't exist.
Neither does god.

Mathematically disproven years ago.
Drop your bronze age myths and become one with the metal

I MEAN....cake.
I love cake.

Delicious.

True, souls don't exist;
True, god doesn't exist;
True, cake is delicious and kudos on the Portal reference but I just refuse to believe that you find no sense of tragedy, or whatever you want to call it, in the fact that an 8 year old kid shot himself in the head.

 

[thomolithic]

Ururu117, your stupidity amazes me, and I only read the first 3 or 4 of your posts.
Comparing an art show and a gun show is just wow.
If you are going to draw that comparison then you are comparing that a kid drives his parents to the art show or say, that the kid has a scalpel to cut around the canvas on the painting he painted himself.

Back on point though, American gun nut families are retarded in the majority. I mean seriously, a fully automatic SMG in the hands of an 8 year old?! what?

 

[AK47Marine]

Lesson Learned: Follow the 4th of the 4 firearms safety laws, treat every weapon as if it was loaded, and of course the unwritten rule of point guns at yourself is stupid

Otherwise I have no problem here, I teach 8-12 years olds to shoot all the time, a couple of them are all grown up now and junior instruct for me.

 

[mechanixis]

Not a single iota of sympathy, tragedy, nor anything but sheer amusement.

Um...congratulations on your aloof social parasitehood?

I can tell you're really happy about being 'different' and 'edgy' but christ, do you reek of shallowness.

 

[anthony87]

You realize there HAVE been VERY YOUNG people who have gotten helicopter licenses.
Like, far younger than you or I.

WOW...good God. I realize I'm argueing with a wall, so I'm just going to go ahead and cut out of this conversation and not waste my time any further.

Just remember, when you have kids make sure to give them loaded firearms to play with! It's totally safe! In fact go ahead and buy them acetylene torches for their 2nd birthday! They'll have a blast, and remember more people die from lighting strikes then acetylene torches, so they're perfectly safe for a 2 year old to use!

I'm pretty sure Ururu117 isn't human. He is one of those supercomputers designed to debate no matter the argument.

She.

I'm pretty sure Ururu117 isn't human. She is one of those supercomputers designed to debate no matter the argument.

Fixed, now go get a soul please ^^.

Souls don't exist.
Neither does god.

Mathematically disproven years ago.
Drop your bronze age myths and become one with the metal

I MEAN....cake.
I love cake.

Delicious.

True, souls don't exist;
True, god doesn't exist;
True, cake is delicious and kudos on the Portal reference but I just refuse to believe that you find no sense of tragedy, or whatever you want to call it, in the fact that an 8 year old kid shot himself in the head.

Not a single iota of sympathy, tragedy, nor anything but sheer amusement.

Well then I can't help but pity you.

 

[anthony87]

Not a single iota of sympathy, tragedy, nor anything but sheer amusement.

Um...congratulations on your aloof social parasitehood?

I can tell you're really happy about being 'different' and 'edgy' but christ, do you reek of shallowness.

EDGY! That's the word I was trying to think of.