[The Final Dakar]

U.S. shooting instructor dies after showing girl, 9, how to use Uzi | CTV News

A 9-year-old girl accidentally killed an Arizona shooting instructor as he was showing her how to use an automatic Uzi, authorities said Tuesday.
...
Vacca was standing next to the girl at the Last Stop outdoor shooting range in White Hills when she pulled the trigger and the recoil sent the gun over her head, investigators said.

Talk about an exotic death. Well, at least his kids will have a good party story. "How'd your dad die?" "9 year-old with an uzi."

[BLAZE_MkIV]

So very poetic.

[Waragainstsleep]

Do these kinds of stories make anyone think it would be a good idea to put an age limit on firearms? Or certain firearms?

Giving a 9 year old an automatic weapon is the height of stupid and this incident is clear evidence for that because even in a supposedly safe place, supervised by a (presumably) trained, licensed and responsible professional, someone got needlessly killed.

[Waragainstsleep]

Interesting name discrepancy though. The report I read said the place was called "Burgers and Bullets".

[lpkmckenna]

[subego]

Did she shoot the instructor, or did he get clocked in the head with the gun?

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by subego 

Did she shoot the instructor, or did he get clocked in the head with the gun?

It's in the OP!

she pulled the trigger and the recoil sent the gun over her head, investigators said.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

[subego]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

It's in the OP!

Where? I've read it numerous times now.

That part you quoted doesn't say which one.

[The Final Dakar]

I quoted it.

[subego]

That quote doesn't indicate either being shot or getting hit in the head.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by subego 

That quote doesn't indicate either being shot or getting hit in the head.

It takes a vivid imagination to think something advertised as a gun death doesn't involve bullets.

I'm not saying the report misrepresenting this is not possible, just highly unlikely. No one thinks blunt trauma when a gun death is reported.

^ We haven't done a cosplay thread in a while...


I mean, uh, ...in Arizona the legal age to open carry is 18, so why was she being trained at only 9 years?

Originally Posted by subego 

That quote doesn't indicate either being shot or getting hit in the head.

I agree that the article's wording is unclear.

However, let's draw this out (roughly).


- represents the guy who was killed.


- represents the 9 year old girl


(bullet to left) ... (gun recoils above and to the right due to conservation of momentum)

The bullet killed, not the recoil, since the recoil would be 180 degrees in the opposite direction.

[subego]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

It takes a vivid imagination to think something advertised as a gun death doesn't involve bullets.

I'm not saying the report misrepresenting this is not possible, just highly unlikely. No one thinks blunt trauma when a gun death is reported.

I only think that when the person killed is standing next to and slightly behind the person with the gun.

[ort888]

Seems like there is a lot of stupid to go around on this one... but think about this poor girl who will now have this horrific event to deal with for the rest of her life.

Call me old fashioned, but there is no good reason to be teaching a 9 year old to use an Uzi. Maybe take them out in the woods with a 22 rifle... in a very supervised fashion... fine, okay... but come on. Use some common sense people.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by subego 

I only think that when the person killed is standing next to and slightly behind the person with the gun.

Like I said, you're thinking outside the box, or just over-thinking in general.

[subego]

Originally Posted by And.reg 

I agree that the article's wording is unclear.

However, let's draw this out (roughly).


- represents the guy who was killed.


- represents the 9 year old girl


(bullet to left) ... (gun recoils above and to the right due to conservation of momentum)

The bullet killed, not the recoil, since the recoil would be 180 degrees in the opposite direction.

That's a plausible scenario, but I would say the relavent arc she traversed in this scenario was from right to left, not up and over her head.

That's the part which I think is throwing me. Up and over her head has me imagining the gun is pointed straight up at some point.

[subego]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Like I said, you're thinking outside the box, or just over-thinking in general.

I do do that, no question, but this article was poorly written.

My skills as an editor come from being very good at misinterpreting sentences which aren't bulletproof.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by subego 

I do do that, no question, but this article was poorly written.

My skills as an editor come from being very good at misinterpreting sentences which aren't bulletproof.

Your face is poorly-written. But much like the article, I accept it at face-value.

[subego]

You shouldn't.

And to be clear, I truly suck at editing my own stuff.

Originally Posted by subego 

That's the part which I think is throwing me. Up and over her head has me imagining the gun is pointed straight up at some point.

Except if she fired then, the recoil would be straight down to her feet.

She's a lot shorter, so she may have reached up a lot... imagine holding the gun above you but still pointing forward.

Without an actual description or video feed it's guesswork.

[subego]

I'm reading it as she started firing in the normal position and the recoil sent the gun up over her head.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by subego 

I'm reading it as she started firing in the normal position and the recoil sent the gun up over her head.

Right. You're assuming that her fully extended arm was right at an adults head-level so the uzi could bonk him. I think the bullets likely came from under chin height.

[subego]

That doesn't sound like the gun is over the kids head, then.

The muzzle could be, but not the whole gun.

How does recoil send the gun over her head without the gun pointing more or less up at some point?

[subego]

So... this is how the gun got him?



I apologize for the scruff, and that's a prop. Don't do this with a real gun plz. K thx.

[The Final Dakar]

Possibly. Depends how close he was. I just imagine the Uzi flew in an arc, and backward, and probably the kid stumbled backward.

[subego]

Now there's a good point I didn't think of. The girl backing up.

[subego]

Also, my visual aid was supposed to show the general direction of things. I put it right at my chin because my arm is only so long.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by subego 

Now there's a good point I didn't think of.

But blunt trauma via impact. THAT you thought of...

[subego]

Only after getting through an entire article about someone getting shot where the phrase "was shot" never turns up.

[reader50]

The instructor should have been generally behind her while she was firing. The picture shows them side by side, and on the wrong side at that, if the girl is right-handed. The pic is extracted from a video. Probably security video, so the entire incident is recorded.

My guess: the repeated recoil made the girl fall over. She didn't move backwards, she fell backwards. And didn't multitask fast enough to release the trigger. If the instructor was directly behind, he could have blocked the fall, and blocked the rising gun. But he was probably still to the side.

[Shaddim]

[Waragainstsleep]

So the reason we are over-analysing exactly how a 9 year old managed to kill someone with an automatic weapon is so that we can just blame the instructor for standing in the wrong place and not simultaneously catching her fall and blocking her gun arm with ninja-like reflexes?

The key part of the problem is: "a 9 year old killed someone with an automatic weapon". The dead guy wasn't stupid because he stood in the wrong place. Both the instructor and the girls parents are stupid because they all thought it was a good idea to give a 9 year old an automatic weapon.

No-one cries about the fact that 9 year olds aren't allowed to smoke, drink or drive cars. Its completely retarded that people object to putting restrictions on children handling deadly weapons.

Would you give a 9 year old an industrial nail gun or even an angle grinder? Probably not if you are any kind of decent parent. Or at least, you wouldn't dream of letting go of it, because a 9 year old isn't strong enough to control an angle grinder or most other power tools.

[subego]

I think the reason we're over analyzing this is because the article is shit.

I'd let a (not dumb) nine-year-old fire an automatic weapon the way it describes it should be done in the article. The adult is holding the weapon too.

The same way parents will let their nine-year-old "drive" by going to an empty parking lot or a dirt road or some such, having them sit in their lap, and both of them have their hands on the wheel.

[reader50]

I handled a gun at around 9. Didn't shoot anyone, unless you count the target cans. Didn't even hit too many of those. I'll admit it wasn't an UZI.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by ort888 

Seems like there is a lot of stupid to go around on this one... but think about this poor girl who will now have this horrific event to deal with for the rest of her life.

Call me old fashioned, but there is no good reason to be teaching a 9 year old to use an Uzi. Maybe take them out in the woods with a 22 rifle... in a very supervised fashion... fine, okay... but come on. Use some common sense people.

^^^

This!

OAW

[sek929]

I shot a 50 cal. black powder rifle when I was 10, I fell backwards but luckily it doesn't fire 1200 rpm so everyone survived.

[el chupacabra]

Nobody should be firing an uzi, not even trained adults. This firearms instructor should have known an uzi has only 2 purposes, to be put on display as a collectable or to go on a gang related rampage spraying bullets all over the place until it jams. This isn't the kind of gun you play with at the range, its recoil is difficult to manage by adults, it has no accuracy, and sometimes it explodes in your face. My guess is people have these because they see them in the movies and think they're cool. It's highly impractical for a fully automatic, if you can call automatics practical.

[BLAZE_MkIV]

I though the UZI was an Israeli made for their military as a "trench sweeper" along the same principle the Tompson was designed.

[subego]

I always assumed it was designed as a general purpose SMG. It's for any situation where you don't have room to maneuver a full sized rifle. Trenches and bunkers are one example, tank crews are another.

I haven't heard many catastrophic failure stories. Certainly not compared to an M9, where you can end up eating the slide.

Hard to control automatic fire doesn't bother me because you shouldn't be firing on automatic for any reason other than to keep people's heads down. This is achievable with very loose control.

[sek929]

If anything the Thompson had far more kick, since it was firing .45s

UZI has a much higher rate of fire though.

[subego]

For the ultimate in lack of control, a MAC-10 can't be beat. Twice the rate of fire of an UZI, few pounds lighter, and uses .45 ACP

For extra fun, without a silencer, one wrong move and you've blown your own fingers off.

[ghporter]

The instructor didn't do his job correctly. The girl didn't have full control of the gun in semi-auto, and he was standing to her side and in front of her. Instead of making sure she has the Uzi properly controlled, he almost completely separated himself from her. She was not responsible for the shooting, HE was.

It didn't even seem that this was a full-sized Uzi, but rather the "mini" version, which is much lighter than the larger version. The "mini"is much harder to control due to lower weight, but the same mechanism, which throws a lot of internal mass (the bolt) back and forth, makes it even more difficult to control.

It's sad, but the ultimate responsibility for safety in this case is on the instructor's shoulders, and he failed.

[Gankdawg]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

The instructor didn't do his job correctly. The girl didn't have full control of the gun in semi-auto, and he was standing to her side and in front of her. Instead of making sure she has the Uzi properly controlled, he almost completely separated himself from her. She was not responsible for the shooting, HE was.

[Waragainstsleep]

The instructor is clearly at fault here but does no-one think there is a fundamental problem with letting a 9 year old fire a weapon that it seems many adults would struggle to control?
An unlicensed, underage child is allowed to drive a car off road where its safer, but if (s)he can't reach the pedals or turn the wheel, its still dangerous and anyone with two brain cells to rub together wouldn't allow it.

If the gun lobby had a shred of rational thought behind them, they would design and market a lightweight weapon with all their state-of-the-art recoil reduction tech fitted it to for children to use with qualified supervision, then join or better yet lead the call for 9 year olds to be banned from using Uzis and rocket launchers under any circumstances.
This blanket attitude that all guns are always all good all the time just makes people look retarded.
You wouldn't let a 9 year old drive an F1 car, don't let her fire a weapon she is too small to handle safely. Not rocket science.

[turtle777]

Meh. Natural selection at its best.

-t

[reader50]

The reason no one's biting on 9yo-no-UZI is because gun enthusiasts have walked that path before. It works as a foot in the door.

Agree that 9 year old shouldn't handle fully-auto and you open the door to
-> small further step to children shouldn't handle guns regardless of supervision or parental decisions
-> children become adults much less likely to become familiar with guns if they didn't handle them as kids
-> higher future adult percentage afraid of guns and/or consider them optional
-> becomes easier to win elections to implement further gun controls.

The most important reason for the right to bear arms, and the only one mentioned in the 2nd amendment, is that an armed citizenry is needed to remain free. So an unaccountable government would face too high a price to forceably take away the remaining rights. Self-defense and home defense are important too.

Any admission that parents and instructor should be over ridden by law leads to a foot in the door against one of the most important rights in American law. The right that protects all the others. Hence why no one is biting.

[subego]

@Waragainstsleep

reader50 hit the most practical point with his second. If you have guns in the house, it is extraordinarily important you don't make them taboo. It's when they're taboo that most accidents happen.

As you say, the "normal" gun a child should use would be something with low recoil. These exist. Anything using a .22LR round is perfect. That said, saying you can only use the .22, while the 9mm is for adults, creates the same taboo attitude, you're only narrowing the scope somewhat.

The "best practice" here is generally considered to let them try it in a highly supervised environment.

[ghporter]

I specifically avoided the issue of the cognitive developmental level of 9 year olds. The girl's size and strength are undeniably a factor in this incident, and nobody could ever argue that someone who weighs 60 pounds should be able to manage mechanical forces that give problems to adults weighing over 100 pounds. But I think the instructor definitely overestimated the girl's cognition here, and assumed that she'd react the way he wanted her to if things went wrong. It's a very common flaw in adult vs. child communication (and gives inexperienced parents a major problem).

Also undeniable is the responsibility of parents to accurately assess their child's mental and physical status when considering exposing them to such powerful and complex machines. I would put money on the parents having NO personal, hands-on experience with firearms, and thus no real concept outside of what Hollywood has presented of how firearms work. Sadly, their ignorance has given their child a horrible and life changing experience that she will require serious and ongoing help with.