Strange

Kids legally play with Uzi's at Machine Gun Shoot event, 1 shoots himself

by jaurez | October 28, 2008 at 01:33 am

2499 views | 27 Recommendations | 6 comments

Kids are allowed to legally participate in machine gun shoots in the USA. In October, pumpkins and other targets are set up for kids, and Uzi's are one firearm they can play with. One 8-year old boy died by one of the fast-streaming bullets that came from his Uzi when it recoiled jumping up and backwards. He died soon after leaving the premises.

"I gave permission for him to fire the Uzi," Bizilj said. "I watched several other children and adults use it. It's a small weapon, and Christopher was comfortable with guns. There were larger machine guns with much more recoil, and we avoided those."

The death of Christopher Bizilj at the Westfield Sportsman's Club Sunday has raised questions about how someone so young could be allowed to shoot an automatic weapon, which can fire hundreds of rounds in a minute.

Bob Greenleaf, a former executive board member and long-time member of the Sportsman's Club said,

"It's very difficult to control," said Greenleaf, who did not attend the gun expo and said it was the club's first death. "We're lucky the gun went up instead of sideways. If it went sideways, we might have had 10 dead people."

State Representative Michael Costello, the Newburyport Democrat who co-chairs the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, said yesterday that he plans to draft a bill that would ban anyone younger than age 21 from firing an automatic weapon.

"This isn't a knee-jerk reaction; it's a common sense reaction," he said. "We should take swift action to provide some reasonable restrictions on this type of unreasonable practice. It's almost indescribable that within a year of leaving a booster seat, an 8-year-old can be holding a submachine gun."

As his father raised his camera, an 8-year-old boy aimed an Uzi at a pumpkin set up at a shooting event. Before his father could focus, the third-grader from Connecticut squeezed the trigger, and the high-powered weapon recoiled and fatally shot the boy in the head.

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Dave Keating

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 01:37 on October 28th, 2008

jaurez, I like this story. It's good stuff.

rahul

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 07:14 on October 28th, 2008

jaurez, I like this story. It's good stuff. This is a very disturbing event and sad death.

JenniferMX (not verified)

at 08:12 on October 28th, 2008

My first reaction was one of horror - what parent would let their kid play with an Uzi? My second reaction was to be upset by the use of the word "play" as I'm pretty damn sure they didn't just hand some random 8 year old an automatic weapon and tell him to run along now.

It was a tragic accident. When I was in my twenties I was briefly a member of a rod and gun club. I enjoyed shooting trap, and my team came in second place in the region. We were beat out by a team of kids no older than 12. Trust me when I say they showed some serious respect towards their shotguns, perhaps more so than many of the adults I had met along the way.

I don't presume to know what happened here, what the father or son were thinking, or what kind of safety precautions were in place, but I do know that no father wants to see their son dead.

jaurez

at 02:55 on October 29th, 2008

1. To occupy oneself in amusement, sport, or other recreation: children playing with toys. (freedictionary.com)

Yes I agree with you, the word "play" is upsetting but I think because using an Uzi for sport or amusement or recreation is so perverse that it makes the word seem inappropriate. However I used this word to describe the setting in which these kids fired these machine guns. Adults brought their kids to amuse themselves in the sport of shooting. Parents brought them to an event at the Sportsman's Club.

An Uzi is a machine gun. It can fire 100's of rounds per minute, that makes a spray of 2-3 bullets per second, count to 3 seconds, a spray of 9 bullets or more. This is the toy of choice of these parents.

jaurez

at 03:10 on October 29th, 2008

"but I do know that no father wants to see their son dead." I wish that were entirely true. I find it shocking when father's kill their own children, or physically abuse them until they die of the injuries inflicted upon them. It is hard to understand.

I would be interested in what standard of procedures an 8 year old kid goes through before holding an Uzi in their arms. Do they have a safety orientation first, so they understand the bullets are real and can kill? Are they evaluated to see if they understood the basic concepts of safety? If there is recoil, are the Uzi's screwed down so that no mishaps can happen? The ex-board member said this event could have been far more tragic had the Uzi recoiled sideways - it could have taken down as many as 10 kids. The father was taking a picture of his son when this happened, and the licensed instructor beside the kid (legally required) was not holding the gun ... does that mean that the use of a Flash, which could temporarily blind or disorient someone, is allowed during the firing?

*correction: the 4.5 lb Micro-Uzi used in this accident can fire 20 rounds of bullets per second. That is 60 rounds if you hold the trigger for 3 seconds.