Shooting instructor Charles Vacca apparently didn’t read the news much. If he had, he might have known about the tragic case of a Massachusetts 8-year-old boy, Christopher Bizilj, who lost control of an Uzi back in 2008 and shot himself in the head. The boy was simply too small to control the little sub gun’s full-auto muzzle climb. Vacca was showing a 9-year-old girl how to shoot the same type of gun in Lake Havasu City, Arizona yesterday. When he told the little girl to pull the trigger, the gun climbed uncontrollably, shooting Vacca in the head. The video above stops just before Vacca is struck. . . .

He later died in a Las Vegas hospital.

Thoughts and prayers go out to Vacca’s family. And we hope the little girl is able to get past the trauma of what happened some day. In the mean time, the blood dancers are circling the bonfire.

Perhaps we can resolve that Uzis aren’t the the ideal firearms to introduce undersized shooters with insufficient upper body strength to the joys of full-auto fire. If we never have another similar situation repeat itself, it will be too soon.

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193 COMMENTS

      • I’m pretty sure he was before. Ray Charles could’ve seen this coming.

        EVERY time I introduce a new shooter to a new firearm, or try a new one myself, I ensure it’s loaded with a single round only. Once comfortable with the gun’s behavior in that situation, I move to two rounds, then 3, etc.

        • I do the same. I can’t imagine why anyone would do it differently. Even when it is a simple and low caliber firearm, first time is one round, no exceptions.

        • Earlier this year at a gun show when a young boy killed himself when an “instructor” was showing him a full auto machine pistol. Recoiled up and he continued to pull the trigger and shot himself in the head. As evidenced by you tube, folks think handing someone a gun that they are incapable of controlling is funny. It is not. Would that no one got hurt, but if one of them was going to catch a bullet, thankfully it was the instructor, not the child.

        • As evidenced by you tube, folks think handing someone a gun that they are incapable of controlling is funny. It is not.

          Well, now, a few years back I saw a series of clips of various people firing some sort of lightweight bolt-action rifle with pretty extreme power, essentially everybody who fired it was knocked on his ass by the recoil. Sorry. That was hilarious.

        • This this this, a thousand times this! How many times have you seen a newbie turn and cover everyone in sight after the first shot? Almost every single time, no matter how many times you tell them not to. Someone who would let a kid go hot on a full auto Uzi just doesn’t have their sh!t wired tight. At least it got him, instead of her.

        • Exactly. And I usually start with a nice .22 Revolver.

          Unfortunate and all, but this was not a smart move. Not that any of us have never done something dumb to whatever degree, but this was a real risk, that had a really bad outcome. (Obviously)

          This dude setup the circumstances of his own demise. But then again, I dunno, maybe most people do in one way or another, whether it’s drinking to excess, smoking two packs a day, driving like a maniac, eating like crap, etc.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lYVggyHRkY

        • There was a similar case in an indoor range in WA a few years ago when a guy gave a petite girl he was hitting on a .44 Magnum (which she never tried before). She fired, and the recoil pushed her arm all the way up and twisted her wrist so that the gun started to fall out. So she tried to grab it, and pulled the trigger in the process. The guy got a round through his neck; needless to say, dead on the scene.

        • He had his left hand under her elbow. When she shot on auto the gun rotated to the upper left probably due to the resistance offered by her left hand , which slipped off the gun. His head was out front .
          He was not in the rear and was not controlling the weapon but had a weak grip on her elbow, which acted as a lever when she shot the gun.
          So if you are teaching someone to shoot stand behind them and hold their hand that is on the trigger.
          Reply
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        • Naw…gotta get your shots in before this story is buried on page 7 the day after tomorrow behind mindless reposts of reader comments in lieu of current events.

    • The bigger issue is that the antis make the progression in their minds questioning why any child should be allowed to shoot a gun (or any type). This then leads to calls for legislation that a ‘minor child under the age of X not be allowed to shoot a firearm’. Wish such idiocy could never pass but those blue states certainly could when combining ‘for the children’ and ‘gun control’.

      • They’ve been saying kids under 18 shouldn’t be allowed to handle firearms for years. And they are screaming about it, in regard to this incident, right now. Doubt they’ll get any legislation passed right now, but you never know.

        • And therein is where my concern resides. Too many things in the past two years were ‘been trying for years but nothing came of it’ and are now in place. New rifle bans in some states, new mag cap limits in some states, Calif. on the verge of passing ‘Take away your gun without due process’ legislation. Saying that it can never happen seems to be getting turned on its head a great deal lately. 🙁

    • BOO

      Israelis make their shizzay for everyone, 8 – 80 [can’t walk – drag ’em] (because it’s them against the world).

      The little girl might have needed an additional steadying hand at first, or additional warnings, but not a different weapon.

      I feel for the family of the instructor and hope the girl recovers from the trauma.

      I feel for the rest of us, because this definitely gives the retard media a cookie.

      I saw an article on MSN (you don’t need a hyperlink to waste your time) and the reporter was downright gleeful. My first thought [regarding the reporter] was ‘if your two daddies switched places in time (twenty some-odd years ago) you might have came out the little-girl that you wanted to be’. Stupid wussy beotch.

      • I don’t think an Uzi is designed for a 9-year-old girl’s hands. Unless she’s got some kind of mutant fingers, there’s not much chance she was able to get a good hold on that chunk of 2×4 they call an Uzi grip. No amount of steadying hand or warnings is going to compensate for being unable to safely hold onto the weapon.

    • Everybody keeps saying over and over here–“what was he thinking??” It’s pretty obvious what was going through his mind–he was all stoked and ego tripping about how cool HE thought he was by getting this girl to shoot this full auto gun. He was over the top into guns so much that he vacated all common sense and courtesy. He was showing off plain and simple.

      • Another reason he was standing there was so the parents could get a video. Also the range looks pretty shabby with a plywood top on some kind of rigged supports with no means to fasten the gun down.

    • Does anyone know what caliber this Uzi was? Uzis can be anywhere from .22 to .45 cal but the classic is 9mm. Obviously what ever caliber it was was too much in full auto but if this one was hopped up to 40 S&W or 45 ACP that’s just another layer of bozo ego trip bad judgement.

      • I suspect that a it was not a 45 ACP since 45 ACP tend not to have muzzle rise like a supersonic 9mm and 40 S&W tend to have. I suspect that if it had been chambered in 22LR that the muzzle rise would have been far less than what it was.

  2. “Perhaps we can resolve that Uzis aren’t the the ideal firearms to introduce undersized shooters with insufficient upper body strength to the joys of full-auto fire. If we never have another similar situation repeat itself, it will be too soon.”

    Amen to that Dan.

    • I mentioned above, this is the repeat. Here is a link to the story:

      http://www.nbcnews.com/id/27399337/ns/us_news-life/t/boy-accidentally-kills-self-gun-show/#.U_32NhDy9X8

      Machine pistols are hard enough for a 200 lbs man to control on auto. A mini or micro UZI on full auto is a pretty stupid thing to hand to someone not exceedingly well trained and with solid upper body strength. It is also maybe a pain, but I wouldn’t put more than three in the mag until I could verify they could control it.

      • +1 from me. As submachine guns get smaller, the rate of fire increases and the controlability rapidly decreases. Newtonian physics, especially the third law of motion. Standard UZI: 600 rpm (7.7 lbs), Mini UZI: 900 rpm, Micro UZI: 1200 rpm

        Wasn’t a child accidently killed with one many years ago? I remember the video clip and the boy’s father saying “It’s only a little gun”.

    • No, we can’t resolve (that’s half the problem with gun-control) [Terrible-Terrible situation aside] you don’t collectively get to agree on anything of any consequence in the matter.

      Bad accident, occurring through conditions stupid enough to be negligence, but, if all I have is an Uzi, and all it’ll do is full-auto, that’s what I’m going to teach my kids on.

      • The family was on vacation from the Commie State of New Jersey. I’m sure they weren’t teaching their daughter to shoot an Uzi out of practical need. Looks more like on of those “pay too much to come to the range” sessions I saw in large quantities when I last visited AZ.

        Tragic. Several degrees of BAD judgment.

        • My first clue that this was a tourist trap was the name of the fine establishment. Bullets and Burgers!
          They apparently grind their own meat there.
          I’m going to Hell for that one.

        • If states like New Jersey didn’t go so far as to prevent their citizens from legitimately owning guns, their citizens wouldn’t be so ignorant about them and outfits like this wouldn’t have so much appeal.

    • How many times have you been debating an idiot about some firearm related topic and he throws this at you: “I am an NRA certified instructor…bla…bla…bla…”?

      • I am an NRA instructor in multiple disciplines. You have to be to teach Boy Scouts. The NRA classes are for beginners and cover introductory material. I must have missed the “NRA First Steps for Machine Pistol” instructor class. The NRA classes are well designed for what they are. Technically to even qualify for the class the instructor has to pass a practical and written test which demonstrates they have the basics down. I doubt he was an NRA instructor, as you are taught not to stand where he was standing. In addition to instructor ratings, I have a CRSO rating as well, also required to supervise Boy Scout shooting programs. In visiting ranges in this area, I have seen very lax safety procedures, especially when a grandparent or mother brings children in to rent a gun and shoot. They get a few minutes instruction, mainly on how to load the gun and very little active supervision from the “instructor” and it is largely left to the parent or guardian that is pretty oblivious due to ignorance. I watch young kids waving the muzzle of Ruger Mark III’s around and seldom see their finger leave the trigger. If it is bad enough I say something, and then sometime get to hear their opinion of the NRA and how they have been shooting for x years or spent x years in the military with seal team six. I have now printed laminated cards that have the NRA safety rules on the front and sight picture drawings on the back. The ONLY thing an NRA instructor rating certifies is that you were capable at the time of testing to teach an NRA course with NRA materials. If they are not discussing that material the certification means nothing. So what is your issue with the NRA classes?

        • What makes you think I have an issue with NRA classes? You seem a little butt hurt to me for my comment. I hope you are not one of those guys I was talking about. My issue is with people saying stupid stuff and doing stupid things and then when you call them out on it the claim to be “a certified NRA instructor”. You must know someone like that.

        • Where he was standing was clearly wrong, regardless of where he claimed to hold credentials from. But I can’t think where he could have been standing to make himself and the child both safe from her use of that weapon. Limiting rounds available seems a good plan, but telling her to come back 50 lbs heavier and we’ll try full auto seems the only good answer. 8-year-olds really do not need full auto.

        • Beside or behind the shooter’s shoulder. It appears in the video like he was forward of the muzzle at times. Exactly where depends on the dynamics. I would have placed myself on the right given her stance, but he probably had his own reasons for standing on the left, In boy scouts, for shotgun, where the recoil can cause them to lose their balance, there is one instructor per shooter and he gives them one shell at a time. The boys inevitably take their shot and then turn around and muzzle sweep the spectators.

        • If you get showered you are too far forward. I said by the shoulder or behind on the right. It is exactly where I stood this last November when I taught my 13, 15 and 25 year old to shoot a Thompson. I can’t speak for all auto’s, but the Thompson and the Mac 10 which I have fired often eject to the right with a slight forward trajectory. If you are getting hit by brass you are to far forward. Looking at the video of my son’s firing, I can see a few did bounce off the lane divider back toward me. In any event, I would rather catch hot brass than hot lead. A lot/most semi auto pistols eject up and back to the right, but the shooters stance for a beginner is square to the target so you can reach the firearm from left or right.

          • Why is he standing anywhere near her? I assume to provide safety when she most likely will lose control of the gun. Regardless of which side he is on, he should have been prepared to take control (or never give up control IMO). Being on her other side was no guarantee that she wouldn’t have hurt herself or someone else. Yes, he may be in a safer place for his own well being but if he failed to react on the other side then who’s to say he would have reacted in time on the “proper” side?

            • He may have chosen his position for that reason, and in that he was partially successful in that he took the round rather than the girl or someone down the firing line. However, it appears to be an Uzi Micro. Probably chosen by her or her parents with the thought it would be easier for her to handle. A little over three pounds with a 1200 RPM rate of fire. A little over a second to empty the magazine. If he doesn’t start with his hand on the gun, he would require extraordinary reaction time to change the outcome, which he didn’t. Here is a video of a slightly built full grown man with military training firing one. Notice how it pushed him around.

              http://youtu.be/RpolW9VmQHY

              I teach folks on a 22. If they want to move up, I use mild 38s in a .357 Dan Wesson with an eight inch barrel. They get some recoil, but the mass of the gun makes it manageable.

  4. Kid that age has no business holding a fully automatic weapon. If you want your kid to shoot something like that you should put your hands over theirs and make sure YOU have control over the weapon. That is how I learned to shoot at the age of 7 with a Mini-14, in my Dad’s lap with his hands over mine.

    • This a thousand times. When my kids shot ARs for the first time, I had my hands on the pistol grip and handguard with them.

    • “… you should put your hands over theirs and make sure YOU have control over the weapon.”

      Absolutely!!!

    • I can see it being OK for a younger child to shoot a full-auto so long as (a) they’ve been shooting several times already and (b) it’s something very controllable in a small caliber. An American-180 (assuming you can find one) would be a much better choice. I suppose something that was hard-mounted to a shooting surface would be fine too (or heavy enough with a bipod so that the muzzle could only rise so far).

      • Ranges really need to self-regulate a ‘you must be this high to ride’ for certain guns.

        I would only let a 9 year old handle a full auto if:
        1: they’ve shown confidence and competence with less exciting firearms before
        2: It’s tripod mounted or on a bipod solidly on the ground
        3: The instructor can maintain control of the firearm in case something weird happens

        This incident shows none of those 3.

        • FWIW, this was exactly my thought. Parents can do whatever they like with their children. They know them and their capabilities, but I think public ranges should consider limiting access to any weapon under their control. If for no other reason than liability insurance.

          This is truly a tragedy for everyone involved but if she had spun sideways instead of up you’re talking real body count.

    • This is how I am teaching my kids as well. Starting in my lap, with my hands on a single shot Crikett. My 3 oldest have graduate to trying out the AR. The 10 year old bench rested with me behind him, the other 2, in my lap, with my hands assisting

    • My dad stayed on me like white on rice about gun safety when we would be out hunting when I was young. I used to hate it, but now I thank him for it. Tragic story however. Someone is dead and the little girl will live with this for the rest of her life, but she had no business shooting a full auto. And to hell with Piers Morgan.

    • Yeah so the girl could kill herself instead. C’mon man!
      I heard this story on the radio this morning and whoever they interviewed said “I don’t know how this could have happened. The instructors usually hover over new shooters.” Well…I figured out real quickly how this happened.

      • You do realize that a large man can reach around a small child and help them control a firearm without the need to put any part of his body forward of the action? Right?

        That’s how my uncle taught me to handle a 12ga before I was 10.

        • The way I was taught was to stand on the shooting hand side. You should position yourself behind the shoulder. If you see a control problem you can then grab a wrist, forearm, the gun, whatever it takes to get control of the gun.

        • He could have grabbed it from where he was but I think he was looking downrange for some stupid reason. When you said “well” behind the firearm, I took that to mean not on the line.
          I thank God she was not killed which is the risk the “adults” took with this poor girl.

  6. My ten year old is limited to her 10/22 and Mark III. That’s it until she’s bigger and stronger. I trust her with those under close supervision.

  7. Tragic… and stupid (on his behalf). Not only did he take his own life, that poor little girl has that horrible experience to live with the rest of her life. What a dumb ass. Instead of worrying about her falling backwards, he should have been more concerned with the obvious danger of muzzle rise/direction. I would reference the Darwin awards, but this is pretty sad either way, so not going to make a joke of it.

  8. I’m sorry for what happened to Mr. Vacca, but I believe he , and the gun range, made an error in allowing the little girl to fire what is essentially a military firearm. I’m not even going to to into the culpability of the parents. Bad decisions all around. This made the newscast here in southern Nevada, and from what was said, the range has instituted height and age requirements since the shooting.

    • Which is stupid because there is no reason why a small kid should not be able to plink with a .22.

    • Punishing all the kids and/or little people because of one moron who won the ultimate stupid prize. Makes perfect sense.

    • Age/height/weight requirements for full-auto shooting make sense to me, as long as it’s privately-controlled range rules and not another arbitrary government regulation.

    • Height and age requirement? The idiot was probably somewhere in his 40’s and at least 5′ 11″ and 180 pounds. The kid was harmless until he put the gun in her hands now the kids have to stay out of the range because of what he did. Come on people does one stupid act require another to follow it. We don’t need Liberals to put gun ban restrictions on gun owners. We are going to do it all by our selves without their help.

    • Howard is on the right track.

      Suppose someone is introducing a 9 year-old to a snowmobile. No one in their right mind would put that 9 year-old on a machine with a 1000cc engine and tell her to hit the throttle while the instructor stands to the side.

    • howard is not on the right track at all. he is not talking about full auto weapons but, echoing the antis about presence at a range or use of any firearm.

      height and age requirements for use of any private or public pool or wading it the ocean, lifeguard or not, would save 100x more lives

      • Howard was not saying there SHOULD be age and height restrictions. He simply said that he believes the tragedy to be a result of a series of poor decisions and that particular range has apparently imposed age and height restrictions following that incident.

    • Maybe they did.

      She’s still to small for a full auto anything.

      My condolences to everyone involved, but… stupid stupid stupid.

  10. Massive error in judgment. A 9 year old girl CANNOT control a weapon like that. This guy is in the same league as those D-bags that post videos of their petite girlfriends firing their S&W .500 snubbie and clocking themselves from the recoil–and then laughing.

    That girl will probably never touch a gun again after what happened and I honestly don’t blame her. It’s a terrible thing to happen but seriously how stupid do you have to be?

  11. Handing a hard-recoiling lightweight machine pistol to a prepubescent kid, especially one that’s never shot before, is a recipe for disaster.

    Stick with .22s for the youngins and by god, stand behind them and make sure they stay in control if they’ve never shot before.

  12. Completely the instructors fault. The kid could have killed herself as well. Know your limitations. Reminds me of the girl that shot her head off by double firing a 500 S&W.

    • Agreed. There was some bad judgement involved in this situation, but you still have to feel bad for the kid and the family of the instructor.

  14. I took my 11 year old son to the range for the first time on Monday. We’ve been talking about the 4 rules for months. We shot a Ruger MKIII (don’t ask where I found the .22LR ammo!) One round in the mag for the first few shots, then three, then ten. I had my right hand on his back and my left near his left hand in case he started to drift. He had a great time. Would he have liked to have shot a Uzi in full auto? Sure, but come on, use some common sense. I’ve never shot an Uzi, but I have shot an MP-5 on full auto. Lots of fun, not hard to control, but I’m not a 9 year old girl (last time I checked). Sometimes gun owners are their own worst enemy.

  15. There should be a rule #5 of gun safety, never use or allow someone to use to much gun. this applies to

    Giving your 90 pound 5 foot nothing girlfriend who has never shot a gun before a 500 S&W snubnose revolver/pistol grip 12ga shotgun

    Giving an inexperienced 9 year old an uzi(you can give them a full auto gun, but make it a tripod mounted machine gun or something, something that if they lose control it still points down range)

    and every other similar situation

  16. I have never been a big fan of full auto anything. Not against them don’t think they should be taken away from people, just don’t like them. Maybe because I grew up in a world where solders were emptying their mags in no time flat because they were panic firing. Semi-auto is more accurate and conserves rounds. Okay full auto is kind of fun on the range when you have the bucks to throw away a bunch of brass. However, if I want crowd pleasers, I’ll pull out the pump action riot shot gun with the 00 buckshot if I can’t resolve the problem with that then I am in deep trouble. I would go up against an UZI with good shot gun any day of the week.

  17. This sure makes you wonder what kind of qualifications a person needs before declaring himself to be a firearms instructor.

  18. Instructor AND parent fail… how many times do we have to go over this?! Guns need to be carefully chosen for a child’s ability and skill level. At least let her sit down and bench shoot it!

    That poor girl is traumatized for life. I wouldn’t surprised if 12 years from now she’s in college, writing anti-gun editorials in the school rag. Gah.

  19. The only tragedy is that a nine year old girl had to be the one to present the Darwin Award to this idiot. He deserved his fate. She didn’t deserve to suffer. I hope her parents sue that man’s estate and any company he may have owned or employed by in the course of receiving his Darwin Award.

  20. You know, I’m about as pro gun as a man could possibly be.

    What any 50 or 60 lb. child is doing shooting any full auto gun, be it even a fully auto 10/22, is beyond me.

    This is a tragedy.

    This is not a third world country, folks. This is not Uganda, the Ivory Coast, et cetera.

    Your children are not child soldiers. For God’s Sake, keep the damned fully auto weapons out of children’s hands!!!

    FWIW- My local Cabela’s had an Uzi for sale. I always thought (although I’ve never handled one, so I’m ASSUMING) that they’d weigh a damned ton. Plus, I’m no 9MM Fanboy. Can someone explain with actual logic from a shooting perspective why anyone would want an Uzi?

    Again, I’ve never handled one. I’m curious.

    • You are parroting the anti secondi amendment people by being ANECDOTE driven. The number of US children killed accidently with full auto or the total of all Americans killed by full auto in the past 30 years is not one weekend of drownings in pools

      • When the anecdote is a child with his brains blasted out and now one who is traumatized by having done the same to someone next to her, I think it’s fair to think about what’s going on.

        Doesn’t mean we have to ban Uzis. Doesn’t mean we have to ban children from shooting guns. But why can’t we acknowledge the stupidity of this behavior and be upset over the consequences? I’d be just as upset over a child drowning in the pool because the parents left them alone in the deep end, if that makes you feel better.

        • …and by ‘this behavior’ I mean giving a very difficult to control firearm (that is dangerous when not controlled) to someone we should reasonably worry about having the physical and mental capacity to handle it.

    • Orders of magnitude more kids are killed or cause someone else to be killed with out of control biden shotguns

    • Uzi largely fills the same role as a grease gun. Full auto machine pistols. They are meant for very close quarters fighting. These types of weapons are very important and critical weather you are in a defensive position and perform patrol functions.

      • So, td… plinking with a semi-auto Uzi at the range would be subpar to say, plinking with a polymer-framed striker fire _______ (insert brand here)?

        Full auto (as combat weapon) or bust?

        Thank You kindly for your help with this.

    • Can someone explain with actual logic from a shooting perspective why anyone would want an Uzi?

      Uh, there wasn’t a select fire .300 blk AR-15/M-16 SBR available? Was I close?

    • I don’t know how much a real Uzi with the proper barrel length weights, but I’ve eyed some of the 16″ carbines (which is probably what is for sale at your Cabela’s), and they were over 8 lbs. So yeah, pretty damn heavy esp. for a pistol caliber carbine.

      And no, there’s no reason why you’d want one for the range or any civilian type work other than the “cool factor”. For that matter, even as a military weapon, it’s largely outdated and outclassed (by PDWs like P90, and SBRs). The only reason why it’s still out there because a lot were made, and they were made back then because they worked and they were cheap and good bang for the buck.

    • Uzis are small, light, and TONS of fun to shoot, although I’ve never shot one full or semi-auto. When I was a kid I liked plinking with a 22, and my husband really enjoys shooting, but I never enjoyed shooting any of his guns. Then we visited a friend of mine who has a lot of different guns, we shot many of them just to try them out, and I fell in love with his Uzi, enough so that I went out and bought one. Even with all his toys, hubby enjoys shooting it on occasion.

  21. Now this child has to live with the fact that she killed someone, regardless of it being unintentional on her part. What a dumb ass for allowing a child as small as she was to shoot full-auto. There is no way that child had the strength to control that weapon in full-auto. It is stupidity like this that gives the anti-gun zealots the fuel they need to pass legislation to protect us from ourselves. Stupid is as stupid dead!

    • “Now this child has to live with the fact that she killed someone …”

      That 9 year-old girl honestly and truly has ZERO responsibility for the death of the “instructor”. It is no different than if a terrorist had placed a trip wire on a playground, the girl walks into the trip wire, and the blast kills someone. In that case, the girl did not kill the victim, the terrorist did. The same applies in this case: the girl did not kill the instructor, the instructor killed himself.

      • No fault of hers at all, however she will blame herself and think for the rest of her life that she let go of the forend and killed someone. I feel sorry for her more than the instructor. Even if she tries it again when she is older and gets over the trauma of guns, doing it successfully will reinforce in her mind that all she had to do was hold on tighter and the man she killed would be alive. I can’t see a happy life in her future without decades of therapy.

  22. The only type of full auto a child of that age should be firing if any should be a stationary machine gun that way muzzle climb would not be an issue

    • The first thing I thought of was how this could have been avoided. How could he have better instructed her to be more safe? Then I though…no…fuck that! He had no business letting her fly solo. Why not give her pilot instructions and get up to 10,000 feet then say “OK sweety. She’s all yours” right before you bail out with a parachute.

  23. My uncle put the fear of God into me the first time he took me shooting. He told me on the very first day that you can’t take back the bullets you shoot; that if you shoot and kill someone they’re dead forever, so do mind your weapon and where you shoot. I used to resent him for saying that, until I grew up and hear of incidents like this. Please, please be responsible when it comes to children and firearms.

    • mine did the same, but demonstrated with a watermelon using a .357 revolver. “imagine that this was the head of one of your friends. If you and whomever you are with don’t follow the four rules, this is what can happen to either them or you. Your safety is ultimately your responsibility and yours alone.”

      I was maybe 8 or 9 at the time; the words stick to this day.

  24. I recall at about age 8 in the early 50s being very scared shooting a browning semi auto .22 short the one with the tube magazine in the butt.
    The reason being that I pulled the trigger expecting one shot and the gun emptied the magazine… My dad returned the gun to browning for repair and I don’t recall the cause.
    Nothing bad happened for several reasons the main one being that the light recoil of the .22 short in a rifle meant the rounds all ended up mostly on the target and the target frame… But it was still scary and unexpected….

    Another vote for restricting young kids to .22 rimfire in rifles and pistols and perhaps 410 shotguns. SASS has run its buckaroo program for years with no problems.

    • Probably the sear was bad on it. I had a .22 savage that had so many rounds put through it that the sear wore down on it. Used to be a real pain in the rear when you would pull the trigger and empty half the tube. Usually it would jam up after the third or forth round. Took the sear out, built it up using a welding torch, filed it back to specs and it shot like a dream after that.

  26. Everyone is going to rage and scream. The anti-s will use it to pound away at new laws. The pro-s will second guess and some will even side with the anti’s. What really needs to happen is the NRA needs to put together a very coherent and relevant to kids protocol. Publish and distribute it. Make it part of the RSO training. Do it pronto.

  27. What next, hand the child the keys to a brand new Corvette Z06 and say, “Get in it and give it the gas.”

  28. Uh….there is no planet in this universe where this works out. Really bad judgement and he ended up paying for it. A 9 year old girl should be shooting the heck out of a bolt action .22LR rifle.

  30. You don’t let 9 year olds drive cars for the same reason…most won’t be able to handle nor control it. 9 yr olds should also not individually handle fire hoses, speed boats/jet skis, and chain saws because the sheer power is too much for the to control.

    Also, you should stand behind the shooter when instructing to limit muzzle sweep from a newb shooter…especially a 9 year old girl shooting a full auto uzi.

    #Dumb #Fail #DarwinAward

    • Even with adults or student drivers of typical teen age, someone can still get killed. A quick google search reveals that such fatal accidents occurred in Ohio and West Virginia in April and June of this year, respectively.

      People who know better, but screw up royally anyway, tend to pay for it with their lives. That severity coupled with its rarity leaves me to wonder what the antis really think can be done about this that isn’t already being done.

    • Thank you. This makes sense. The problem is anytime you start talking about age limits, graduated licensing systems, or mandatory safety classes for gun owners the NRA screams THEY ARE TRYING TO TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY!!!

  31. I don’t let a 200lb adult fire full auto with anything other than a full size long gun 1st time. Always an M16 or Mini -14 that way I can put my hand on top when the muzzle starts climbing. I push 250 and was used too full auto, first time I fired my Uzi I had the front going up w/the metal shoulder stock.

    Condolences to Mr. Vacca’s family and a lesson for all class 3 owners. Thank the founding fathers that a lot of areas allow ownership but, temper that with good judgement. I only have the 2 I do because they were inherited. Better money spent on a fine crafted weapon you can use & carry often than the paperwork & cost

    • Dead Irresponsible Negligent Gun Owner, or DINGO (trade mark!!!).

      it’s sad, but whose brilliant idea was it to give a little kid a full auto Uzi? Was this going to end any other way? I have no problem introducing kids to age and caliber appropriate firearms early on, but this? This is no bueno.

    • What is wrong to start her pit with a pink cricket?
      Now she has to live with this for the rest of her life.
      If he has a life insurance policy it should go to this poor girl!

  33. Yep – same here. .22 with my kids – one round at a time.

    My technique – arms wrapped around kids arms while holding the firearm. This is done for a few reasons:

    1. Control of the firearm defaults to me if the kids move around too much.
    2. Having my body in close proximity to theirs reinforces proper shooting stance.
    3. All of us are BEHIND the firearm muzzle at all times.

    High-performance machines (cars, tools, guns…etc) require training and physical ability. These are not toys for kids.

    Please people – use good sense when using these things.

    • “High-performance machines (cars, tools, guns…etc) require training and physical ability. These are not toys for kids.”

      Best comment yet.

  34. This is all over the news. My condolences to the little girl & the dead “instructors” family. We will NEVER know what he was thinking.

  35. Here is some common sense gun control. If someone is physically incapable of safely operating a firearm don’t put it in their hands. That meabs no assistance. That way nobody gets hurt.

  36. My seven-year-old daughter shoots a Savage Rascal .22LR. I don’t see any progression where she graduates to an UZI in two years. That’s just insane.

    Honestly, the guy is lucky that he’s the one that got killed, and not the girl.

  37. Seems foolish to me. Same as others have mentioned, I start everyone off on a 22lr semi-auto pistol, 6″ Berreta Neos, with one round loaded at a time. Even when trying new firearms myself, it’s one round at a time, because things can and sometimes do go wrong.

    For example, a gun can be very particular about ammunition and cycling. You want to ease into discovery of those issues and resolve them without jumping into their greatest manifestations. No need to start off with dangerous double feeds.

  38. Beginners should not shoot full auto shoulder arms. 6 or 66 don’t care, not a good idea. I learned on a single shot 22 youth rifle. If they had done the same perhaps this little girl would have taken her first steps on the path with a life long love of shooting. Now we can never know. Doing stupid stuff like this is about showing off how awesome you are, never about the new shooter. Blame for everyone here except the girl.

    • Trying to be awesomer, I think that explains why a video was capturing this event. Everyone’s trying too hard in the age of social media.

      • I think its a function of that… dad wants to brag to his golfing buddies that his girl shot a full auto uzi, and I think it is also a direct bi product of the way people see shooting in America and a broad shift in gun culture. Before if someone was curious about shooting they went and shot an air rifle or a 22. Fathers tought their children to shoot guns that didnt kick and were easy to control until they could move up to bigger things. 20 years ago we didnt treat guns, even machine guns, as wild animals where we go to the zoo to pet them. Now there is an entire industry built around the concept of “Machine Gun Tourism.” That would like the local zoo having “Lion Feeding Friday” or something like that where under the careful supervision of the zo keeper they got to take a Tbone out to the lions den. People on both sides of the debate seem to ascribe some sort of almost mythical powers to guns, especially fully automatic ones and then some wise entrepreneur boxed it up and opened a shooting range where you get to “see and hold machine guns in the wild!” and fostered this culture that is completely devoid of respect for the tool.

        I love taking people to ranges that offer rentals, because I dont necessarily own the best guns to teach someone to shoot on, but at the same time I sometimes want to leave once I get there, because people come in and are like “Oh I heard about a glock 45 in a song, I want to rent one”, so the clerk retrieves a glock 21, slaps a box of ammo onto the counter, asks for their drivers license, and then teaches them how to load some snap caps into the magazine before sending them out onto the line completely unsupervised. Any of my fellow Austinites out there, next time you go to Red’s take a look at the ceiling and metal louvers right over your head… how do you think all of those bullet holes got there?

  39. A kid that age should be shooting a youth rifle, a 22cal handgun or MAYBE a 9MM carbine. With a brand new young shooter you always start out with a bolt or pump action for just this reason; when you transition to semi autos you start with 1 round in the mag.

  41. Such gross irresponsibility on everyone’s part. If your policy is to “hover over” someone shooting a gun in case they lose control, they shouldn’t be shooting that gun. PERIOD

    As far as own goals go, this is pretty costly.

    • There are proper ways to instruct someone, this is an example how not to do it. Where the instructor was standing made zero sense. That he was close by is not the problem.

      • you missed the point… in the article I saw about this last night a rep from the shooting range was saying it is company practice for a right handed shooter to have the instructors right hand behind the shooters shoulder (presumably to keep them from stumbling backwards) and left arm up so that they can push the gun away if the shooter loses control… which brings up my point, if you need these steps to keep the shooter from losing control then the shooter should not be shooting that particular gun… FULL STOP or at least not with a full magazine. A 9mm subgun for a 9year old? It doesn’t take an associates degree to realize that is a recipe for exactly this situation. So much fail on behalf of this range, and judging by public sentiment, this is going to be really bad for anyone who wants to teach kids how to shoot in the future. So much stupidity, boggles the mind.

        Even if no one got killed do you think that girl would want to shoot again after losing control of the gun like that?

  42. You think we would learn since this is not the first such full auto tragedy and it will simply give fodder to the anti-gun crowd. I do not believe full auto should handled by really young new shooters.

    The way I was taught was to stand on the shooting hand side. You should position yourself behind the shoulder. If you see a control problem you can then grab a wrist, forearm, the gun, whatever it takes to get control of the gun.

    For young shooters, I like to use a shooting rest and load one bullet at a time. That is how I started all my nieces and nephews and then built up to standing and 3-P as they got older and more comfortable.

    This is a tragedy both for the family of the instructor and the child. Hopefully that some lessons are learned from this one. One of the things that I hate in the NRA Instructor training is that most do not teach instructors how to be ready for incidents like this. Thankfully I had better instructors and also paid attention in the classes I took as to how the instructors would stand and what they would do when teaching me.

  43. Start with one round. Work up to 3. Then 5.
    If they can’t handle three rounds in a row, they can’t handle 30. Or whatever the UZI holds…

  44. I had a conversation with a group of mostly strangers about this event on a friends’s FB page this morning. One thing that struck me was nobody blamed the gun or guns in general, only the people responsible for putting a full auto gun in the hands of someone who could not handle it safely. The NRA wasn’t even mentioned

    • Your friends Facebook page is in a bubble. I just came from the AP news page on the story. The comment there are as expected…97.3333333% anti gun/anti American/anti Conservative/anti freedom. Here was one such exchane I had with one of them:
      “it’s america where nut jobs think that guns are a answer for everything”
      My retort:
      “And Liberals think name calling is the answer for everything.”

  45. This is a very sad incident – that brought back some memories.

    I introduced my 10 year old daughter to submachine gun fun a few years ago.

    Yes, she knew the rules – and had already spent time working her way up, starting with a pellet rifle, .22LR rifle and .22LR pistol.

    I knew enough auto muzzle climb that I basically wrapped myself around her, to make sure the firearm was completely controlled at all times.

    That said, it was an MP5; I was shocked at how smooth and controllable it was. Muzzle climb was easily controlled.

    • I got a chance to shoot a full auto Uzi, nearly identical to the one in the video, when I was maybe 11 years old. That thing kicked and bucked a lot, an instructor would know this, and knowingly putting one in a 9 year old girl’s hands and then standing where he did was just downright negligent.

      I got a chance to shoot an MP5 full auto later in life and you are right, way more controllable. However, the words my instructor left with me (same person/owner both times) have really stayed, sub machine guns are some of the most dangerous weapons to shoot just as a function of how easy it is to lose control of them in full auto and how easy it is to muzzle yourself. This tragedy as others have echoed was 100% avoidable and 100% down to giving the girl more gun than she could handle, too soon.

    • “wrapped myself around her” That’s fine for parents, but here I think the instructor could not touch the nine-year old at all, because of pedo fears.

      I’m thinking the real problem here is the “shooting range as amusement park” mentality, where complete novices pay to shoot weapons they haven’t sufficient training for. I think a 9-year old might be able to handle a SMG on full-auto, but must have several sessions of training first, progressing from simpler, easier-to-control weapons to more difficult ones. The amusement park, catering to tourists who are looking for a one-hour fun experience, doesn’t provide those several days of prerequisite training, and frankly, the tourists don’t want serious multi-session training, necessary as it may be.

      The solution to this will be not thru new laws, but from insurers who will begin to refuse to cover these amusement parks.

  46. Utterly heartbreaking. Prayers for comfort for the girl and her family, and to the family of the deceased.

    Completely predictable: Both the results of such a small person combined with an Uzi, and the reaction of the “enlightened” press. The local NBC affiliate in Phoenix this morning was getting its anti-gun mileage out of this story.

    Your brain is your most powerful weapon. Use it wisely, and save your family much grief.

    • We had this guy where I worked, couldn’t have weighed over 110lbs. We used to kid him about being very careful about the his Harley falling over him, and that when driving out on a lonely desert road we used to see a fallen Harley every few miles, with a skeleton under each one.

  49. Years ago a guy shooting an AK put a bullet or two in his side or back. I think the gun was laying on the shooting bench and the guy accidentally popped off a round, and the recoil kicked the gun back and it somehow spit out a couple more, into the shooter. It killed him.
    Maybe he had put the thing on full auto?? Details I have are sketchy, but it happened at Los Altos Rod & Gun Club near San Francisco.

    • I used to shoot at the Los Altos Rod & Gun Club and remember this incident well.

      It was actually an SKS with a faulty sear. The gun went full auto and the rifle rotated up and out of his hands. The barrel ended up pointing towards him and that was it.

      That’s what really happened.

  50. Guy should get a Darwin Award IMO.

    When teaching new shooters you begin with one round in the chamber and empty magazine. If you have to have a full mag in it then either tie the muzzle to a bench (paracord works well) or hold the gun with them.

  51. in 3, 2, 1…..

    anti-gun nazis are currently writing a bill to a) confiscate all uzi’s and b) close all shooting ranges in america.

  52. Wow. What was he thinking giving a 9 year who probably never shot a gun before a FULL AUTO gun to shoot (especially an Uzi)?

    I feel sorry for the instructor’s family as well as the girl and her family for the trauma they are going through.

    I’ve never been a fan of “tourist shooting attractions” like this. No specific reason, and I don’t think issues like this have been widespread, but before my son ever fires a gun he will get some intense and personal instruction from me before he even touches it. To just throw a non shooter onto a range with 5 minutes of safety instruction and a full auto weapon is asking for trouble.

    • I am wary of the whole idea myself. I suspect it works a lot like the various roadside alligator attractions in Florida back in the 1960s — some of the people running them are responsible, but way too many of them ended up trivializing something dangerous and giving people unwarranted confidence that they knew how to deal with said danger.

  53. The girl should be arrested, if you murder someone with a gun you should pay the price regardless of gender or age.

    • The girl should be arrested, if you murder someone with a gun you should pay the price regardless of gender or age.

      I’m not sure if that’s sarcasm or not, but a murder charge requires accountability and intent (mens rea, IIRC).

      There’s no way that the girl is criminally, civilly, or morally liable for what happened.

  54. I wonder if the instructor was suicidal or had some kind of death wish. Did her parents know that she was going to be handed a full auto uzi and if they did and allowed it could they be held responsible in some way for the incident.

  55. We have a local gun shop/indoor range in our area now advertising machine gun rentals. While I’m not intrinsically opposed to the idea, I hope they use more sense than this outfit.

  56. This type of stuff is what harms us. Lets use a little common sense. I’m sorry for the death, but this instructor should have known better.

  57. Reminds me of the video of that piece of sh*t ATF agent that told a room full of parents and children he was the only one qualified in the room to handle a weapon, just before he blew a hole in his foot. A Classic! F’n idiot!
    I’m no “certified instructor” but I’ve trained all of my children, my wife, and my mother how to shoot. First time shooters get one round only! If they do good, then two rounds and so on until they prove to me they can handle it.
    IGOTD and Darwin Award for this guy. Pity for his family.
    That poor little girl will be screwed up for the rest of her life. Will she grow up to be a politician? You best hope not.

  58. I make a point to never stand to the left of a right handed shooter, or to the right of a left handed shooter. Think about it bio-mechanically.

    Also physically weak and inexperienced shooters only get one round at a time.

    -D

  59. I feel bad for the girl, but over time, she will get over it. She will go to counselors and shrinks that will convince her she didn’t do anything wrong. “It was the instructor’s and gun’s fault”…and they will be partially right. She has no fault in this. I would expect to see the same thing happen if he were letting a monkey shoot an uzi for the first time and I don’t mean that as a slap at the girl. She just didn’t know what to expect.

    As for the media being all over this. They don’t give two shyts about “the children.” Otherwise, why show the video of this girl and instructor over and over. Its not a nationally news worthy story and I doubt anyone outside of Arizona would have heard about…except for the video. That video on youtube and various media outlets will live on a hundred years after the girl grows up and lives out her life. The video will pose the biggest obstacle to her “dealing” with the guilt she no doubt feels today.

    The instructor probably did more to further the cause of gun rights by teaching people firearms than many people posting to this site. He made a mistake. How many times had he made the same mistake is not known. It only mattered a lot more this time. This time his mistake is a setback for gun rights because it will be so publicized. However, nobody but his family and friends (and the girl’s family) will even think about this 10 days from now. All those people that learned something about guns from him and became gun owners will own their guns for decades to come. I’m not ready to tar and feather the guy because he made a mistake. I would imagine if he had to do it over again, he would do it differently. Let his mistake serve as an example to everyone.

  60. Not that it really matters, but the incident took place in Dolan Springs Arizona, not Lake Havasu City. The instructor was from Lake Havasu City.

    • Somebody’s got WAY too much money there! I could probably live for a year on what those people threw downrange that day! Sheesh! Like a month’s rent gone in one trigger pull!

      Poor me! 😉

  62. Lead story on Inside Edition. They’re saying the “range” is raising the age for shooting machine guns to 12. WTF indeed.

  63. I got into a big argument with my father about this, as he was going with the standard anti-gun mentality, saying, “IT IS INSANE TO BE PUTTING AN [B]UZI[/] INTO THE HANDS OF A NINE YEAR-OLD. WHAT THE HELL IS A CHILD BEING TAUGHT HOW TO SHOOT A [B]GUN[/B] FOR? I don’t know much about the Uzi, but was saying to him that teaching children guns is not a bad thing at all, but that it needs to be done in a very controlled environment and clearly someone wasn’t doing their job with this.

    CNN had some guy on saying about how children shouldn’t have access to such “very powerful weapons” such as this. My understanding though is that an Uzi is not a very powerful weapon. ANY gun though a child needs control from the adult while shooting it, even a cap gun or whatnot IMO.

  64. I’ve seen parents who let kids train MMA, play full contact sports, ride ATVs and mopeds at that age, but if you let them shoot a gun, then you’re a crazy parent because none of those other activity could and never would get your kid hurt and/or killed. I’m not sure if I would at that age, but I think if you want your kid to shoot a full auto gun, the Uzi is not the best gun, although not the worst.. I would try find a place that has a 9mm KRISS Vector; very manageable recoil for anybody of any size. At least the Uzi has a telescopic bolt, which reduce some of the recoil, and it has some weight on it, but for any gun, single, semi, or full auto, I would probably shoot first and let them watch me, then hold the gun with them and start with semi, followed by shooting it fast in semi, then full auto; obviously, we would do this after we talk all the safety points first. Then you must use good judgement to decide whether, based on shooting with them, if you think they have enough control and mental focus to properly use the gun alone. This guy look like he tried to get to the top of the ladder without using all the steps, a recipe for falling.

  65. “Arizona instructor killed when girl loses control of -INSERT ANY POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS THING HERE-”

    Don’t want the government stepping in and saying who can and can’t handle firearms (how old you need to be, what kind of firearm, etc) means this is what you get. Self-regulation is a bitch.

  67. “Instructor”+child+gun+shooting= another school shooting for Sharon to count. I am actually surprised the cable news did plaster “student kills instructor” all over the airwaves. This breaks down to irresponsible gun use. It is not the girls fault but this could have been avoided. But to put things in perspective. The reason this is news is because it doesn’t happen often. Kids having bike, 4 wheeler, or pool accidents where the child is hurt or killed are much more common and that is why we don’t hear about them on a national level. Last time something like this happened was 2008, so 6 years for any outdoor activity with something that can be dangerous is a pretty good run.

  68. The child was ‘on’ the range;WHY? Parent that can afford the thing but is incompetent and incapable of handling it himself, takes a ‘baby’ (4 intents and purpose) to learn to shoot a ‘weapon’, period. Shame on that girls parents ‘filming’ this!!! My God, how STUPID can you be? A child, under 14 IMHO, when ‘seeing’ a gun should 1. STOP! 2. DON’T TOUCH! 3. LEAVE THE AREA. 4. GO TELL AN ADULT. THAT’S IT!!!!!! Nothing more until hunting age. For LIBS, back off… If it wasn’t for 14 year old marksmen 238 years ago, we’d be the smallest provinces of BOTH England and Germany… Read a book before you rebuke. It’s OUR JOBS FELLOW AMERICANS TO ‘POLICE OUR OWN RANKS’! Care, concern, knowledge, courage and some benevolence when dealing with each other daily would be a GREAT START! Let’s focus on that ‘one child’ and DEDICATE OURSELVES to “No More”! WE can do this if people were to take time to become EDUCATED in the classroom LIKE NG before their even THINK about ” going downrange “. Let’s turn it up fellow CHIEF RANGE SAFETY OFFICERS, and give those junior RSO’s a chance by demanding MORE proficiency before going down range (dr). Children’s lives are short, for gods sake let them BE CHILDREN!!! The world will take care of their innocence soon enough. Let them ‘focus on being a kid’, let them savor each second of innocence, please. My sympathy and heart felt prayers for BOTH families of this terrible tragedy. Let’s start today folks..

    • I taught all of mine to shoot by 9 or 10. 22 single shot rifles. My youngest did get to fire a full auto at age 13. A Thompson, which is more appropriate for beginners. This was the later military 11 lbs version with a 600 rpm rate of fire. The gun the 9 year old had appeared to be a micro UZI, a 3.5 lbs gun with a 1200 rpm rate of fire. It will dump a 20 round magazine in one second.

    • under 14 IMHO, when ‘seeing’ a gun should 1. STOP! 2. DON’T TOUCH! 3. LEAVE THE AREA. 4. GO TELL AN ADULT. THAT’S IT!!!!!! Nothing more until hunting age.

      Uh, no. My children all learned well before 14 years of age. Fourteen is when some children begin that independence streak and isn’t, IMHO, the best time to start. Earlier is sometimes better.

      Let’s turn it up fellow CHIEF RANGE SAFETY OFFICERS,

      Your writing style was painful to read and I was perplexed as to what sort of mind was behind it. That was until I read the above quote. Then, it all made sense. *roll eyes*

      • My oldest son sarted his independent streak at 4 years old. He was my first and all I had heard about was the terrible twos. The twos were a pleasure compared to that know it all want to do it all 4 year old.

    • A child, under 14 IMHO, when ‘seeing’ a gun should 1. STOP! 2. DON’T TOUCH! 3. LEAVE THE AREA. 4. GO TELL AN ADULT. THAT’S IT!!!!!! Nothing more until hunting age.

      What’s so magical about the age of 14?

      Personally, I have chosen 7 as the age to begin instilling proper firearm-handling discipline with my girls – instruction that dovetails quite nicely with the Eddie Eagle-type instruction I have given them prior to that age. I chose that age because it seems to work well for my girls (at least for my oldest – my youngest may not even be interested yet when she turns 7). Other parents may choose other ages – ages that are appropriate for their situations, and for their children.

      I personally don’t see a need for a universal rule, either self-policed, or legislated.

    • Nonsense. Who put you in charge of determining the age that someone can go to a range, hunt or handle a firearm for that matter? I was less than half of your approved age when I started training and so was my son. Too many gun owners think it is there job to set rules for others and expect everyone to follow them. Sounds a lot like the attitude of a 2A denier. I also shot automatic firearms before 14 because I had this crazy situation where the person instructing me was not an idiot and actually new what he was doing. Not a single person was injured or a danger to anyone, not one single time.

  69. The Full-Auto gun shoot in my area has had many kids about this age. Some younger and some older.
    They can shoot an M4 style rifle with a .22lr conversion kit fine. The instructor usually holds onto the forgrip to keep the muzzle downrange if they are really young and seem to need help.
    There is also a 1919 in .308 and an M2 (.50 BMG) that are tripod mounted that the kids can fire and control with ease.
    There is one who has an uncanny ability to precision shoot the M2 she just turned 15. She was shooting the M2 when she was 13.

    https://www.facebook.com/Feekstactical/photos/a.250338598320864.60518.250325624988828/376240825730640/?type=3&src=https%3A%2F%2Ffbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net%2Fhphotos-ak-ash3%2Ft1.0-9%2F535316_376240825730640_1727697107_n.jpg&size=960%2C645&fbid=376240825730640

  70. An instructor for a new york range stated that he should have maintained control of the firearm. The parents filmed the incident and it happened at a place called bullets and burgers. The girl appeared to shoot fine in semi auto mode but once the instructor changed it to full auto she lost control.

  71. I still don’t get it…. WHY DOES A 9 Y.O. GIRL NEED TO KNOW HOW TO FIRE A GUN, LET ALONE AN UZI…
    This is not recreation, education, or exposure to new experiences… Are the parents planning on ending their kids to battle by age 13??? Why don’t you give her some cocaine, birth control pills, and a bottle of whisky… she’s more likely to encounter those within her coming 7 years before a gun…

  72. Possibly – hopefully – people will learn from this second tragedy. There is no reason for a young child to fire automatic weapons. This should be the last time we ever have to hear about something like this.

  73. He had his left hand under her elbow. When she shot on auto the gun rotated to the upper left probably due to the resistance offered by her left hand , which slipped off the gun. His head was out front .
    He was not in the rear and was not controlling the weapon but had a weak grip on her elbow, which acted as a lever when she shot the gun.
    So if you are teaching someone to shoot stand behind them and hold their hand that is on the trigger.
    Reply
    ·

  74. I found a slow motion video of the accident. The gun stock slips down from her shoulder and pulls out of her hand. It is a miracle she didn’t shoot herself. Vacca’s hand under her right elbow must have pushed her arm to the right causing the gun’s muzzle to move left shooting him.

  75. Pretty sure that nitwit is Congressman Malarky of Ma (D). Has Ed been hanging with Bill Clinton and adopted a couple interns/pages/nieces/special friends?

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