Arizona shooting: Girl, nine, kills gun instructor

[GentlemanJim]

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Dumb instructor. 9 year old has no business holding this sort of weapon. It was not designed for kids...nor need be utilized by kids. And he should have had control. Sad...but dumb nonetheless. This type of firing range should lose their license to do business. In any case, there should of been a physical barrier on both sides of the shooter (to limit the angle of fire). Instructor should have been behind.

He probably was, I imagine the gun lifted as she fired and she fell back, shooting him in the head.

My kids were all shooting & loading ammo from age 5, completely normal in the USA.

Do you really want you kids unprepared and helpless for the zombie apocalypse?

No need to imagine, what happened is in the video.

I teach my 5 year old to read, to create, to plant vegetables and to feed chickens and collect their eggs. I teach them to care for their environment and for other people. They have never seen any movies about the 'Zombie Apocalypse' because such things are not only damaging but you may be surprised to learn they are not real they are made up. Before a child is old enough to learn to shoot they must be old enough and mature enough to truly understand the sanctity of life and what death really means.

[freebyrd]

A 9 year old girl with an Uzi?! I must be getting old. Time was a Barbie Doll would have sufficed. What the hell is next I wonder?!

[KhnomKhnom]

Uzi, not held very tightly, pull up and to the left upon firing.

Photos show the instructor leaving over above and to the left of the girl.

Thin the herd of gun instructors.

[Tywais]

Uzi, not held very tightly, pull up and to the left upon firing.

Photos show the instructor leaving over above and to the left of the girl.

Thin the herd of gun instructors.

Also you can see her left hand completely loses grip and only holding it with her right. No bracing of the gun with both hands and no bracing of it by the instructor.

[Wat dee]

It is quite astonishing that the parents have put the video on you tube. I can't quite believe it. Then again I would not believe they have their daughter firing an Uzi. Perhaps instead of parents taking children to weapons lessons, children should be taking parents to 'effective parenting' lessons.

You think parents are only ones with the tape?

[NanLaew]

...

Wait for the civil lawsuit to hit. It will be well into the $millions. The parents and instructor and owners/managers of the firing range should be charged with any one of a number of crimes such as reckless endangerment, endangering a child... Whatever.

...

I am pretty confident that the NRA is lawyering-up all those that that may be charged as well as making considerable 'donations' to those that may be considering suing anyone. The whole thing will be buried in short attention span theater that is called US life. In the meantime, someone will be able to blame it all on Obama.

[ggt]

Gun instructor is totally at fault here...the child Is only doing what she has been told to do...he should have helped hold the gun for her during the automatic experience...as it that was really necessary...

[slipperylobster]

Anyways, short bursts of 3 to 5 rounds would be the best strategy for an inexperience user. Not emptying the entire magazine and losing complete control. A little dry fire (no ammo) with the instructor physically applying pressure (recoil) would have helped. I doubt there will be many other 9 year girls (outside of africa, firing submachine guns.

[tartempion]

Proud parents now have 9 year young killer daughter.

[transam]

The parents are idiots, the dead guy was an idiot. Now the girl has a problem mentally cos of a bunch of idiots.........

[Chicog]

You really have to wonder about the intelligence levels of these retards.

[Exsexyman]

Just awful. A nine year old girl being taught to fire an Uzi. Her target was a silhouette of a man. The whole scene has horrible echoes of a Jihadist training camp!

Would have been interesting to see the comments here if it had been a video and story of a nine year old Arab girl shooting her instructor with an Uzi on a shooting range in say Iraq or Gaza!

[LawrenceChee]

There is nothing about guns that are useful in society

Killing your enemies?

Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse?

Anyway, I'm just happy the kid was unharmed.

Shooting instructor wins Darwin Award.

Zombies ???? I thought all on this forum was more frightened of tuk tuk drivers who try to rip them off of 30 baht

Hahahah

[belg]

if they do it in islam countries, than the US have to defend themselves, right ?

NRA quote

[LawrenceChee]

if they do it in islam countries, than the US have to defend themselves, right ?

NRA quote

True the USA labels them as terrorists the Islamic country would label these kids firing Uzi as threats to Islam ...really ?

Who buys that thoughts except extremists ????

Then again the freedom to do whatever one chooses based on an amendment is a fundamental right ...if it makes any sense in this day and age

[guru]

I am absolutely stunned that 9 year olds are encouraged to fire any guns let alone Uzis! I'm from the other side of the pond and trying very hard to comprehend but it's just so obviously plain wrong that this is allowed anywhere.

[Jonmarleesco]

Dumbstruck can't do justice to anyone's reaction to this incident. Though where those people are concerned - all of them - dumb stands on its own six feet. And still the gun ass...ociation will quote the second amendment, chapter and verse, as though it's the only true God.

[balo]

The US could try to educate kids to become child soldiers , just like they do in Iraq . You have enough guns and love your kids to use them so why not.

[boomerangutang]

That incident bolsters my long-held belief that you don't have to be a macho man to be lethal with a gun. However, that's what movies and the NRA try to force down our throats: that guns are for tough guys and guns make guys tougher. Look at the cover art at any DVD place. Over half the movies are action, and over half of those show some muscular dude holding a gun menacingly.

[GentlemanJim]

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It is quite astonishing that the parents have put the video on you tube. I can't quite believe it. Then again I would not believe they have their daughter firing an Uzi. Perhaps instead of parents taking children to weapons lessons, children should be taking parents to 'effective parenting' lessons.

You think parents are only ones with the tape?

Well that's what all the media says! Referring to the video on Youtube:

In the video, taken by her parents as they watched on, 39-year-old Vacca is heard telling the girl how to stand before instructing her to take one shot.

[bendejo]

Should have had her stick with a girl's gun, like this charming little thing

[webfact]

UPDATE:

No charges in accidental gun range shooting

(BBC) Officials say there will be no charges for a nine-year-old girl who killed her shooting instructor by accident.

The death of Charles Vacca, 39, was "being viewed as an industrial accident," Mohave County Sheriff's office said in a statement.

Vacca was giving the girl a lesson at an Arizona shooting range when the recoil from a firearm caused her to lose control of the Uzi submachine gun.

He died after being airlifted to a hospital in Las Vegas.

The girl was at the shooting range with her parents, who filmed the lesson.

The footage shows the instructor coaching her as she fires a single shot at a target at the Last Stop shooting range in White Hills, Arizona.

The Uzi then appears to be switched to automatic as the girl pulls the trigger and loses her grip of the weapon.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-28976683


-- BBC 2014-08-29

[NanLaew]

There you go, it now has the official OSHA sanction classification of an industrial accident. Move along now, nothing to see here.

Maybe high school shootings with multiple fatalities will be similarly downgraded to 'large-scale industrial accidents'.

Edited August 29, 2014 by NanLaew

[soalbundy]

[transam]

The firearms "fun" world sure has some numnuts involved.........

[connda]

What's a NINE year old practicing shooting for ????

I was shooting before nine years old. It's part of our culture, at least in the part of the US that I was raised in. There are still parts of the US that haven't joined the liberal 'Nanny Culture'.

However - the gun instructor was an idiot. I would seriously doubt that he had been instructing for long, or if he had, his attention to gun safety and just plain common sense, sucked. And he had a fully automatic Uzi? That's illegal and an invitation to get a visit by the ATFE. Anyway, he'd be a good Darwin Award nominee. He just took himself out of the gene pool by his own stupidity. I feel sorry for the kid and her parents. That's going to be a hell of a load for that kid to carry unless she gets some really supportive input from her parents and other gun instructors.

Edited August 29, 2014 by connda

[iancnx]

The comments on this thread from the obvious Americans are quite incredulous. It is no wonder the world is in such a state when the self proclaimed global police force actually condone, believe and make no excuses for such obvious irresponsible and moronic behaviour. God Bless America!

So so sorry for the little girl who has been sentenced with a life of psychological baggage that she never asked for.

Not sorry for the range instructor &lt;deleted&gt;!

Parents deserve to serve the manslaughter sentence. Little girl will be better off without them.

Ps. I am a qualified weapons training instructor British Army (ex)

[balo]

I agree , Americans are still living with guns like they did back in the wild west 150 years ago .

And they still practice death sentences, when most civilized parts of the world changed to life sentences for the worst criminals.

The result is what you can read about in newspapers every week. God bless America , you need all the blessing you can get .

[Tywais]

. And he had a fully automatic Uzi? That's illegal and an invitation to get a visit by the ATFE.

Actually it is legal, as many fully automatics are, if you apply for and can obtain a license from the FBI/BATF.

[LawrenceChee]

Just walking around Alaska last month and in the middle of nowhere a shop selling guns like a 7-11 in Thailand selling sodas

The easy availability and bling it on a gun culture is the root cause of so much anguish and accidental deaths and intentional gun shootings in schools

The supply chain is so easy to procure