8-Year-Old Accidentally Kills Self at Gun Show

I don't know. I don't think a kid HAS to think a BB gun or pellet gun is less dangerous than a real gun. By the time I was 12 or so I'd handled .22s and air rifles and when I heard one of my classmates had shot another in the ass with a BB gun I thought that was just really irresponsible and reckless. Maybe that was because I was taught to respect all guns or maybe it was because I'd never owned a BB gun and was overestimating its power.

It seems like a pretty clear cut choice to me I guess. If he kid refuses to handle a gun safely and responsibly, you don't let him. Very few 8-year-olds in America really need to know how to use a gun (and those who do can probably appreciate that they aren't toys).

This was just a stupid accident, not a policy error.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

I've shot guns since a wee young age, starting with .22's and working up to my military career which has included LMG's, GPMG's, GMG's, HMG's, and the M256. I love guns and enjoy the freedoms my country offers me to indulge my hobby. That said, I will never, in a million years, defend or excuse what happened that day.

There is no f*cking way that CHILD should have been placed in a situation to fire a 9MM submachine gun on full auto. Period.

The range, father, and "instructor" all share equal amounts of immeasurable shame.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I don't know. I don't think a kid HAS to think a BB gun or pellet gun is less dangerous than a real gun. By the time I was 12 or so I'd handled .22s and air rifles and when I heard one of my classmates had shot another in the ass with a BB gun I thought that was just really irresponsible and reckless. Maybe that was because I was taught to respect all guns or maybe it was because I'd never owned a BB gun and was overestimating its power.

It seems like a pretty clear cut choice to me I guess. If he kid refuses to handle a gun safely and responsibly, you don't let him. Very few 8-year-olds in America really need to know how to use a gun (and those who do can probably appreciate that they aren't toys).

I don't know if the distinction makes it any more excusable but my friends and I knew the difference between BB guns and air rifles. If it used compressed air it might as well have been a firearm, but the spring driven plinkers usually got treated like toys.

Funkenpants wrote:
Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

Maybe that's just me being an idiot, but, I would trust the respect a firearm demands over the mischief BB guns stir up.

Filthy skimmer. This is essentially the point I made.

Not a skimmer. I was just, uh, accidentally backing you up.

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

Maybe that's just me being an idiot, but, I would trust the respect a firearm demands over the mischief BB guns stir up.

Filthy skimmer. This is essentially the point I made.

I agree, Reap, I just thought Funken was headed off in different direction. My bad.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

At 8, I think he'd be better off shooting BBs, not even .22s.

Small calibre rifles like .22s have basically no recoil and are completely safe for children to shoot in the proper environment. At that age I was given access to firing ranges with such weapons at camp. These days that's probably a lawsuit waiting to happen, but there was certainly no danger beyond typical childhood stupidity.

complexmath wrote:

These days that's probably a lawsuit waiting to happen, but there was certainly no danger beyond typical childhood stupidity.

Yeah, but back then there was no risk of lawsuit if an adult (even one that's not our parent!) scolded us for doing something stupid.

Some updates:

Boy's Death Puts Focus On Gun Laws

DA considers charges in shooting death of boy at gun show

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

They don't have any military bases in Massachusetts, do they?

A group I've never heard of until now called "Freedom States Alliance" is also popping up in related stories. They're using this story to push "for legislation to be passed immediately that would require that no child under the age of 18-years-old be allowed to use or operate any fully automatic machine gun, or semi-automatic assault weapon under any circumstances including at a “machine gun shoot,” shooting competition or firearm demonstration."

Quintin wrote:

They're using this story to push "for legislation to be passed immediately that would require that no child under the age of 18-years-old be allowed to use or operate any fully automatic machine gun, or semi-automatic assault weapon under any circumstances including at a “machine gun shoot,” shooting competition or firearm demonstration."

I'm not in favor of gun control myself but if they insist on restrictions I think that's not that unreasonable, as long as they define those terms clearly (which they won't). It doesn't put any additional restrictions on adults who may own those weapons already (or wish to in the future) and it's hard to argue that a teenager NEEDS a full-auto or an assault rifle for anything a shotgun or hunting rifle can't handle.

it's hard to argue that a teenager NEEDS a full-auto or an assault rifle for anything a shotgun or hunting rifle can't handle.

Commie

I actually agree, the only worrisome wording is "assault weapon" which still remains a undefined catch all term.

LobsterMobster wrote:
Quintin wrote:

They're using this story to push "for legislation to be passed immediately that would require that no child under the age of 18-years-old be allowed to use or operate any fully automatic machine gun, or semi-automatic assault weapon under any circumstances including at a “machine gun shoot,” shooting competition or firearm demonstration."

I'm not in favor of gun control myself but if they insist on restrictions I think that's not that unreasonable, as long as they define those terms clearly (which they won't). It doesn't put any additional restrictions on adults who may own those weapons already (or wish to in the future) and it's hard to argue that a teenager NEEDS a full-auto or an assault rifle for anything a shotgun or hunting rifle can't handle.

I'm against the assault rifle portion, because of shooting competitions like those the CMP puts on. An M-16/M-14 is very common fare in those competitions, and CMP matches are open to people aged 14 and up for rifle competitions. Also, there are military recruits and JROTC/ROTC members under the age of 18 that will be firing M-16s in training.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I'm not in favor of gun control myself but if they insist on restrictions I think that's not that unreasonable, as long as they define those terms clearly (which they won't). It doesn't put any additional restrictions on adults who may own those weapons already (or wish to in the future) and it's hard to argue that a teenager NEEDS a full-auto or an assault rifle for anything a shotgun or hunting rifle can't handle.

The definition of "semi-auto assault weapon" is more or less "semi-auto rifle with detachable magazine". They're not just talking about full-auto weapons and assault rifles like you say.

This tragedy involved stupid use of a full-auto weapon and they're trying to use it to push age restrictions on semiautomatic weapons.

They don't have any military bases in Massachusetts, do they?

Heh heh, good one. There are almost 30,000 US soldiers on 9 major and several smaller bases in Massachusetts.

One death doesn't make a trend. Pushing for restrictions because of one horrid accident is ridiculous.

One death doesn't make a trend. Pushing for restrictions because of one horrid accident is ridiculous.

Hi, this is American overreaction, America, meet Malor, he's new here.

Malor wrote:

One death doesn't make a trend. Pushing for restrictions because of one horrid accident is ridiculous.

I have occasionally - though rarely - heard of people asking for some sort of gun control before this accident.

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
93_confirmed wrote:

They're going to bend in so the weapon comes towards my head but never to the point where the weapon is aimed at my head or face. My hands would essentially have to rotate 180 degrees from the aimed position for that to happen.

The pistol does not elevate upwards. The recoil torques around the fulcrum of your palm. If you continue to grip the pistol but lack the strength, temperament, or body weight to keep it trained forward, it will continue to rotate along the fulcrum until it is pointed backward.

From the limited amount of time I've spent shooting, I would say that the situation with the child comes from one of those constant rules of recreational firearm use:

"If you take your eye of the ball, f*cked up sh*t is going to happen as fast as possible."

The subtlety of physics comes second after that.

Hell, this is just a particular case of what I would say is a larger principle:

From the limited amount of time I've spent with anything remotely hazardous and/or breakable, I would say that the situation with the child comes from one of those constant rules of anyone young and/or inexperienced:

"If you take your eye of the ball, f*cked up sh*t is going to happen as fast as possible."

A couple of months ago I had three near heart attacks in the space of about ten minutes while trying to teach a group of 18 year olds how to use a lab centrifuge. I'm just thankful that modern ones have automatic cutouts, or there would've been shrapnel flying around at about 300g.

edit: makes more sense this way around

Heh. In college, we used your namesake without anything actually surrounding the business end to clear sinuses. Felt like a baseball bat to the face, and irritated people nearby, but it had an effect... I never played around with centrifuges, though, having a basic understanding of F=MA. Cuvettes... Well, that's a different story. Suckers were expensive, it turned out.

Man, just the idea of that is making me queasy! Urgh.

We has some (actually accidental) fun in one of my labs when we were learning about mutant flies, and were using ether to knock them out. I guess they didn't think they needed to tell us you should put the lid back on when you're not using it. Turns out ether highs are pretty nice, but it gave me a nasty hangover...

All that said, I suspect that this kid would've been in trouble even if the supervisor was watching like a hawk. I don't know much about firearms, but it sounds like he never should've been holding this one in the first place.

We raised fruit flies one year in high school. There were several colonies that belonged to people who were careless with the ether and had to start over after their first or second attempt to sort them...

Closest I came to a story like that is I was paired with the dumb kid as a lab partner. He encouraged me to dip my hand in pure ethanol because it felt cool and tingly, and looked very dismayed when I reminded him how dangerous it is to dip your hand in random beakers you find in a chemistry lab.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Closest I came to a story like that is I was paired with the dumb kid as a lab partner. He encouraged me to dip my hand in pure ethanol because it felt cool and tingly, and looked very dismayed when I reminded him how dangerous it is to dip your hand in random beakers you find in a chemistry lab.

Especially if there are any bunsen burners nearby...

Closest I came to a story like that is I was paired with the dumb kid as a lab partner. He encouraged me to dip my hand in pure ethanol because it felt cool and tingly, and looked very dismayed when I reminded him how dangerous it is to dip your hand in random beakers you find in a chemistry lab.

We had the old Kodak lab horror story about the guy who dips his hands into the wrong basin while processing film...

"Alas for little Johnny
Little Johnny is no more.
For what he thought was H2O
Was H2SO4."

Robear wrote:
Closest I came to a story like that is I was paired with the dumb kid as a lab partner. He encouraged me to dip my hand in pure ethanol because it felt cool and tingly, and looked very dismayed when I reminded him how dangerous it is to dip your hand in random beakers you find in a chemistry lab.

We had the old Kodak lab horror story about the guy who dips his hands into the wrong basin while processing film...

"Alas for little Johnny
Little Johnny is no more.
For what he thought was H2O
Was H2SO4."

We had one like that to keep people from drinking from the wrong glass.

Sonicator wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Closest I came to a story like that is I was paired with the dumb kid as a lab partner. He encouraged me to dip my hand in pure ethanol because it felt cool and tingly, and looked very dismayed when I reminded him how dangerous it is to dip your hand in random beakers you find in a chemistry lab.

Especially if there are any bunsen burners nearby...

I remember organic lab, making crystals by using a saturated solution in 98% ethanol. Had to heat the solution, which prompted the prof to say:

"Don't turn your hot plates above four. If you do, it will shoot a column of fire to the ceiling, and yes, it's really cool, but I'm very tired of it, and I will kick you out of lab and you will take a zero."

Only one person kicked out of my lab. Yes, it was really cool.

LilCodger wrote:

Only one person kicked out of my lab. Yes, it was really cool.

Totally worth it.

Police chief, club indicted in boy's Uzi death

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - A police chief and a gun club in western Massachusetts were indicted on charges of involuntary manslaughter in the death of an 8-year-old boy who accidentally shot himself in the head while firing an Uzi submachine gun at a gun fair.

Pelham Police Chief Edward Fleury owns the COP Firearms & Training, which sponsored the gun show last month in Westfield.

The Westfield Sportsman's Club and two other men also were indicted on involuntary manslaughter charges.

Hampden County District Attorney William Bennett said Fleury and the club also face four charges of furnishing a machine gun to a minor.

But this is the part that probably got them in trouble.

"It's all legal & fun — No permits or licenses required!!!!" read the ad, posted on the club's Web site.

"You will be accompanied to the firing line with a Certified Instructor to guide you. But You Are In Control — 'FULL AUTO ROCK & ROLL,'" the ad said.

The ad also said children under 16 would be admitted free, and both adults and children were offered free .22-caliber pistol and rifle shooting.

Nice to see someone held accountable.

The police chief who held the machine gun shoot in MA where the 8 year-old boy shot and killed himself has been found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter and three counts of furnishing machine guns to minors.

http://www.courant.com/community/ash...