Girl accidentally shoots her shooting instructor

[Kulindahr]

Good result all round.

No!

The only "good" thing is that the "instructor" will never make that mistake again.

Seriously, I have to doubt he was certified by anyone. Even NRA certification wouldn't be enough, though; teaching kids is a whole different situation -- you have to constantly remind yourself that they don't have adult strength, and almost certainly don't have the confidence to express any doubts they're having, so you have to continually try to think of whatever doubts they might be having. Last but hardly least, you have to be aware of every last little thing that could go wrong -- not for your own sake, but for the kid's. When training kids with firearms, you CANNOT have a "gung ho" attitude like this guy seemed to.

 

[frankfrank]

the shooting range should've had an age limit

Thje shooting range has since changed the age limit. Now it's 12 years old. Big, big, big improvement. NOT.

Until now, they let nine-year-old kids train with these weapons. What minimum did they observe? What if the child was 7 years old? 6 years old? 4 years old? A toddler in diapers?

I wonder if she had her burger before or after.

(Hey, purina! Hi! )
Reminds me of what a friend heard reported on the radio many years ago.

"Police don't know whether she was killed before or after walking her dog." - WBBM Radio, Chicago, sometime in the 1980's.

 

[Kulindahr]

Depends what you mean by deserve. No nine year old should be trained for an uzi. Adults have difficulty handling the recoil, it pulls an arm (and therefor your aim) upward and outwards. The instructor clearly wasn't fit to teach anyone, let alone a nine year old. In that vein, the instructor was endangering everyone he was around so his death was a mercy. I could say the same about the parents and darwinism, carting their child in for that training. Stupid sonsofbitches, just stupid. I sincerely hope they get charged for something and (hello child endangerment) that it teaches them some much needed common sense lessons.

No kidding.

I've fired a .22 rigged to be fully auto, and that was firing the puny long rifle rounds, not full military spec like an Uzi has -- to imagine the difference, think of someone slapping your arm with a table spoon v someone slapping it with a shovel; then think of a series of table-spoon slaps compared to a series of shovel slams.

Suicide by sheer stupidity.

 

[Kulindahr]

But wouldn't it be the parents who decide upon the weapon? I can't imagine the instructor suggesting it.

The instructor should have done what an NRA instructor I knew when a friend wanted him to teach his kid to use a shotgun: tested for physical strength. There's no way in hell a kid at nine is going to have the strength to handle an Uzi, unless she's been training as an Olympic athlete and has already achieved a black belt in martial arts and... No, there's no way. At nine, a kid doesn't even have sufficient body mass to be safe.

There are so many safety measures that could have been taken -- SHOULD have been taken! -- that weren't, it makes me furious.

In other words, regardless of what the parents wanted, this "instructor" should have said, "No -- maybe when she's sixteen".

 

[Kulindahr]

A friend of mine on facebook knew him. He was in the Army and in her Navy Barracks. According to her and a friend of hers, he was a really nice guy.

And did he have any certifications as an instructor? More, did he have training in dealing with kids? If the answer to either is "No", then the place should be liable for negligence.

 

[Kulindahr]

Thje shooting range has since changed the age limit. Now it's 12 years old. Big, big, big improvement. NOT.

If they made it 12 for anything at all, and 15 for anything bigger than a .22, and 17 for fully auto after demonstrating competence with lesser weapons, I'd find that acceptable.

Until now, they let nine-year-old kids train with these weapons. What minimum did they observe? What if the child was 7 years old? 6 years old? 4 years old? A toddler in diapers?

My guess is they went by the "if you can pick it up, you can shoot it" 'rule'.

I don't have a word derogatory enough....

 

[JohnnyAnger]

Oh America........

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

And did he have any certifications as an instructor? More, did he have training in dealing with kids? If the answer to either is "No", then the place should be liable for negligence.

I would imagine considering he was at this instruction place for 18 months.

 

[Kahaih]

No one shot the nine-year-old to keep her from shooting anybody else?

Lex

As enticing as the phrase 'swim with the fishes' might seem to someone living in Arizona in August, I doubt anyone there would dare fuck with a family from New Jersey [pronounced – 'joyzee].

 

[Kulindahr]

I would imagine considering he was at this instruction place for 18 months.

I doubt he was trained at all, given all the mistakes he made.


Just as an example, look at this picture and compare:

This instructor is behind the student, out of the way. He is in contact with the student, so the student knows exactly where he is.
He's not standing right where the weapon is going to go if the student fails to control it.

 

[xbuzzerx]

And did he have any certifications as an instructor? More, did he have training in dealing with kids? If the answer to either is "No", then the place should be liable for negligence.

Are there even consistent rules and regulations about this from state to state, though? Or enforcement, or checks, or inspections? If I saw a 9 year old with an uzi I wouldn't even know offhand if I was seeing something that was or wasn't legal, and I wouldn't know offhand what if any laws require supervision or special training or special licensing for that 9 year old, in or out of a shooting range. And I'm sure all of those things vary by state.

Unfortunately the insanity of the "It's a god given right, the less regulated it is the better" argument does not start or stop at the point where people are on criminal or unmedicated spree killings. The attempt to pursue sensible and reasonable regulations extends to this aspect as well. There's no defensible level of restriction you can come up with for the chunk of America who regards "uninfringed" gun ownership a god-given right. I don't know if what happened was or wasn't in line with the regulations of the state of Arizona-- but I would not be surprised in the least if we found out that the trainer was perfectly within the boundaries of what regulation required in a red state.

I don't really think a 9 year old should be using a gun at all. Even with a properly licensed shooting range trainer. But while from my point of view that's merely a statement of sanity, Americans from the aforementioned line of thought would immediately pigeonhole me as a confiscationist for saying so.

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

I doubt he was trained at all, given all the mistakes he made.

Well, you're going by one video that is about 15 seconds long. Considering he made enough mistakes in this video alone to lose his life and was instructing 18 months prior to these mistakes, it isn't much to go on to suggest he didn't get trained.

 

[KaraBulut]

This instructor is behind the student, out of the way. He is in contact with the student, so the student knows exactly where he is.
He's not standing right where the weapon is going to go if the student fails to control it.

Another thing to notice is that the person in the picture with the gun is an adult male who can lift, hold and safely fire the adult-sized weapon on his own (although notice that he's using two hands and his body to brace for the kickback).

This wasn't one mistake by an inexperienced instructor... it was a chain of mistakes that started with having a child with a gun that she was not able to handle.

That first mistake falls to the parents who gave the child the gun and to the instructor who should have said, "No. This is not safe." It seems a big price to pay for a photo-op... and that young girl will be traumatized by what happened- especially with a shot at that close range.

 

[Telstra]

Accident like this, it can happen to adult as well.
When someone is not strong enough, the gun can move over the head and accidentally shot anyone nearby.

 

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

Another thing to notice is that the person in the picture with the gun is an adult male who can lift, hold and safely fire the adult-sized weapon on his own (although notice that he's using two hands and his body to brace for the kickback).

This wasn't one mistake by an inexperienced instructor... it was a chain of mistakes that started with having a child with a gun that she was not able to handle.

That first mistake falls to the parents who gave the child the gun and to the instructor who should have said, "No. This is not safe." It seems a big price to pay for a photo-op... and that young girl will be traumatized by what happened- especially with a shot at that close range.

coor

*sssh"

anyway

planet stills alive kind a

thankyou

 

[Kulindahr]

Are there even consistent rules and regulations about this from state to state, though? Or enforcement, or checks, or inspections? If I saw a 9 year old with an uzi I wouldn't even know offhand if I was seeing something that was or wasn't legal, and I wouldn't know offhand what if any laws require supervision or special training or special licensing for that 9 year old, in or out of a shooting range. And I'm sure all of those things vary by state.

The only national standards are the NRA and the military. Police widely use NRA training because it's the best for civilian environments and is the same across the nation. Military training is also consistent from instructor to instructor. It's why most state laws that require gun training require either NRA or military certification; you know what you're getting.

 

[Kulindahr]

Well, you're going by one video that is about 15 seconds long. Considering he made enough mistakes in this video alone to lose his life and was instructing 18 months prior to these mistakes, it isn't much to go on to suggest he didn't get trained.

Given the number of mistakes made in that short a period.... at best he was a very sloppy instructor. The number of things the girl was not told that she should have been is not negligible -- and if she was told before the video, he failed to verify and reinforce.

 

[Kulindahr]

Another thing to notice is that the person in the picture with the gun is an adult male who can lift, hold and safely fire the adult-sized weapon on his own (although notice that he's using two hands and his body to brace for the kickback).

This wasn't one mistake by an inexperienced instructor... it was a chain of mistakes that started with having a child with a gun that she was not able to handle.

That first mistake falls to the parents who gave the child the gun and to the instructor who should have said, "No. This is not safe." It seems a big price to pay for a photo-op... and that young girl will be traumatized by what happened- especially with a shot at that close range.

I'll note that in this pic, the shooter is still doing one thing wrong: you don't lean back, you lean into a weapon, i.e. lean forward. That way your back muscles can help with control.

That said, yeah -- a big chain of mistakes. Her footing was tolerable, but her stance sucked... among other things.

I talked earlier this afternoon with a guy who helps run a shooting range. He was incensed, and pointed out something they use that should have been in play here: a simple restraining loop. That's a loop on the end of a cord, which slips over the barrel behind the front sight and keeps the muzzle from rising too far. If they'd just been using a restraining loop, the muzzle could have risen a coupe of inches at most and would then have swung sideways -- the instructor might have gotten a graze across the ribs, but that would have been it.

He also said it didn't look to him like the instructor had emphasized that if something goes wrong, LET GO! Unless that's been trained in, the automatic response to starting to lose control is to just clamp down with all your muscles -- with the result we saw.

Our Pink Pistols group would have been a hundred times safer environment.

 

[Kulindahr]

Accident like this, it can happen to adult as well.
When someone is not strong enough, the gun can move over the head and accidentally shot anyone nearby.

Yes! Which is why you check for strength. Heck, when I took hunting safety, before doing live fire on the line the instructor had us stand in firing position and then walked along slapping his palm up under the end of the barrel (it was sad how many experienced hunters were very bad in that drill). If you're doing it right, you never quite know when the shot is going off, so you never quite know when the barrel is going to rise, so you have to be exactly what wasn't evident in the video:

READY
AT
EVERY
MOMENT.​

 

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

how many wars ans oda play thang a 1st world ova ans

anyway

skipskip

thankyou