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Firing-range Instructor Fails Gun Safety 101


Pong Messiah
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Guest El Chalupacabra

Yeah there were points where this tragedy could have been avoided altogether, and I'm sure I'm only listing a few.

 

First, take the parents feeling the need to let their little girl go fire a fully auto uzi, which she clearly didn’t have the upper body strength to control. That is one of the parents sitting there filming the whole incident, to their horror, I am sure. I know the parents must have thought they were doing a good thing by going to a range with a professional instructor (which they were correct on going to a range with an instructor), but why an uzi, and why at 9 years old? I mean, when I was 9, sure I fired a weapon under parental and/or adult supervision and instruction, but it was a single shot bolt action .22 rifle, and a 2 shot shotgun with bird shot. Nine years old, boy or girl, is just simply too young for a fully auto sub machine gun like an uzi.

 

Second, the instructor basically should have known that the child was too small for an uzi. Presumably, he should have known what kind of kick those have, and should have had a mechanism in place where kids under a certain age and size can only fire a certain type of weapon, and whether they are allowed to be fully auto or semi.

 

Third, the instructor didn’t seem to position himself in a way where he could allow himself space and enough time to react. If you watch the video, the gun first fires up, and then the recoil causes the girl for fire more, which drives the weapon leftward, firing into the instructor multiple times.

 

The saddest thing is that this girl is going to have to live with this, and its not even her fault.

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It'll take years of therapy for her to reach that conclusion.

 

Honestly, we all do stupid things sometimes, things that could've been fatal except for chance escapes on our part. This instructor probably knew better, but made stupid mistakes and this time it killed him. Maybe he didn't know better, though. Perhaps he had supervised kids handling Uzis before, and maybe even had a close call before. In my experience in laboratories, "best practices" are often lax because people learn that every time they don't get hurt doing a procedure incorrectly, they "learn" that it's acceptable to be lax in their practices. It's not until a serious accident occurs that people reflect on how unsafe their practices were. But that reflection only occurs in the thoughtful. I wonder if this gun range owner/operator is thoughtful.

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It'll take years of therapy for her to reach that conclusion.

 

. It's not until a serious accident occurs that people reflect on how unsafe their practices were. But that reflection only occurs in the thoughtful. I wonder if this gun range owner/operator is thoughtful.

 

Yeah, gee.. only the thoughtful.

 

Or you know, everyone, when faced with a wrongful death suit brought upon the decedent's estate.

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I think that if you work around guns and have good practices and are respectful of them stuff like this never happens. I have been to numerous firing ranges and the best ones are people who really focus on the safety aspect. The instructors I've had have stayed out of firing range behind me and recommend good guns for me to try firing based on my level of knowledge of weapons and what they think I can physically handle. In Texas I've been to ranges where the gun nuts make me want to leave because they're really nuts about blowing stuff up with fully automatic weapons and talking paranoid "they're taking our weapons away!" and I've been to shops where they are reasonably balanced in the types that come in and give good advice and are careful in their handling practices. There is a sense that I get that is sometimes really both ends of the scale. A couple of teacher friends wanted to get licenses so we decided to go to a store with a range to give them an idea of what holding and firing a weapon is like. One guy there felt that he may lose is job because of a decline in sales of some kinds due to restrictive laws and was all doom and gloom and crying about Obama passing legislation that would be the end of the store. He also tried to get the ladies I was with to buy high end weapons with more power than they needed (This came out of the school shootings and I feel like no teacher should be carrying around something that would blow a hole and bounce around but fear is fear and it can be preyed upon). And there was one guy salesman talking about safety tips for storing and classes and trying to get them something compact that can stop a guy at short range without richocets or other issues arising.

 

I really wonder in this case if "the customer is always right" had some share in this horrible incident catering to the people that do buy time on the range. Clearly kids parents should have a say in this and it should not be assumed that the instructor is just going to take over. I mean, I can't imagine that someone like Destiny Skywalker would walk into a range with her kid and say "Hey! My kid wants to try an uzi! Is there someone here who can let her have one?" So maybe the range where it happened and the parents felt that all this was okay because they either wanted to make money or have a viral video of their cute kid shooting off an weapon.

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Yeah, gee.. only the thoughtful.

 

Or you know, everyone, when faced with a wrongful death suit brought upon the decedent's estate.

 

Everyone? You must have a higher estimation of peoples' intelligence than I do. Didn't we use to have the opposite views?

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Honestly, we all do stupid things sometimes, things that could've been fatal except for chance escapes on our part. This instructor probably knew better, but made stupid mistakes and this time it killed him.

 

 

Respectfully, knowing better means doing better, all the time.

 

I have seen many instructors at gun stores and gun ranges be egotistical pricks. They pretend everyone else is an idiot with a firearm whether it's warranted or not, and I think that arrogance lets them make stupid decisions. Remember this guy?

 

 

The whole scenario is tragically stupid, all around. Don't give kids assault weapons. This new gun culture that has developed in the last 10-15 years is ludicrous. Not every gun owner NEEDS an assault rifle. Not ever kid of a gun owner NEEDS to be well-versed with them.

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WTF is a nine year old doing learning how to use firearms at all, let alone fully automatic? These people recruiting for the Lord's Resistance Army or something? Sheer madness.

 

Nothing wrong with a child learning how to properly use a firearm. I fired a gun more before age 12 than in all the years after, and the things that stick with me most clearly are the lessons of safety, respect, and responsibility when handling a firearm. If done right, it can be a good thing, with good habits that stick with you for life.

 

Of course, if done poorly, you get stuff like this.

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Nothing wrong with a child learning how to properly use a firearm. I fired a gun more before age 12 than in all the years after, and the things that stick with me most clearly are the lessons of safety, respect, and responsibility when handling a firearm. If done right, it can be a good thing, with good habits that stick with you for life.

 

 

Of course, if done poorly, you get stuff like this.

 

My Dad let us fire bb/air guns but wouldn't let us handle his side arm or rifle until we were older.

 

I had a BB/pellet gun as a kid, and my grandfather let me fire a pellet pistol he owned a few times. I was taught to respect guns, and my mother taught me to keep my hands OFF her gun. I was allowed to shoot her .22 rifle when I was 12, but ONLY then, and only under her supervision. I was NEVER allowed to handle a real firearm until that moment.

 

Allowing a child to use an automatic weapon is the height of stupidity, and a clear cut example of why I firmly believe that certain people just should not be allowed anywhere near guns.

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Allowing a child to use an automatic weapon is the height of stupidity, and a clear cut example of why I firmly believe that certain people just should not be allowed anywhere near guns.

 

I totally agree. No matter how careful you are, you need to be intellectually and physically developed enough to handle it.

 

Use your eyes and your brains and some fricken' common sense, people.

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Yeah, I know this is from a leftist blog, but fun reading:

 

 

http://www.ginandtacos.com/2014/08/26/death-by-misadventure/

THIS. This right there. That is the perfect embodiment of America's fucked up 'gun culture'. A fetishizing of guns, linking firearms to masculinity and virility. This is a shining example of that.

 

We've all heard joke about how gun enthusiasts are compensating for perceived inadequate endowments? This guy was a prime example of WHY such talk exists in the first place, and it makes it hard to argue with.

 

He was exactly the type of person who should never have been let anywhere NEAR a gun.

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THIS. This right there. That is the perfect embodiment of America's ****ed up 'gun culture'. A fetishizing of guns, linking firearms to masculinity and virility. This is a shining example of that.

 

We've all heard joke about how gun enthusiasts are compensating for perceived inadequate endowments? This guy was a prime example of WHY such talk exists in the first place, and it makes it hard to argue with.

 

He was exactly the type of person who should never have been let anywhere NEAR a gun.

I have no doubt of this. It's been my contention for some time now that America's culture wars are, at heart, rooted in sexual repression and insecurity.

 

As further evidence to that effect, notice that THIS was the angle taken by this progressive blogger. The implicit machismo and phallic symbolism in the gun culture are the real reasons why the right rallies around it while the left hates it.

 

If the right was so concerned about freedom, liberty and constitutional government, then the logical thing to do would be to NOT support parties and politicians that erode the seperation of church and state, hawkish foreign and domestic security positions and erode civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism. That the "cold dead hands" crowd has been behind the growth of precisely the kind of government they profess to fear belies their "guns = liberty" claims anyway. Besides, any credible notion that a rifle bearing citizenry can actually have a hope in hell against a modern armed state was the first casualty when the blizkrieg began rolling over Europe in 1940.

 

The progressives are no more honest in their condemnation of gun culture though. Their big concern sure isn't about preventing incidents like this. I sure don't think a single left leaning U.S citizen is sorry to see this guy go. If they worried about body count at all, they'd be in the ghettos and along the US/Mexico border with their pleas for gun restrictions. As it is, point this out and that red neck gun owners are next to no threat to anyone - the very rare incident like this not withstanding - and I think you can guess how they'll respond. I don't bother arguing - I now tell them that I'd love to stay and chat but I have a Klan meeting to chair. No use telling them otherwise.

 

No. In this context, guns are a phallic symbol, a metaphor for male sexual virility. Kind of like viagra. This is why the very predictable constellations of political forces fetishize and abominate them respectively.

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