<p>While I’m pretty anti-gun, I don’t have an issue with hunting (provided it’s done for food and not sport because it really creeps me out that people kill for fun.) I also don’t have a problem with age-specific gun safety (provided it’s done by a trained professional.) I sent this story to some of my friends who live in Hickville, MI (sorry if that offends anyone, they call themselves hicks) that have young-ish kids. They couldn’t believe it. One said that they let some of their kids start shooting paintball guns when they’re youngish (5 or 6), but certainly nothing with real bullets. </p>
<p>I don’t have a problem with a 9-year-old having a bucket list. But I don’t see any need for the parents to be in a hurry to start crossing things off it. She’s NINE, not sixty-nine.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure my dad had a gun at 9, he lived on a ranch and brought home squirrels and whatnot. He also drove a tractor by then and a pickup not long after. Then again, we’re talking about the early 40’s here, in a super rural area.</p>
<p>I cannot imagine taking a child to a range to shoot an Uzi.</p>
<p>Even though I grew up in NYC, there were a few war veterans and/or police officers who started teaching their sons how to handle firearms at around 7-9. </p>
<p>One I knew very well was a Vietnam vet and a 20+ year Marine who rose to becoming an experienced NCO supervising training of Marines before retiring. He had his son start learning how to handle firearms at 7. </p>
<p>However, the weapon his son first trained on was a bolt-action .22 rifle and it was only loaded and used under his father’s strict supervision at a well-regulated firing range. </p>
<p>He would never have allowed his son to handle more powerful weapons like an UZI submachine gun at that age/stage of his firearms training. His son only got to practice firing such weapons after going through basic firearms handling/safety training during summer field training in his Army ROTC program during his college years. </p>
<p>I grew up in a hunting culture (gun safety was a required part of our health class at school). We started shooting .22 gauge when we were 8 or 9. But those are single shot rifles with relatively little recoil. I can’t imagine what kind of a person thinks its Ok for a kid to shoot an Uzi - supervised or not. That’s like letting a 9 yr old drive a Ferrari. Dangerous for everyone involved. A kid just can’t handle that kind of firepower. </p>
<p>I was under the impression you had to be 18 to shoot at a gun range? Maybe that’s just Michigan law?</p>
<p>I’ll say there’s definitely a big difference between allowing a 9 year old to shoot a carbine rifle and letting them shoot a semi-auto with heavy recoil. The former is not so absurd in my opinion, the latter is just plain stupid.</p>
<p>Letting a tiny 9-yr old without prior shooting experience to just pick up and fire a high power automatic weapon w serious recoil is Darwinism culling the stupidity gene pool.</p>
<p>Yes, actually, when it comes to the “instructor” who made a stupid decision by allowing a child to fire that type of weapon and who should have known better.</p>
<p>But what about the child and the parents? They trusted the instructor’s expertise, and their lives will never be the same. </p>
<p>While there is a lot of blame to go around here, I blame the parents the most. How could parents of a 9-yr old girl think that it was safe and appropriate for their daughter to shoot an Uzi? </p>
<p>There are LOTS of things that we don’t allow 9-yr old kids to do, but adults are allowed to do. Some things are specifically illegal (driving, drinking, smoking), other things are restricted by companies offering services (heights for roller coasters), and for all other things parents need to show a bit of common sense. </p>
<p>It is such a tragedy, both for the death of the instructor, and for this girl who has to carry this on her conscience for the rest of her life. Especially tragic since it would have been so easily avoidable. </p>
<p>My daughters started shooting pellet guns around 7 or 8, and 22’s designed for children about a year later. But always under supervision, and never an adult-sized gun. </p>
<p>All guns in the house were stored disassembled and the parts locked in different parts of the house. The girls were forbidden from all toy guns, including water pistols, because they knew that no gun was to be aimed at anyone or anything but a target, and that you didn’t shoot at people in fun. </p>
<p>Neither has handled a gun for years, much to their target-shooting father’s dismay. </p>
<p>The parents and shooting instructor in this case were/are idiots. </p>
<p>I don’t blame the parents. They had a daughter with her heart set on firing an Uzi, evidently. They took her to a shooting range, to a weapons professional with tons of experience in shooting. He said she could shoot the gun safely. Many adults who are unfamiliar with guns wouldn’t know that one gun was safe for a child, under strict supervision, and another was not. They trusted the professional. </p>
<p>I blame the parents. Sorry but “No, you can’t fire a high-powered killing machine because you’re 9 years old.” doesn’t seem like unreasonable parenting. </p>
<p>How does a 9 yr old girl develop a passion to shoot an Uzi and at a human target, no less? What kind of media have her parents been letting her consume? What kids of conversations have they been having with her?</p>
<p>it is not a good idea at all and so is driving. Com’n driving kills so many and it pollutes the air, which also makes us very sick. This is a huge problem in comparison, so we all should stop driving and walk / ride bicycles / rolleblade everywhere, cars should be outlawed, period. Better yet, if we go back to living in caves, then we definitely will not hurt each other as much as living in crowded cities. That definitle will solve vast majority of killing in this country, not just one case.</p>
<p>The silver lining in all this, including the Newtown shootings, is that we are getting closer to outrage in this country about all this gun nonsense. </p>
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