Years ago, when I was a working P.I., I had a client who was wanted on a drug charge. When the police went to pick him up, he barricaded himself in his house and told the officers he was armed with a fully automatic Ingram MAC-10. The police wisely backed off and implemented a Full Gary Oldman. “Bring me everyone.”
Almost the entire local police force arrived, surrounded the house, evacuated the neighbors, and waited patiently for my client to decide what he was going to do next. What he did next was fire off a few rounds on semi-auto, after which he realized he’d totally fucked himself and he surrendered.
There wasn’t any real investigating to do in the case; the guy was blatantly guilty. But a good defense lawyer will grasp at almost any straw, even if it’s only useful in sentencing. So I was sent to test the weapon and determine if it was completely operational. In other words, to see if actually was fully automatic. Which meant I’d get to shoot it.
I did, and it was. It was the ugliest gun I’ve ever seen — just a foot-long slab of black metal, with a strap attached near the barrel. The strap was necessary to keep the barrel down while firing; otherwise the recoil would force the barrel up and you’d be shooting sky. The police allowed me to fire off two 30 round magazines — which maybe took a total of five or six seconds. The stubby little bastard could fire just over a thousand rounds a minute. That’s 1000 9mm bullets in 60 seconds. Do the math. Even holding the strap, I found it difficult to control the barrel.
Why am I telling you this? Because on Monday a shooting instructor at an Arizona firing range allowed a nine-year-old girl to fire a similar weapon — and Uzi — on full auto.
Let me repeat that. A shooting instructor — a military veteran with lots of experience with firearms — having watched a nine-year-old girl fire one 9mm round on semi-auto, decided to allow her to fire the weapon on full auto. She lost control of the weapon. The instructor took a round to the head. Killed him.
Nine. The girl is nine years old. Her parents, of course, were recording it with their phone. (The video, released by the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office, stops before the instructor is shot.)
Just an accident. No charges will be filed. These things happen. Sure, a few lives were destroyed. The shooting instructor. His family. The poor girl. Her family. But hey, what can you do? Nobody to blame, nobody is at fault. Second Amendment, and all that. Nothing left to say, really.
What a stupid fucking country this is.
gregfallis.com 
One word: Arizona
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Wouldn’t it be great if we could limit this to Arizona? But sadly,as you know, the gun fetish culture is pretty widespread across the U.S.
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What the holy hell were any of those adults thinking? God. There are not words.
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A spokesman for the shooting range said (and I swear I’m not making this up) shooting the Uzi on full auto was “high on the girl’s bucket list.” As if a child of nine would even have a bucket list.
Regardless, I suspect seeing a nine-year-old girl fire an Uzi on full auto was NOT on the shooting instructor’s bucket list. Or if it was, then…no, I can’t even joke about it.
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This just in…
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I saw this report yesterday and couldn’t believe it. I mean… it’s the United States, so I could believe it, but who in his/her right fucking mind feels it necessary to put an Uzi (or any other automatic or semi-automatic weapon) in the hands of a nine-year-old?
This was not an accident. So-called adults (the instructor included) put a deadly, dangerous weapon in the hands of a nine-year-old girl for shits and giggles, probably hoping the video would go viral. Well… I would bet that they’re getting what they wanted.
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Certainly all the adults involved ought to be held responsible. But in the land of the Holy Second Amendment, it’s unlikely they will. My guess is the parents will sue the shooting range for not providing a safe environment for their nine-year-old daughter to fire a fully automatic weapon.
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Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time this has happened in the good old US of f–in’ A. In Massachusetts in 2011, an 8 year old boy was killed when firing an Uzi at a gun expo when the barrel climbed and a bullet hit his head.
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That actually happened in 2008. Lots of folks are confused by this because the guy who ran the gun show where the Bizilj boy was killed was tried in 2011. One count of involuntary manslaughter, three counts of furnishing a machine gun to a minor. He was acquitted on all charges. Two other men–the ones who actually put the gun in the boy’s hands–had their charges dropped after the acquittal.
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