Boy, 8, fatally shoots self with Uzi at gun show

WESTFIELD, Mass. – With an instructor watching, an 8-year-old boy at a gun fair aimed an Uzi at a pumpkin and pulled the trigger as his dad reached for a camera.

It was his first time shooting a fully automatic machine gun, and the recoil of the weapon was too much for him. He lost control and fatally shot himself in the head.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081028/ap_on_re_us/boy_shoots_himself;_ylt=As5BKwPxesZzs0IfHgfUN3B8FxkF

 

Terrible news!!

 

An 8 year old being allowed to fire an Uzi? I'm sorry but that is just plain dumb and suicidal if you ask me.

If someone asked me what would happen and i dont even know guns, then my answer would be the gun would rotate upwards extremely quickly and potentially shoot the person, hmm exactly what happened. What a bunch of retards.

Dont you just love guns?

 

Yes, I love guns; I hate Retards.

No competent gun instructor I know, and I know MANY, would let a 8yr-old, probably not even a 12 yr-old, shoot a weapon on full-auto.

Dad and "gun instructor" are "retards."

Should have NEVER, EVER, happened.

 

At the risk of being perceived as an agitator, I would like to put things in perspective.

In Saoudi Arabia they put young kid to madrassas. Their brain freezes after a few years for ever.
In the US, some gets their yound kid/toddler to fire automatic weapons for fun. Some die.

I see a lot in common at a high level. Some cultures in this world are f..ked if you ask me.

 

Thinning the gene pool

 

Only if he had shot the dad and the "instructor."

 

Considering this happened in MA, where guns are abhorred state-wide, this couldn't have happened at a worse time, venue, or circumstances. I am starting to be convinced that people from Massachussetts lack basic critical-thinking skills, and thus fervently support Government intervention for every aspect of their lives for self-protection. The voting public here is very passionate about the 'protection of children', so you can now bet money that there will be a state law forbidding anyone under the age of XX from ever handling/firing a firearm again.....Statewide Elitist/Protect-The-Public-From-Themselves Hubris will dictate that Massachussetts Govt. will 'lead the way' in such legislation, and set national prescedent based on this incident. Public opinion polls here in MA already show 3-1 support for such legislation, and people wonder how/why their 'rights' slowly disappear.......

 

RIP, I feel terrible for the family and all who witnessed this tragedy.

 

Ted Kennedy is living proof of this.

 

Completely agree. The father and instructor allowed this senseless accident to happen.

Now you're making a leap that doesn't make any sense. The gun didn't do anything wrong. It functioned exactly as it was supposed to.

 

Most unfortunate this has happened.

 

lol!!!!

 

The father & the instructor should be charged. RIP to the little boy.

 

I have no problem with an 8 year old shooting a gun, but giving an 8 year old a fully automatic weapon is just lunacy. They don't know enough to take their finger off the trigger and are too physically small to control the recoil and motion of that gun.


It's true the crazy Massachusetts folks will use this as an excuse to enact more laws... forgetting about how many (probably hundreds) of kids that died in the past week in this country due to drunk drivers.


I can't imagine anything they can do to the father that could make him feel worse than he already does. Imagine seeing your 8 year old boy shot in the head right in front of your eyes, due to an action that you allowed and encouraged to happen? Imagine the drive to the ER, praying there was something they could do? Imagine the call to the wife and rest of the family to inform them? That guy is scarred for life... just tragic.

 

I am sorry as I do not understand what you are saying. Can you restate your comment please?

 

Horrible news, things this this should never happen.

 

sometimes, people are just plain stupid. i hope he died a quck death, rather than survive and face the consequences the rest of his life, paralysis, etc. RIP.

 

Probably an understatement. I can only think that his will to live is all but gone.

 

It would be interesting to know more about this. Did the 8-year-old ASK to shoot the Uzi, or did his dad push him into it? Had the boy ever fired any kind of a gun before? Was he allowed to shoot a single round from the Uzi before trying it in full auto mode? What kind of safety measures were in effect to keep the boy from shooting bystanders? Was the boy wearing approved eye and ear protection? What kind of instruction was the boy given before he was handed the weapon? Were any other youngsters being allowed to shoot the Uzi?

Whatever the circumstances, an 8-year-old boy has no business handling an automatic weapon, and the father and the instructor used incredibly poor judgement. Very sad.

 

Agreed!

 

stories like this make me sick to my stomach. I have the cutest 8 year old boy in the world, he and his little brother are my whole world.....and the image in my mind from this story is enough to make me vomit.
I would agree to being slowly tortured to death by the most evil ways possible rather than see my children hurt like this.

 

rip

thats sad/

i would never take my kid to a gun show or even near any guns.father should of took him to a car show!!!

 

I have heard this story several times and haven't heard from a news source that this was indeed a fully automatic UZI. If it was there is no way that the father and the instructor and the owner of the weapon should be able to slide away from reckless endangerment charges.

I have been shooting weapons since I was about this young man's age without incident, this story is just tragic not only for the fact that there was loss of life, but for the fact that there was so much disregard for the public safety. The anti-gun nuts are going to have a hay day with this one.

 

Where do you get your information? I've visited Saudi Arabia and can tell you from what I saw with my own eyes that this is untrue. BTW, it's important to distinguish between a normal madrassa, which is simply the Arabic way of saying school, just like in French it would be Ecole, and the horrible footage you see of places in Afghanistan and Pakistan.


Also, I don't know about you but I only get a brain freeze when I have a Popsicle.