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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To wonder what kind of idiot teaches a 9-year-old to use an Uzi

397 replies

BadLad · 27/08/2014 11:33

m.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-28948946

A 9-year-old kills her shooting instructor when she loses control of the Uzi he is teaching her to use.

Apparently many (that's right, many) firing ranges have strict rules when teaching children.

Oh well, that's all right then, what was I worried about?

OP posts:
TranmereRover · 28/08/2014 11:44

What's horribly relevant here is that at this fun holiday outing which is in no way akin to riding a bicycle, the targets being shot at are not like archery or pony club tetrathalon coloured bullseye targets, they are HUMAN BODY OUTLINES.
These parents have taken their 9 year old to train her to kill a person with an automatic machine gun.

(& differentname - a kid not understanding the power of guns is precisely why you don't take a kid to a range to shoot automatic machine guns, not even for a laugh, on holiday)

TranmereRover · 28/08/2014 11:46

PS Tikimon - us little islanders might be forgiven for thinking that hair trigger approach to weopans is pretty standard, because we've been watching the news lately and see that it takes a whole 16 seconds for a policeman to apprehend and then kill someone suspected of minor crime and armed only with a knife. Shot to kill, not shot to disarm / apprehend.
We're obviously easily confused.

LegoSuperstar · 28/08/2014 12:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

differentnameforthis · 28/08/2014 12:16

(& differentname - a kid not understanding the power of guns is precisely why you don't take a kid to a range to shoot automatic machine guns, not even for a laugh, on holiday)

Oh I agree, absolutely. 100%!!

dreamingbohemian · 28/08/2014 12:19

So you're moronic AND rude. Nice combo.

I understand what you meant, I just think it's silly.

Clearly there is something about guns that makes people want to collect them, otherwise they would collect any old thing. And if the fact that it's a gun is immaterial, then what difference does it make if they're banned? Collect something else.

People collect guns because they like guns. I think liking a weapon that can kill people is not the same as liking a doll.

Sometimes in English we draw comparisons, and if they're stupid we expect other people to say so.

dreamingbohemian · 28/08/2014 12:24

And I spent most of my life in DC, including when it was the murder capital of the US (it's not anymore, glad to see you're up to date), so please don't tell me that gun violence doesn't overwhelm cities. It goes far beyond statistics and affects the ability of the city to function and people to live their daily lives.

I also really don't believe you're just as scared of knives as guns. You can outrun a knife. The earlier post about the escalation in violence due to guns was right on.

butterfliesinmytummy · 28/08/2014 13:48

"People having fun with guns are usually registered"

Nope, I could go to the sports shop this morning and buy an Uzi. Need a driving license to prove my age but no details are taken.

muffliato · 28/08/2014 14:54

Wow Tiki I can't imagine what it's like being held up at gun point or knife point. But I'd rather take my chances with a knife.

OwlCapone · 28/08/2014 14:56

Boy scouts in my neck of the woods do not learn to shoot rifles at summer camps.

They do in mine. South London/Surrey.

RufusTheReindeer · 28/08/2014 14:57

Not sure if it's been mentioned but apparently they are thinking of charging the parents with murder

Not sure how that works Confused

RufusTheReindeer · 28/08/2014 15:03

owl

They do in mine as well (hampshire)

Thruaglassdarkly · 28/08/2014 15:03

differentnameforthis

Yes, I know. Just awful. The father is a doctor as well, so must be pretty intelligent (you'd think!). I just can't get my head round why any parent would go on the safety say-so of a 15 year old instructor when it comes to such a lethal weapon and their 8 year old child.
Interestingly the instructor maintains elsewhere that the father was insistant his 8 year old "had a go" with the uzi, as his older son had coped fine. Hmm

BarbarianMum · 28/08/2014 15:08

Rufus I predict that what will happen now is that both the girl's parents and the family of the man who died will launch a huge number of legal claims and counterclaims against each other. The girl's parents, the instructor, his manager, the gun manufacturer, the 'Burgers and Bullets' experience (delete as applicable) will all be sued. All will blaming each other and with not one adult involved assuming a smigeon of responsibility for this act of gross stupidity.

Then a lot of lawyers will get very rich.

mathanxiety · 28/08/2014 15:44

Tikimon, wrt your extraordinary statement 'No major city is "over whelmed" by gun violence' -- every Sunday my congregation prays for the previous week's victims of gun violence in the large city next door to the east of where I live. The names of all the victims are read out and separated into wounded and killed. We pray for the repose of the souls of those killed and the recovery of those wounded.

The Sunday after the Fourth of July, 82 names were read out, fourteen of whom had been shot dead. It was a long mass.

We care about the fact that people are not safe on their streets or even in their homes. One reason we care is we don't want it all spilling over to our suburb. So we pay for a relatively large and pretty aggressive municipal police force with top of the line cars and a zero tolerance policy on graffiti, tagging, and youth curfew violation. We also pay higher insurance rates because of all the crime 'next door'.

We also pay high county taxes to be able to afford to treat the victims of gun violence, many of whom require lifetime care, colostomy bags, wheelchairs, mobility assistance, round the clock nursing care, etc. We pay for the county jails and court system, probation officers, etc., etc.

One of the reasons the county hospitals struggle to provide adequate care for those living with heart problems, diabetes and stress related disease is that there are so many of them suffering as a direct consequence of living in gang war zones where good grocery stores are loath to locate and where the everyday challenges include dodging bullets. Another reason is that it costs an incredible amount of money and takes up vast medical resources resources to treat the victims of gun violence, from ambulances to ER staff to critical care facilities to long term after care.

My late exFIL was a neurosurgeon in a smaller midwest city and spent his weekend nights in a university hospital dealing with massive head wounds and spinal injuries inflicted by AK-47s, Uzis, and other weapons that have no place in life outside of warfare. He found it depressing -- so many wasted lives, so many hours at the operating table, so many people who 'survived' due to his heroic efforts but lived their lives afterwards in skilled nursing facilities. The worst experience of his life was trying to save his own niece who had been shot in a robbery. She lived but was severely brain damaged and required round the clock care until she died nine years later. Many weekends he was on his feet operating for 18+ hours straight. Many good colleagues decided to leave and find more peaceful pastures.

The gangs drive business away and perpetuate the socio economic problems that make life in the ghetto so hard. Established businesses in parts of the nearby city that are not located in gang turf pay higher city tax rates in order to maintain the necessary policing in the war zones.

Money spent on simply holding the line on gangs, often with little success, is money that is not available for the public schools or the local county health clinics or the local mental health clinics.

Every single individual in a county where gun-inflicted violence is prevalent pays and pays and pays again. You are completely wrong to state that no city is overwhelmed by gun violence.

phantomnamechanger · 28/08/2014 15:47

Boy scouts in my neck of the woods do not learn to shoot rifles at summer camps

^ our school does this on Y5 PGL! I have to admit I was dubious about it but we had a parents talk about all the safety procedures etc. NO WAY would I have signed up to DC using a machine gun though, whatever the safety precautions were.

mathanxiety · 28/08/2014 15:55

As mentioned, my neck of the woods is close to a city plagued by gun violence and gun use is not seen as a useful or acceptable skill by the local Scouts. Guns are inextricably associated with senseless violent death here, and not hunting or outdoorsy pastimes.

mathanxiety · 28/08/2014 16:03

Tikimon:

A Bloomberg News report -- 'Shootings Costing U.S. $174 Billion Show Burden of Gun Violence'

'The societal cost of just one gun homicide averages $5 million, according to the institute*. That includes $1.6 million in lost work; $29,000 in medical care; $11,000 on surviving families’ mental-health treatment; $397,000 in criminal-justice, incarceration and police expenses; $9,000 in employer losses; and $3 million in pain, suffering and lost quality of life.'
*Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation

TSSDNCOP · 28/08/2014 16:10

math your posts are proving interesting reading.

dreamingbohemian · 28/08/2014 16:10

Thanks for that vivid explanation mathanxiety, that rings very true to me. DC is a lot better now but there was a time when it literally almost stopped functioning.

Tikimon · 28/08/2014 17:17

mathanxiety I'm not saying people don't die or that gangs aren't a problem. I'm pointing out that in the grand scheme of things, it's not the number one reason people die. It's not like "The Purge" every night in the projects.

If this were the 90's I'd agree that things were out of control. But things have vastly improved since then. Youth centers and less racial tension have drastically decreased gang violence over the last 20 years. Violence and murder are at an all time low right now.

Yes, guns kill, and it's horrible. But in the grand scheme of things, unless you're involved in drugs and trafficking, being killed by a gun is a rare occurrence.

When I lived in a shitty part of town, in an apartment complex where they didn't even try to hide that they were dealing meth, the biggest problem we had was domestic violence. We could hear it night in almost every apartment attached to us. I can tell some pretty harrowing stories from that.

We're living in the area DH grew up in, and even so much as 10 years ago it was dangerous to be in. When he was a kid, drugs and gang activity were rampant. Now we have kids playing on the streets with each other like suburbia neighborhoods.

It's terrible that guns fall into the hands of the wrong people, but it's not like America is going to hell in a hand basket either.

hackmum · 28/08/2014 17:28

Tikimon:"It's terrible that guns fall into the hands of the wrong people."

This is an argument that the NRA and their ilk come up with time and time again. It's the peculiar and simple-minded view that you can divide people into two categories: GOOD people, who should be allowed to have guns, and BAD people, who shouldn't. They seem to have little comprehension that apparently ordinary decent people can sometimes behave badly or erratically or have episodes of mental illness and that there is, in fact, no easy way of telling whether a person is GOOD or BAD.

I blame the Westerns. Did no-one ever tell you that they're not real, Tikimon?

FrankelandFilly · 28/08/2014 17:30

An interesting study on children hospitalised due to gun injuries in the US. On average 10,000 children (under the age of 20) are injured or killed by guns in the US every year.

LegoSuperstar · 28/08/2014 17:51

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LegoSuperstar · 28/08/2014 17:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mathanxiety · 28/08/2014 18:03

Tikimon, I very much doubt if anyone from 'the projects' would agree with your assessment of the effects of endemic gun violence. It really is that bad every night, and it has never been confined to the projects anyway.

I suspect there is not a single person here who would not nod along with your description of the widespread domestic violence (however, that is not a problem that is confined to deprived areas) -- but can you not see how the fatal combination of children growing up in violent homes, modelling of grossly unhealthy male attitude and behaviour, and widespread and easy availability of guns and presence of gangs (the epitome of unhealthy machismo) makes for a perfect storm when the damaged and angry children hit adolescence? Once guns are added to the mix the entire tragedy is magnified X 1000.

There are poor people and pockets of deprivation in every single developed country, and places where domestic violence is rife everywhere on the globe (again, DV is found in classes of society and nobody is immune), yet only in the US does the prevalence of deprivation and high rates of DV seem to correlate with an extremely high rate of murder by gun violence, even in places elsewhere where the trade in narcotics flourishes. The difference in American cities is availability of guns.

Old age is the number one killer of people. Should we therefore stop worrying about everything else that ends lives? It's simply asinine to point out that more people die from cancer than from being murdered, as if there is some much needed balanced perspective here. There is something really wrong with the idea that any death from gun violence is acceptable in a society that calls itself civilised.

'Yes, guns kill, and it's horrible. But in the grand scheme of things, unless you're involved in drugs and trafficking, being killed by a gun is a rare occurrence.'
This is a horribly callous attitude. Is 'attrition' of this sort acceptable to you?

The fallout from gun availability and frequent gun use in American cities is much worse, far more comprehensive and more pervasive than the figures for death and injury can possibly convey (and despite your claim about who the victims are, many innocent bystanders are killed and injured.)

I don't know where you imagine racism comes into it all. Most of the murders in my local big city are of African Americans by Africans. I also don't know what your naive belief in youth centres as a substitute for sane gun control is founded upon. Nor do I understand how you can blithely state that things have improved since the 90s. Maybe you are setting a very high bar for what is an acceptable level of murder in any given society. I can walk 15 minutes to the east where children do not play in the streets, and where it is not safe to go after dusk, because most bullets fired do not hit their mark.

If you think there are skilled snipers at work in gang turf, think again. For every bullet fired from the collective arsenal of the gangs that hits its mark, hundreds hit cars and buildings, front stoops and front doors and windows. The claim that the only victims are those killed (and that of those killed the majority are people involved in drug dealing) is spectacularly missing the point.