A few days ago a nine-year-old girl, firing an Uzi Machine gun, accidentally killed her instructor after she lost control of the weapon.  Her parents, were filming the incident and caught it on video.  That video has gone viral across the globe essentially pointing to how crazy we Americans are for our weapons.

In this incident, the instructor allows the girl, who clearly isn’t prepared or well-trained enough to fire this weapon, to fire a single shot, before switching it to automatic.  Her stance was completely wrong and he corrected it but should have ended it instead.  The difference between the single shot and the weapon on automatic is something this young girl could never have anticipated.  The instructor is fully responsible for his own demise.  But sadly, she will have to live with this for the rest of her life.  Range operator Sam Scarmardo told a local news broadcaster that, “We really don’t know what happened. Our guys are trained to basically hover over people when they’re shooting.”  He continued, “If they’re shooting right-handed, we have our right-hand behind them ready to push the weapon out-of-the-way. And if they’re left-handed, the same thing.”  Obviously that didn’t happen in this instance.  The instructor took a shot to the head, killing him instantly.

If this wasn’t so tragic, it would be funny.  The lack of intelligence in allowing a nine-year old girl or boy for that matter, to fire an Uzi, demonstrates a complete lack of judgement.  I don’t think there are too many gun advocates that would dispute that.  A .22 rifle is far different from an Uzi Machine Gun.  Worse yet, this makes a strong case for the anti-gun advocates.  It makes it appear that gun rights proponents are indeed crazy which could not be further from the truth.

Determining who should and who should not be allowed to fighter high-powered weapons should be based as much on body type and size as age.  Clearly this young girl was not large enough to fire such a high-powered weapon as an Uzi.  In addition, firing an automatic weapon requires a different skill level than firing a side arm or even a rifle.  The law should be changed in this case not to allow anyone under the age of 12 to fire automatic weapons at gun ranges.  But even then, good judgement should be exercised to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.