Bullets and burgers.

RTH hit the nail on the head with this one.

This wasn't a gun practice range, it was a "Hey, shoot an Uzi for s**ts & giggles", a restaurant/entertainment venue. An armed Chuck E. Cheeze. I have nothing against learning to use firearms in a responsible manner but... A 9 year old - with an Uzi.

Definitely seconding everything RTH said on this matter.

I don't see anything wrong with gun ownership or shooting ranges. Guns are used for many things (shooting for sport i.e. target practice, hunting) and every gun owner I've met has been responsible about guns. Of course guns are powerful enough to severely injure or kill someone, but so are teeth. Your teeth are powerful enough to bite a finger in half just as easily as a carrot. Let's ban teeth

Like everything else, if you're going to do it, be responsible. That girl was failed in so many ways and it wasn't because guns are legal. No 9 year old girl should have been handed an uzi. No way. However, I DO believe that children of gun owners NEED to be taught how to responsibly use guns. There's nothing wrong with taking your child to a shooting range and teaching them about the appropriate use of guns.

I'd much rather ban mosquitoes- they kill over 600,000 people a year. Worldwide gun deaths are way less than that. Also, most gun related deaths are from suicide, which people would still commit even without access to guns.

Plus Heartworms... Nobody has time for that!

Where can I vote?

When my husband was going through his arms training, he said the M16 was much easier to shoot (kick back wise) than his 9mm pistol. (Aiming wise was another story, as he is much more comfortable with a hand gun.) He had been hoping the M16 would be fun to handle, but he was sorely disappointed. Lol

I wasn't introduced to gun handling/shooting until I started dating my husband. The first time I accidently flagged him he about bit my head off. And it was bitten off again when I had my finger resting on the trigger rest (or whatever it is called). All with unloaded guns without a clip. Now I'm so conscious about what I'm doing with then that I even cringe when I watch TV and I see someone flag another or rest their finger on the trigger, even with fake guns.

From the sounds of it, though, she wasn't the one making the mistakes, others made them for her and the situation was just horrible.

That's a shame they chose to make the place like that, because they had a chance to make this a nice place by safely providing shooting experience with a licensed instructor, not a free for all place for kids who know nothing to pop off live rounds from dangerous weapons without any (responsible) supervision.

I believe that kids should be taught (if they express interest) in guns, it's better than them getting curious one day and killing themselves or someone else. Of course guns should always be kept out of a child's reach unless supervised ... responsibly.

I live near there (and pass it on the way to Vegas). As far as I can tell (I have never stopped there...not a fan of guns) one of the main attractions, if you go by the billboards plastered nearby, is shooting a machine gun. So I would imagine that her parents stopped there for that reason. It's a very gun heavy culture here. I am not originally from here, and I'm never going to get used to or be comfortable with seeing people with guns on their hips as they shop, do laundry, etc. It's just bizarre to me. We don't, and will not, have a gun in our home.

That said, I'm not aware of anyone who thinks the instructor or parents were in the right in having a child handle such a weapon. Sad, because in addition to a life being taken through foolishness, the child will have to live with the imagery for the rest of her life

Yea rth pretty much wins the thread.

The issue with this particular incident isn't about guns in general, IMO, it's about THAT gun being used in THAT way in THAT girl's hands.

I'll never get why anyone thinks it's a good idea to give a child a gun like that to shoot. The same thing happened several years ago and the kid killed either himself or dad. Can't remember.

I think I have always had a healthy gun respect because I know about them and did shoot(what I consider) age appropriate guns. If you handed me that at nine I would have said no freaking way! If I did not grow up in a gun household maybe I would have a fear of them.

I comment because it fascinates me. I never said I fear it, I said I don't get it. The same as 99% of people around me. As I'm the (almost) only UK resident who regularly comments on here I understand you find my fascination weird or annoying at worst, but the cultural differences and attitudes to these things are fascinating and interesting and I can comment on what ever I like at the end of the day

If this was a UK board you'd get lots of very very opposing views probably a lot more intense than my pretty tame comments. How do you not find that interesting? I think it's brilliant. Aren't you curious?

I post because I like to hear the drives behind the thoughts. The stuff I'd never want my children round, I'm interested why you would. Because I like to know. I like that it's different and weird to me. I like that I have my own opinions.

I find it fascinating people defend their rights so much like it's life and death... To have something like a gun. It's bizarre to me.

I'm the odd one out because I don't share your cultural view of guns, but I'm in the majority where I live, so I don't think you can 'win' a thread, it's all just opinion and there kind of going to be one sided on a mostly north American board at best lol

It's just an expression, lol.

The M16 is a heavier gun. Recoil is all about the weight of what goes out the front vs the weight of the gun, and how it fits. You're just holding a handgun out there, the rifle stock certainly helps with control.

Some people do get testy about a finger on the trigger guard, but then some manufacturers go and put a mechanical safety there. So I want my finger there but not there at the same time?

I don't think she meant that this makes the US instantly a dangerous place. It's a cultural difference - a big cultural difference. But I guess to understand this you (generally speaking) maybe have to have lived somewhere else?

And I don't think anyone said that they want to take your guns away. For me, I am uncomfortable around people having a gun on them while doing ordinarily things.. it's just odd (to me).

One round at a time is kind of contrary to the point of shooting machine guns.

You keep saying licensed instructor. To my knowledge there is no licensing procedure. Instructors may or may not be NRA certified or they may be basing their qualifications on prior military or LEO training.
Regardless of his qualifications the instructor failed by not maintaining physical control of the weapon while the child shot. All other concerns are simply reflections of personal biases.

Because it can be a matter of life or death. Firearms are involved in about 8K homicides (down from 11K several years ago, while ownership has increased from 35% of households to over 50%) which includes justified homicides (self defense & police shootings). Estimates for the use of firearms in self defense range from 250K to 4 MILLION instances per year. I tend not to put much credence in estimates over 1 million. Even if only 1% of those were truly life threatening, that is still 2500 occasions where someone might have been killed had they not had a firearm. Further the idea that the USA as a whole is more violent than other industrialized countries because of their high rate of gun ownership is created through willful misuse of statistics. For example Australia has stricter gun laws and less murders than the USA. Except that Wyoming has a similar population density to Australia, a far higher rate of gun ownership and a lower PER CAPITA murder rate. Similar comparisons of like to like show that the USA generally doesn't have higher murder rates. Our numbers are thrown off by places like Chicago (where until recently gun ownership was effectively banned to everyone but the very wealthy and politically connected). Chicago has a CRAZY high volume of gun violence that throws off statistics for the whole country. In fact more than half of US gun violence can be attributed to less than a dozen major metropolitan areas that generally have very tight restrictions on gun ownership and carry.
As for the culture, well it goes back to our history. From the very beginning there was violent conflict that could not be resolved by governments in Europe. At one point there were competing colonies from Britain, France, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden & the German states along the Atlantic coast from Arcadia to Florida. All of these colonies formed militias to protect themselves from each other, First Nations & pirate fleets. A need that carried on throughout US westward expansion as our pioneers came into conflict with each new indigenous nation. The need to protect American citizens from hostile foreign power and criminal elements continues to this day (Mexican army forces have provided protection to drug smugglers from US LEOs, Mexican police have shot US citizens on US soil and Mexican drug cartel violence keeps some of our border areas in a state of low intensity war).
Additionally firearms were used by colonists to provide food, furs and to protect livestock from predators. A need that continues today in rural livestock raising areas. There are still people in the lower 48 states that live a pioneer existence and need guns as an everyday tool.
Because as recently as the 1980s you could still find people with first hand accounts of the "Indian wars" and Pancho Villa's raids, these needs are still very much a recent cultural memory, not something lost to antiquity like Roman occupation of Britain and Gaul. Further our culture was built primarily by people who were not willing or were unable to function well in ordered European society. Consequently our culture values individualism over group identity and puts individual rights on par with govt functions. That is psychologically the citizen with a rifle is felt to be equal to the govt with it's tanks & nukes.

I'll be odd with you - there are just some things Europeans and Americans will never agree on. Everytime something happens (in the US) like a shooting or and a shooting accident, most Europeans will shake their heads and say, "Crazy Americans, I don't understand how they CANNOT SEE WHY GUNS ARE BAD!" This can make many Europeans quit aggressive actually, and never want to visit overseas, because it creeps them out. I always tell them to go to New England, because no one open carries there.

I do have to add that, since I grew up in New England, guns were never a big issue - also I was too young to actually get to know the gun culture, but I as I continually learn, a child is never to young.. Anywho I was rather freaked when I saw someone in bend over and have their gun show in the supermarket in Viginia. I high tailed it out of there because GUN. My friend later explained this is pretty standard. I still to this day do not understand why someone needs to bring their gun to freaking Aldi. :ninja: Do not tell me it is because you can protect yourself and others in the slim chance some idiot goes haywire, because it will still seem extremly crazy to me.

I live in Indiana where guns are pretty normal and just recently saw someone open carrying for the first time. I'll admit it gave me pause. Concealed carry is pretty easy to get and pretty common here, and that never freaks me out but there is definitely something different about seeing the weapon.

This incident is a Darwin Award as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not comfortable with people who open carry in the grocery store. I work in a grocery store, and I get uneasy when I see somebody who just HAD to bring their weapon into Walmart. A holstered gun, fine, whatever. A gun stuffed into the back of your pants? Eeeeh....

Not gonna say or do anything about it, it's a person's right here, I just have to wonder why lol.

I haven't commented on here because this isn't a gun control debate nor am I looking to debate guns on here, but there are plenty of Americans that do not agree with gun ownership the way it is here, myself included. I don't think it's that interesting to talk about because I don't think anyone, on either side, is looking to have their opinion swayed, hence the lack of reaction.