Kid Shoots Himslef With Uzi At Gun Fair.

jp_bl_68 · 10 Jan 2011 at 00:48

JBuk said:
but the ultimate decision is with the supervisor imo

No, it's with the parents. Ultimately the father is responsible for the safety of his child, not some guy working at a fair.

bad judgement all round

Agreed.

JBuk · 10 Jan 2011 at 01:07

jp_bl_68 said:
No, it's with the parents. Ultimately the father is responsible for the safety of his child, not some guy working at a fair.

.

I disagree for the reason in the below quotes (Bizilj is the father)

Prosecutors have said that Charles Bizilj was not charged because he was a layman and based his decision to allow his sons to fire the gun on information from others who should have known it was too dangerous

He said (Bizilj) that from reading the flier for the machine gun shoot and talking with friends, he thought the event would be safe and well-supervised.

it's not just dangerous but also against the law to give a machine gun to a minor

District Attorney William Bennett said:
Under Massachusetts law, children can fire a weapon if they are supervised by a licensed instructor and have consent from a parent or legal guardian. But the law bars the furnishing of machine guns to minors regardless of whether parents consent

Two men who supplied the machine guns for the event, Carl Giuffre and Domenico Spano, both of Connecticut, had conducted the same gun shoot at the Westfield club for seven years without incident. They have pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and are awaiting trial

silversurfer · 10 Jan 2011 at 01:37

More parent wisdom

spleenharvester · 10 Jan 2011 at 02:11

Not the fault of the gun though IMO.

jp_bl_68 · 10 Jan 2011 at 03:36

JBuk said:
I disagree for the reason in the below quotes (Bizilj is the father)

Prosecutors have said that Charles Bizilj was not charged because he was a layman and based his decision to allow his sons to fire the gun on information from others who should have known it was too dangerous

Click to expand...

Even a layman knows that a gun is dangerous. particularly in the hands of someone who doesn't know what they're doing.

The video shows the child unable to control the machine gun's violent recoil. The father should've put a stop to this then and there.

I don't deny that the organisers were partly responsible but let's not forget that the father is partly to blame too.

Vonhelmet · 10 Jan 2011 at 07:09

What about the occasions in this country where kids have died doing adventure holiday activities - rock climbing and what have you. Those activities are dangerous, yes, but the parents put their trust in the instructors to know what they're doing and to take the necessary precautions.

jp_bl_68 · 10 Jan 2011 at 09:24

But there will always be an element of risk. It's up to the parents to decide whether or not they want to expose their children to that kind of risk.

As I've already said, you can see the child is struggling to control the gun yet the father decides to allow his son to continue shooting. Imagine if he'd taken his child to the swimming pool and saw that his son was struggling to stay afloat yet the life guards seemed unconcerned by this. Would he have been right to trust the "expertise" of the life guards or would it have made more sense for him to intervene and assist his son?

It feels like this argument is beginning to circle. Might just have to agree to disagree.

Vonhelmet · 10 Jan 2011 at 10:43

jp_bl_68 said:
But there will always be an element of risk. It's up to the parents to decide whether or not they want to expose their children to that kind of risk.

The risk is supposed to be mitigated by the expertise of the instructors.

jp_bl_68 said:
As I've already said, you can see the child is struggling to control the gun yet the father decides to allow his son to continue shooting. Imagine if he'd taken his child to the swimming pool and saw that his son was struggling to stay afloat yet the life guards seemed unconcerned by this. Would he have been right to trust the "expertise" of the life guards or would it have made more sense for him to intervene and assist his son?

It depends on his knowledge of guns and swimming. It's a lot easier to identify the risk of not being able to swim than to spot that someone experience recoil from a weapon might accidentally shoot themselves in the face, especially if you are good at swimming, which most of us are, but not good at shooting guns, which most of us aren't.

jp_bl_68 said:
It feels like this argument is beginning to circle. Might just have to agree to disagree.

Maybe... and let the court decide.