Is this the ultimate gun-fail?
Charles Vacca was a shooting instructorin Nevada who was teaching a 9 year-old girl on vacation from New Jersey how to shoot an UZI.... yeah, an UZI.
For those of you not familiar with the UZI, here's what it looks like:
Yeah, a pretty nasty piece of work, developed in the 1950's for use by the Israeli Army... ummm, I mean the Israeli DEFENSE Force, because hey, the word 'army' has bad connotations, but I digress. It's not an 'assault weapon' because of its small size and limited range, but as a personal or point defense tool it's pretty handy because of its small size and ability to spit out rounds (600 per minute, that's 10 per second!). The US Secret Service uses (or used) the UZI. Here's my favorite UZI picture:
The girl did so well in 'single shot' mode (one bullet per trigger pull) that Mr. Vacca, presumably using all of his vast experience in teaching young girls how to shoot full-automatic military weapons, had her flip the selector to 'full-auto' and pull the trigger while he stood to the left of her.... and guess what happened?
Yeah, you're right.... the poor girl lost control of the UZI, sprayed bullets to her left and one struck the 'instructor', killing him.
I have nothing but sympathy for the girl. This is not even remotely her fault, and I hope she gets the extensive counseling she needs to recover from this trauma.
The 'instructor' I have no sympathy for. Simply put, he got what he deserved.* I'll nominate him for the 'Darwin Award of the Year'.
The girl's parents? I'm not a violent man... never even spanked my kids.... but people who are this stupid and unable to reason need something akin to horse-whipping. The entire 'what were they thinking' category of questions is wasted on these two, because quite simply, they weren't.
But hey, we're talking 'second amendment' here, right?
Cheers.
***UPDATE:
I appreciate all the comments and the discussion that this diary has started - even those by rduran. I read all that I could, and have been thinking about the part where I wrote the instructor 'got what he deserved'.
I think the best comment I've read was by 'Colorado is the Shiznit':
I'm really not thinking that the instructor deserved to die.
Was he a stupid motherfucker? Oh HELL yes. Did he exhibit hideous thinking and behavior that caused his own death? Oh sure, absolutely, you bet yer ass he did. Was he more concerned about himself than he was about this 9-year-old child? Of course he was, and the man was just this side of a jackass. Uncontested.
But did he deserve to die?
Outside the bounds of civilization, where we encounter brutal dictators and serial killers and people who do absolutely horrific things to animals and children, THEN! Then.
Then I would agree with you. When the death of a human being is actually better then having them with the rest of the human beings on this earth, that is when you'll have my tacit approval to ever say such a thing.
And, even then, only grudgingly.
When I read that, it hit me: I don't believe in the death penalty - for any reason - so why in the world was I loudly proclaiming that this shooting instructor deserved his own version of a 'death penalty'?
And I can't defend that line of reasoning, so I retract that statement.
I'm not quite sure what the instructor deserved... a bullet-grazed temple? a couple of near misses? a conviction for reckless endangerment?
What would have happened to him if the girl shot herself? Her parents? A few of the other shooters on the range?
I'm still conflicted on this one, and I appreciate all the thoughtful comments. I know this diary is incendiary, and that was the purpose of it - to get people to think, and to point out the absolute stupidity not only of some people, but of the laws in this country that don't even TRY to stop this kind of behavior.
But seriously, people, not even a single comment about the blatantly sexist Israeli babe with the UZI?
And, yes, the gun picture appears to be an air-powered version of a mini-or-micro-UZI. Kudos to the eagle-eyed readers who pointed that out.
I don't know if I should be down on myself for not knowing the difference.
Cheers.