A Tale of Two Nine-year-olds

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http://time.com/3222257/a-tale-of-two-9-year-olds-the-one-on-the-playground-and-the-one-with-an-uzi/

Time wrote:

You should be absolutely terrified that a 9-year-old’s constitutional right to fire an Uzi trumps your right to decide at what age your kids can play at the park unsupervised.

Parents who allow their 9-year-old to play unsupervised at a playground can be arrested, but handing a nine-year-old an Uzi is perfectly acceptable.

Unfortunately, that’s not hyperbole. It’s just the sad state of affairs in which we find ourselves, after a 9-year-old New Jersey girl accidentally shot and killed her instructor at a firing range in Arizona. The girl’s parents paid for her to fire a fully automatic machine gun, but she lost control of the weapon and shot her instructor, Charles Vacca, killing the military veteran.

The chilling ordeal was caught on tape, courtesy of the girl’s parents, but Arizona police officials have said no charges will be filed or arrests made. The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office concluded the incident was an “industrial accident,” and have contacted the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to investigate, according to published reports.

Let’s compare that to a story from earlier this summer, regarding a different 9-year-old, one in South Carolina.

Debra Harrell is a working mother who faces a common problem for parents when school lets out for the summer: finding affordable child care. The McDonald’s employee couldn’t afford to have someone watch her 9-year-old daughter, so the girl was playing on her laptop in the restaurant during her mother’s shifts. However, when that laptop was stolen from their home, Harrell armed her daughter with a cell phone in case of an emergency and let her go unsupervised to an area playground. Another parent noticed the girl there alone and contacted the police, at which point Harrell was arrested and charged with child neglect. If convicted, she faces up to 10 years behind bars.

Is anyone else absolutely scared to death of the horrendous message we’re sending to parents?

Comments?

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Type: Discussion • Score: 12 • Views: 5,538 • Replies: 59

Nothing but swear words at this time.

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Gun nuts are too fixated on owning weapons to worry about collateral damage.

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@Lustig Andrei,

If something happened to that girl, her Mother would live with it for the rest of her life and realise that perhaps she made an error of judgment.

But, simply because she let a 9 year old go to a park, she faces 10 years jail? That is just ridiculous. I hope people rally behind her and get the laws changed, perhaps that's what will occur as the end result.

One can only hope.

But, worse so a 9 year old may grow up on her own, without a Mother or, she has to visit her Mother in jail what sort of message does that send out. Now a child can't have a child-hood anymore.

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To me, there is something inherently wrong with a culture which criminalizes a parental judgement on when it's safe to leave a child on their own, yet condones arming that child with a lethal device, i.e. a firearm. Suppose that child had turned that Uzi on herself instead of her instructor?

It boggles the mind.

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@Lustig Andrei,

Quote:

Suppose that child had turned that Uzi on herself instead of her instructor?

They would have held the instructor liable for her death and fined him somewhere around $700,000, like they did in this case:

Quote:

The teenager who worked at a gun show where 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj accidentally killed himself while shooting an Uzi testified today he twice suggested the boy's father pick a less powerful weapon for the boy to shoot.

But Christopher's father, Dr. Charles Bizilj, insisted that his son be allowed to fire the automatic weapon, Michael Spano told the court. Spano was 15 at the time of the 2008 Massachusetts gun expo and was put in charge of allowing people to fire the 9 mm Micro Uzi, a submachine gun that fires 20 rounds a second.

Former Pelham, Mass., police chief Edward Fleury is on trial for the boy's death because he organized the gun expo. He is charged with involuntary manslaughter. He has pleaded not guilty.

The most dramatic moment of the trial came Thursday when the court watched video recorded by Charles Bizilj of the boy handling the gun. The father, who was on the stand at the time, closed his eyes as the video showed the boy struggling to handle the gun's recoil. The barrel reared up and shot the boy in the head. The court room gasped and the boy's mother left the courtroom in tears.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

The police officer had nothing to do with the boys death.....his father had everything to do with it if the teenager had discouraged that specific gun and the father turned down the advice and allowed his son to shoot that gun. The wrong person is in trial. It should be the father in this case, his responsibilities as the father is to do for his son what is best and safest for him. It is he who failed his son......shame on him! Double shame on him for putting the blame on others.

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@Lustig Andrei,

Boggle, yes, I agree.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

I think we have been in a gun-ocracy based on relatively recent supreme court decisions, and that the court directed us dead wrong.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

ossobuco wrote:

I think we have been in a gun-ocracy based on relatively recent supreme court decisions, and that the court directed us dead wrong.

Why am I unsurprised to learn that you hate our freedom? Sad

The 9/11 attackers hated our freedom too.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

I have good reasons for my views, and the 911 attackers are just some bunch of watsits.

They wouldn't hate us so much if we didn't have such fat feet.

That is rather too late now.

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@ossobuco,

Oralboy demonstrates his freedom by obediently parroting his Fox News Overlord's words and phrases.

The mother doesn't need a 10 year jail sentence she needs support.

Anyone stupid enough to give a 9 year old a loaded Uzi deserves to be shot in the head.

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@izzythepush,

Oral likes to scream out that anyone who disagrees with him hates freedom. Its good when you can make your entire position come down to some simple minded brain-dead slogan that is easy to spout .

1 Reply

My twin brother's grandson is about to turn 6. This weekend, we're taking him to HamburgerHill Kid's War Park to throw live grenades. He is stoked!

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Oral likes to scream out that anyone who disagrees with him hates freedom.

Untrue. Accusations of freedom hating come into play only when someone advocates abolishing civil rights.

I do indeed disagree with abolishing civil rights. However, from time to time I also disagree with people on matters other than civil rights.

farmerman wrote:

Its good when you can make your entire position come down to some simple minded brain-dead slogan that is easy to spout.

That depends.

If a slogan is 100% true, then yes. It is good.

If not 100% true though, then no. That's not so good.

Luckily it is 100% true that gun control advocates hate our freedom, and hate it just as much as the 9/11 attackers did.

It really puts gun control in the proper perspective.

2 Replies

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

Luckily it is 100% true that gun control advocates hate our freedom, and hate it just as much as the 9/11 attackers did.

It really puts gun control in the proper perspective.

Horse puckies!

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@Lustig Andrei,

a simple minded slogan easily leads the weakest minds. Oral fits the species definition . He is easily sucked up by simple minded blabber

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Now, there's a dilly of a formulation. It's really so obvious that it almost doesn't need expression.

Half or more than half of Americans just hate America's freedoms (and therefore are exactly the same as the people who brought about 9/11). http://www.pewresearch.org/data-trend/domestic-issues/gun-control/

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

Lustig Andrei wrote:

oralloy wrote:
Luckily it is 100% true that gun control advocates hate our freedom, and hate it just as much as the 9/11 attackers did.
It really puts gun control in the proper perspective.

Horse puckies!

The opposition to America's freedom and civil rights is unfortunately quite real.

The gun control movement hates our freedom with a passion rivaling that of ISIL.

1 Reply

@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Now, there's a dilly of a formulation. It's really so obvious that it almost doesn't need expression.
Half or more than half of Americans just hate America's freedoms (and therefore are exactly the same as the people who brought about 9/11). http://www.pewresearch.org/data-trend/domestic-issues/gun-control/

It's horrible to even contemplate.

Thankfully we have the NRA to save us.

0 Replies

A Tale of Two Nine-year-olds

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