Letting the kid shoot a FA UZI may or may not have been a good idea
how could this be a good idea???????? explain that to everyone.
If the child had been fully supervised, as he should have been, and had it been determined that he could sufficiently hold the firearm with assistance from the range officer, then there is nothing wrong in allowing him to shoot this firearm; and it would have been good and fun shooting experience for the boy. What more of an explanation do you need than had it been done correctly it would have been good in that it would have been a firearms learning experience and would have been fun.
As it turned out, it was not a good experience, not because the child was allowed to shoot the firearm in question, but apparently because of absolutely poor supervision of him while doing so. The fact of the matter is that in all likelihood it would take several rounds from a full auto burst to have been fired before the gun could have risen up and turned on the shooter allowing for him to be injured. All an attentive firearms instructor or range officer would have had to have done would have been to grab hold of the weapon, or even simply push it down, as it rose up. The instructor should have been anticipating the need to have done so.
The range officer/instructor should have had all of his attention on this particular child, and the ratio of instructors to children shooters, in a situation like that, should have been 1 to 1. Any time there is a special set of circumstances the ratio of shooters to instructors should be adjusted. In my professional opinion, it should never be more than 5 or 6 shooters to 1 range officer/instructor; and for special shooting or training it should be reduced to 2 to 1 or 1 to 1 as needed. In a case like this - definitely 1 to 1.
Other considerations should have been thought of beforehand. For example the child should have been allowed to fire the same firearm or same type of firearm in single shot mode to see how well he did, and to give him an idea of the recoil for just a single shot. An explanation of how the weapon would recoil should also have been given to the boy, and he should have been instructed as to what he would need to have done to compensate for it.
While it is possible these things were done, I find it hard to believe that the instructor was being as attentive to this child as he should have been, but that is my personal opinion based upon the little I read in the story. I would like to see all of the facts about the shooting, but my bet is they will be a long time coming.
If I remember right, someone above in essence questioned us discussing this issue or pointing blame at those involved (I think venting anger was the term used). While it may not be wise to vent anger in a discussion like this, there can be a lot of good that comes about because of a discussion about such an incident.
One of the reasons it is good to discuss things like this is because we can learn from others regarding how to teach and supervise children when they are handling firearms.
All the best,
Glenn B
