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Bullets and Burgers Instructor Killed

15K views 124 replies 88 participants last post by  guy sajer 
#1 ·
#3 ·
Depends on the kid. I would, and have, kept my hands on the gun when doing something like this.

Sorry to hear about this unfortunate situation.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Uzi would be with proper training. Thompsons tend to lift the muzzle on everyone in the beginning. I don't know about a 9 yo. That's pretty young. Sounds like the automatic fire caused her to lose control. An Uzi will jump like any gun if you don't hold on.

I agree the instr probably should have had hands on the gun, but the girl had apparently been shooting it SA before.

Sad situation for both. I've always heard good things about B&B.

I just had a 13 yo attend a ccw class with his father. His gun safety was exemplary. He's the youngest I've trained. (Note, obviously he wasn't actually getting a ccw.). I get adults in ccw classes who assure me they trained Audy Murphy and I don't dare blink when they have a gun in hand.

Our gun club allows 12 and above to shoot with a parent present. Under 12 cannot be on the firing line.
 
#8 ·
A 9 year-old girl should not be shooting a full-auto weapon unless it's a .22 rimfire. The article said she did okay with it on semi but lost control of it as soon as she fired it on full. Thanks to the poor judgement of a few adults that poor girl is going to have to grow up knowing that she killed somebody, and live with it for the rest of her life.
 
#9 ·
I was 11 before I fired my first .22 LR single shot dropping block rifle at a summer camp.

9 is is young, but for a full auto NFA centerfire firearm? Way too young unless that barrel is mounted so it can face forward only. I have seen some full auto guns mounted so they are motion restricted and cannot be turned from side to side. When I first saw it, I thought it was because they didn't trust their customers not to massacre the crowd at the range but in reality, full auto guns can be very dangerous in the hands of petite people with no prior firearms experience.
 
#12 ·
If 9 is too young, is 12...? 16....? 18....? Its difficult to arbitrarily assign a number to something like this. There's too many individual variables.

That said, if I were running a business that rented FA, 14-16 would probably be my cutoff for walk ins. The kids of regulars that had some baseline experience would be on a case by case basis, based on my assessment of their ability.
 
#25 ·
If 9 is too young, is 12...? 16....? 18....? Its difficult to arbitrarily assign a number to something like this. There's too many individual variables.
If someone is too small and weak to hold the weapon steady and keep it under control then they're too young. Yes there are 10 year-old boys the size of men these days, but a business like this needs to have an arbitrary minimum age requirement.
 
#13 ·
Very sad, but someone showed an incredible lack wisdom in letting a 9 year old handle that weapon. Even at 16 a safety officer should have been right on top of the shooter and with only 3 or 4 rounds in the mag. I've put 100's of thousands of rounds down range with an uzi and they are very manageable, but for a 9 year old, that should have been out of the question.
 
#45 · (Edited)
Very sad, but someone showed an incredible lack wisdom in letting a 9 year old handle that weapon. Even at 16 a safety officer should have been right on top of the shooter and with only 3 or 4 rounds in the mag. I've put 100's of thousands of rounds down range with an uzi and they are very manageable, but for a 9 year old, that should have been out of the question.
Best post so far, but I also fail to see the point in letting children shoot FA weapons. Sure, with training a 5-yr old can be taught how to do it, I just think such things should be saved for when they are much more mature. I have taught a lot of kids to shoot a S/A shotgun and they went at least a few sessions before I even put a second round in the gun.
 
#14 · (Edited)
"Full auto fire from any rifle or SMG requires a combination of concentration, technique, and some strength. It is easy to lose control the gun can easily push you back and up."

So true. Years back at a Gunsite Alumni Shoot they set up a side-range and for the cost of a box of ammo you could shoot a full auto UZI or MP5. My 5' 7" 135lb wife, an alumni member (pistol class) wanted to shoot an UZI. The safety instructor gave her a short operation/safety brief, including instructing her to fire in bursts...press and release the trigger multiple times while sighting on the target. (Anyone see where this is going...).

Well, she pulled the trigger, became excited due to being the first time she ever fired a full-auto firearm, froze and held it back until the magazine was empty and the UZI barrel went from sighted in on target to directly over her head. The safety instructor was prepared for this. He had stood almost directly behind her and when he saw the UZI start climbing he placed both hands on her shoulders and held her standing in-place, facing downrange, until she ran out of ammo.

The other assistant instructors (2) were standing behind them, about 7 yards, in front of a pickup truck that they had driven to the range. By the time my wife had stopped shooting (ran out of ammo) they both had "quickly" moved behind the pickup.

And where was I ? Standing about 5 yds to the right, a couple of yards behind the line of fire, with camera in hand. I saw it all begin/happen as if in slow motion. By the time she ran out of ammo I was lying on the ground having thrown myself back and to my left. Needless to say there is no photo capturing this moment.

regards
 
#16 · (Edited)
It's unfathomable what people do, and allow to be done, with firearms. This was extremely irresponsible. Say what you will, but we, as firearm owners, users, trainers, competitors, must show good judgement at all times. We must hold ourselves to a very high standard, and this is regardless of the fact that we live in a society that, in my opinion, already looks upon us with suspicion in the best of cases, and disdain otherwise. To hand a sub-gun, set to F/A, to a 9yo is not something I would ever consider. This is beyond tragic for all involved. But, as typical for firearms incidents, it could have been so easily avoided.
 
#22 ·
Whoever put that weapon in the hands of a 9 year old needs to be prosecuted and sued civilly. What were they trying to prove doing that anyway? Did she flap her eyelashes at her uncle or something?
The person who put the weapon in her hand, and failed to perform his job properly, is dead. So his family sues his estate, and they prosecute a dead man...?
 
#21 ·
While I have full sympathy for the situation, if the instructor was standing next to her, should he not depressed the muzzle of the uzi/
 
#27 ·
We had a civilian rangemaster at our PD, that managed to lose control of a MAC-10 during a test fire, and "shot himself dead" on the spot. He had a fully loaded mag for a test fire-first mistake. When it had a stoppage, he tried to clear the stoppage without first clearing the SMG. It slam fired(which sub guns are supposed to do) and shot him in the head. He was an "expert". At least that's what everyone at the funeral kept saying. If I ever accidently kill myself with a firearm, I have left specific instructions for my friends to not use the word "expert" and firearm in the same sentence.
 
#28 ·
Very sad. Under that circumstance the weapon should be statically mounted or secured in such a manner to minimize x/y movement. Beyond my imagination how a small kid / adult can be handed a fully automatic weapon. Perhaps burst limiters. Depending on the model/version it has a sustained rate of fire anywhere between about 600 - 1300 rpm. Even with an instructor hovering over the little girl any bystander within range would have been at peril. Just damn stupid if it went down as written in the article.
 
#30 ·
I'm sure the shooter was trying to control the climb.

All thumbs and fingers are tightly grasping the weapon in a death grip...including the trigger finger.

It was doomed to fire till empty.
 
#32 ·
Having taught my two sons and one daughter how to shoot from age eight onwards I never put a firearm in their hands that they could turn around (point it at themselves) and pull the trigger, seemed to me a basic premise of safety any parent would exercise with their loved ones.
Allowing children full auto is irresponsible.
Last year or maybe two years ago there was an incident with an uzzi where a boy managed to shoot and kill himself, that story really got to me, this latest incident doesn't surprise me, shocking as it is.
Maybe not allowing children to shoot full auto guns would be a good idea and not violate our precious 2nd admendment rights.
 
#33 ·
oldtimer4440

This is a tragedy, but the child is the loser aside from the instructor that was killed. The age is a moot point at this stage though. I was taught to shoot by my grandfather when I was six years old, and was hunting by my self at the age of eight. As with everything he taught me, he drilled into me the fact that each action you take carries responsibilities. When I hired on to a police department, my son was four years old, and fascinated with my service revolver. The department advocated unloading your service weapon, locking it and the ammo in separate secure areas. Since an unloaded handgun is a poor club, I decided to gun proof my son. I took him to the desert, got him close enough to a jackrabbit to assist him by holding on to his hands and the revolver from behind, and shot the jack. As he was standing there with eyes the size of saucers looking at the dead rabbit, he got the same lecture that my grandfather gave me, and was told that the same thing could happen to a person that was shot. Once the primer fires, there is no calling the bullet back, and he should never accept a gun from anyone except me, and never pick up one himself. He was raised around loaded handguns, and taught his sons the same lesson, and they were raised with loaded weapons. There has never been an accidental shooting, and no accidental discharges. They were however only given guns of a caliber appropriate to their age, and given only the trust they had earned.
 
#35 ·
My first thought was: 2 times this has happened with kids and full auto Uzi's. My second thought when they said it was an instructor, was; where did he get his certification, and how much experience did he have? Now I read that this is a place called "Bullets and Burgers", and they rent out fully automatic and unusual firearms. I am getting a picture of a combination of the County Fair shooting gallery, and McDonalds. There is something seriously wrong here. I feel sorry for both the instructor's death, and the 9 year old.
 
#37 ·
I was training with a .22 at the age of 5 and walking 240 acres alone hunting rabbits at 6. For my 2 cents, no way a 9 year old shoot full auto anything and no way she'd be alone with a loaded weapon. Without all of the details, it's hard to say but the instructor had a fail in most every situation.

I feel for the kid too. You know she went back to school and someone nicknamed her killer. She'll live with this all of her life but at her age, she might be able to deal with it by the time she's an adult. I hope so anyway. Tragic accident and maybe an epic fail.
 
#56 ·
I would guess that our G&F dept here says 12 yrs.old "With Adult Supervision" to hunt, and I think it's 16 to hunt alone. And in both instances, a hunter SAFETY course is required. There is no way in heck, I'd put a "Full Auto" anything in my granddaughter's hands at that age, instructor or no instructor. The girl has to live with it, and so does whomever's stupid idea it was The parent or grandparent.
 
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