ok here's a tough one ..

[frenchy]

i'm sure we'll be all over the map on this one . and this is america so we're all allowed to have an opinion .. and nobodies is more important than anyone elses .. so play nice ..

it seems that a 9 year old girl was taken to a gun range in arizona .. ( she was from jersey ) and was bein taught how to fire a gun .. from what i understand it was her first time .. and the gun was an uzi which is a small automatic weapon .. well she was 9 and the gun had a bit of a kick to it and once fired it got away from her and she shot the instructor in the head by accident and killed him .. she isn't gonna be charged with anything and i don't think she should be unless she did it on purpose which she didn't ..

so my question of the day here is do you think kids that young should be allowed to handle firearms with the proper instruction ?? far as i know its the only fatality by someone so young WITH AN INSTRUCTOR ..  we all know about them sad stories about kids shootin guns by mistake and killin themselves or siblings or friends cause they don't know anything at all about guns .. seein as we're not gonna get rid of guns anytime soon would you rather kids be educated about guns or just not even talk to them about them ?? you also have to consider that a lot of the accidents happen at a friends house and most people never ask do you have loaded guns at your house that my kids or your kids could get into ?? i know this is a hard question .. i'd rather educate them .. that in itself will never remove all the risk of guns in the home but it may cut down the amount of accidental shootins by kids by a good percentage .. what do you think ?? if you think not all i'll say is dick chenney who is probably one of the most pro gun owners shot someone goin duck huntin .. so if kids are too young to be educated and handle firearms ( with the proper instuction ) then we'd have to say that vice presidents shouldn't be able to either .. ok maybe thats goin a little too far to make my point .. but he did shoot someone in the face .. 

[P.A.]

I learned to shoot a 22 caliber rifle when I was pretty young, Maybe eight or nine. My father taught me. I don't see anything wrong with that. However it was a single shot 22 not a Uzi. That was just wrong and very poorly thought out. I think the parents and the gun range should be held accountable.

[crestofwaves]

I have no problem with kids learning to shoot.  I watched a little girl in a competition on one of those FB videos, and she was amazing, but from what I hear, it was the kickback from the UZI that made her lose control.  The weight and strength of the child has to be taken into consideration, and it doesn't seem to have been in this case.

I want a gun. My husband said I need to start with a 22 until I learn what I'm doing.

[dwalt]

I have always been around guns.  I collect them now.  That being said you don't start out with an uzi at nine years old. Geez, if blame has to be placed I blame the instructor as well. I can't even imagine what the hell they all were thinking.

[T2Friends]

I don't understand why her parents wanted her to learn how to handle an uzi, but apparently they did.  I assume the instructor was well versed in the weapon and knew the dangers.  I suspect that the instructor was not following the most prudent training protocols, but I don't know that.  The fact is accident happen and they can be tragic.  This was tragic.  This little girl will have to grow up knowing she has killed a man.  I hope her training was worth that kind of heart ache that I suspect will effect her for the rest of her life.  

[Lifesighs]

I thought the young girl winning awards for shooting assault weapons and I think anyone involved with trying to encourage young girls or boys to shoot these weapons are a little nutty. The instructor paid dearly for his being involved, all of them should have known better. The instructors and the parents. Thinning the herd.

[P.A.]

You are right Chief. No one out side the military has any use for fully automatic guns. They are only good for killing people. You can't really hunt with them. If only the NRA would return to its roots and stop being a mouth piece for gun manufactures.

[Lifesighs]

The Herd to me is people who do these irresponsible things like give military grade weapons to young children. The brain is there to be used and not enough people are using theirs.

[Snagg]

First gun I ever fired was a ten-gauge shotgun that weighed about thirty pounds. I was six years old, for chrissakes - My dad and uncle thought it would be "funny" to have a little kid who could barely pick the damn thing up, take a shot at a target. So they set me up with an old, empty, five-gallon Mobil Oil can about twenty feet away, and jeered and yelled at me until I managed to lift the shotgun long enough to sight the can and pull the trigger. The kick dislocated my shoulder and knocked me flat on my back.  I had to be taken to a hospital to have my shoulder popped back into placet - But I bullseyed the can. Blew it to shreds, and that was all they cared about - They  slapped me on the back for a month afterwards. All I thought was that if this macho bullshit was "gun culture", they could f*ckin' keep it.

[Shadowman]

I too used guns and hunted at a very, very young age and I still hunt deer. However, it perhaps says something about where our culture has come to be when even the children are enculturated to take pleasure in using things designed to kill. A very sad story.

[frenchy]

well my 2 cents is this , a lot of people think that gun ownership is for huntin .. and it is .. but the way the constitution was written the right to bear arms was put in there to be able to oppose an oppressive government .. now it doesn't say anything at all about automatic weapons and thats the fly in the ointment because we have to try to take what was written over 200 years ago and try to apply it to today .. we have plenty of laws like that where technology has outpaced the way they were originally written .. should we scrap the constitution and rewright the whole thing ?? to me thats a scary idea .. i'm not crazy about a bunch of yahoo cowboys armed to the teeth with automatic weapons runnin loose around the neighborhood after a family barbque with 9 kegs of beer .. but i'm also not crazy about a gubment who can do whatever they please with not a hint of resistance because we don't have any weapons to oppose them .. if you think it can't happen then read up on nazi germany and get back to me . in the meantime we have weapons here in the usa .. always have from the time the pilgrims landed and i don't see that changin .. if it does then again read up on nazi germany and get back to me .. but by then we'll be in a shitload of trouble .. now i don't believe that everybody should go around packin where ever they go . but in your own home i see no reason not to own a gun when you consider what can happen if someone should break in .. because if it does happen the police can't and won't save you .. and thats a statistic you can look up .. they'll be there to write up the paperwork afterwards and do an investigation .. so with all that in mind ownin a gun and knowin how to use it properly could possibly save your life one day .. and while i don't condone parents pushin their kids into gun totin before they're ready i do condone parents and elders , and teachers at least instructin kids about the hazzards of guns if they're used in the wrong ways , and not to play with them .. EVER ..  cause they're not toys .. and should never be portrayed in that manner .. EVER .. there are millions of responsible gun owners in the usa , just like there are millions of responsible drivers , but sadly there are a small number of irresponsible gun owners and drivers and those few cast a giant shadow over the responsible majority .. and you can't do away with cars because some hot head got a serious case of road rage and endangered everybody on route 80 .. the same applies to guns .. i know for some its an uneasy alliance , but its an alliance thats kept this country free for over 200 years .. some will try to argue it had nothin to do with guns but i'd have to disagree .. over 200 years and still free .. why mess with success ?? 

[P.A.]

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state the right of the "people" to keep and bare arms shall not be infringed. Yes I know the second amendment by heart. What part of "a well regulated militia" do people not understand. When this was written in 1791 there were only mussel loading single shot muskets. Which by the way were kept in a public magazine which was always guarded. The use of the term "the people" which is plural points to keeping weapons of war in a guarded magazine for use if needed, not carried around all of the time.
People were free to have hunting guns at home or with them. This was protected by the 9th amendment not the second. James Madison was a brilliant man but he could not see 200 years into the future but people today should be able to look back and see what was intended.

[grammyk]

Thank you, P.A.!  Great post!  A well-regulated militia does not equal allowing anybody who wants to to carry and use an automatic weapon.  In my opinion, anyway, which is pretty much meaningless overall!