The boy lost control of the weapon while firing it Sunday at the Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman's Club, Police Lt. Lawrence Valliere said.
The boy was with a certified instructor and "was shooting the weapon down range when the force of the weapon made it travel up and back toward his head, where he suffered the injury," a police statement said. Police called it a "self-inflicted accidental shooting."
The victim was taken to Baystate Medical Center where he died. His name was not released.
Although the death appears to be an accident, police and the Hampden district attorney's office were investigating, officials said.
The club said on its Web site that the event, run in conjunction with C.O.P. Firearms and Training, is "all legal and fun." People will be allowed to fire weapons at vehicles, pumpkins and other targets, it said.
And gun advocates wonder why they end up looking like nutjobs by association.
Well, this right here is the explanation.
How does a parent react to this? There would have to be a lot of soul searching after that.
Reality check!
Reality check!
In 2000, chidren (ages 0 to eighteen in the USA died accidentally from the following cases:
6,466 in motor vehicle accidents.....which includes ATVs, etc....
1946 in fires
1236 drownings, of which 40% happened in pools!!!!! That is almost 500 pool drownings.
842 were accidentally suffocated
174 were accidentally shot to death.
An American child is 3x more apt to drown in a pool than to be shot dead accidentally. Believe me, there are one hell of a lot more guns than pools in the USA......which makes pools a lot more dangerous, for accidental death.
I think you need to do a reality check. No one is talking about children and accidental gun deaths. We're talking about the absurdity of THIS CHILD, and no matter how much more dangerous pools are than guns (because most homes don't have uzis in them), THIS was beyond moronic Colpy.
Karrie, you need the reality check. Don't blame the kid. The parents, the gun owner are the ones responsible. Also the yankee gun mentality.
NO ONE NEEDS AN UZI.......
Sorry Risus, I wasn't blaming the child, I was saying 'the absurdity of what happened with this child'. I fully blame any adult who would hand an uzi to a kid.
I think you need to do a reality check. No one is talking about children and accidental gun deaths. We're talking about the absurdity of what happened to THIS CHILD, and no matter how much more dangerous pools are than guns (because most homes don't have uzis in them), THIS was beyond moronic Colpy.
An American child is 3x more apt to drown in a pool than to be shot dead accidentally. Believe me, there are one hell of a lot more guns than pools in the USA......which makes pools a lot more dangerous, for accidental death.
so this tragedy is the equivalent of throwing a small child in a pool to teach them to swim in your analogy?
BTW been reading Peter Worthington's biography.......he was raised on army bases.....where the troops used to regularly him fire the Vickers MGs.....when he was four.
Once again, I am NOT advocating handing SMGs to 8 year old kids.....just pointing out that accidental death of a child by firearm is a rare occurance, even in Gun Land.
and back then beating your child with a belt/stick/whatever was handy and/or back handing them was A-OK.
my parents used the belt when I was a kid. the key is to not use it in anger, and know when it's no longer necessary.
... sorry, couldn't resist.and judging from your avatar, they lacked that discretion...
and this was an "accidental" death that was fully preventable if the adults had used even the minutest amount of common sense.
Reality check!
In 2000, chidren (ages 0 to eighteen in the USA died accidentally from the following cases:
6,466 in motor vehicle accidents.....which includes ATVs, etc....
1946 in fires
1236 drownings, of which 40% happened in pools!!!!! That is almost 500 pool drownings.
842 were accidentally suffocated
174 were accidentally shot to death.
An American child is 3x more apt to drown in a pool than to be shot dead accidentally. Believe me, there are one hell of a lot more guns than pools in the USA......which makes pools a lot more dangerous, for accidental death.
Colpy, I don't believe people give a rats *** about pools.... pools are usually used on an everyday basis, therefore the chances of death increase...... if kids were given firearms to accidentally blow brain chunks all over the walls on a daily basis as using the pool, then you'd see those number rise a hell of a lot more.
The issue isn't about pools or cars or any other method you wish to attempt to trivialize this situation.
The issue is about these inbred retards handing an 8 year old kid a sub-machine gun to fire on his own. Any moron who's ever handled a firearm would or should know that a kid of that age and of that size/strength will not have the ability to control that firearm after the first shot...... it will gain momentum upward for every shot fired, and if the kid doesn't have control over the firearm, it's gonna spin upward and do exactly what just happened.
You can list off all the damn statistical numbers you want.... it does nothing for correcting the problem so this doesn't happen again.....
174 accidentally shot are 174 too many that all of them probably could have been prevented if those owning those firearms had a damn brain between them.