Video of tragic accident

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There's a difference here...

... between MORAL responsibility (which parents almost always have, unless they had no possible control over an outcome) and LEGAL responsibility, which does concern itself with things like knowledge, training, etc.

The father bears moral culpability, and used very poor judgment.

But how many posters here have wanted to get their wife or mother a snubby .38, because the little gun would be the right size for her?

Most of us realize snubbies kick more, and are harder to shoot, and don't make good beginner's guns. Joe Public out there has no clue.

So it's no surprise to me that the father would think the smallest Uzi would be most controllable. That in itself tells me he was NOT a gun guy, and did not really have a clue.
 
Simply another case of an 'unknowing' parent, who fails to pull his head out of his dark side to use what is becoming uncommon sense, because he 'knows that someone else is in charge and responsible' if something bad should happen. Always somebody else's fault. This is the America that we live in today.
sixgun
 
I would equate this to putting your kid on an amusement park ride.

Do you KNOW that it's safe? Unless you're an inspector, you don't KNOW. You TRUST that both the ride inspector and the person in charge (likely a teenager making minimum wage) both know what's safe and not and what to do and not to do.

When children get hurt and killed on an amusement ride, is it their parents fault? No, it's not, unless their parents are knowledgeable about the rides and no what makes them safe and not safe.

If you're a parent that knows NOTHING about firearms, and there are far, far more of "them" than there are "us", you have the EXACT same situation. They don't know. They have to assume that the experts and those in charge DO know.

That makes those in charge responsible.
 
Haven't we all been taught to never 'assume'? If in doubt, any doubt, use your head and ask questions. I do not assume. In many cases, those with limited or no knowledge of guns, fear them. With that said, if dad has a lack of knowledge and/or fears it, his first response is to hand a loaded gun to an 8 year old? In my head it boils down to dad's responsibility. He is the one who could've said no for any reason whatsoever. If dad was dealing with a 15yo at the booth, just what little voice in dad's head said that he could trust another KID?
As an aside, whenever there are people that bring loaded weapons or have ND's during a show, do they immediately blame the show officials? I'm sure some will immediately go for the throat, but I've not seen that, I've seen only the party involved being held accountable.
I just wish that the majority of citizens didn't feel all warm and fuzzy that wherever they go or whatever they do, somebody else will be there to protect them from their own decisions and actions.

If you've never used/had knowledge of a scalpel, would you assume that someone else has made it safe for you, so that you can hand it to your 8 year old?
sixgun
 
I got news for you, good parents do that every day. Your kids are at school where their safety is now the responsibility of the school.
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True that but even in this day and age there is less gunfire at schools than at gun ranges so yours is kind of a moot point. Were talking about the kid at a machine gun shoot, an 8 yr old. WHat kind of dad hands an 8 yr old a MG and walks away?

SOme things are more dangerous than others so parents make decisions based on perceived potentials. Sorry, but dad gets no free ride on this one. Why was he out of reach of the boy? He could have been there, he was not standing there waiting while his boy rode a roller coaster...:rolleyes:
 
Haven't seen the video...

... and the articles I read about the incident last year never said how far the father was from the child when this happened.

For that matter, they didn't indicate how the lanes were being run. It's possible the father wouldn't have been allowed to stand over his son. Then again, it's possible he was standing there. Or that the instructor was standing right there.

How long would it take for the recoil and the child's reaction to rotate that muzzle? How fast would the person standing there have to be?

(Which is why I think a tether or mechanical limiter would have been a good idea, if somebody wanted to set up the display for newbies, especially smaller ones.)

Note: The DA opted to charge the exhibitor, the father didn't.

Note: This could have been any number of other situations. A biplane ride, but the rear safety harness didn't snug down enough; a SCUBA lesson, but the instructor lost track of a kid; a ski lesson, but the kid went off a ledge; etc.

IE, there are all sorts of comparable scenarios where the father would expect the pilot, SCUBA instructor, or ski instructor to be able to provide and assure a safe environment. I suspect some of the TFLers calling for the father's head now, because we know it was stupid to hand the kid that Uzi, might be a bit less prone to yell at the father who let a pilot strap his child into a Stearman, or who let his kid ride the chairlift with the ski class.
 
I don't think this was "set up" for a kid to shoot a full auto under any circumstances, this slipped through the crack when the father was able to override and intimidate the young range supervisor. My guess is that any adult would have stuck to the original refusal to let an 8 year old shoot and not been impressed with the father's wish to have a little kid shoot.

It's really unfortunate when the intended mechanism is flawed by an authority figure who wasn't old enough to pull off the intended safeguard.

My nephew got killed because my cousin lost the ability to exert parental control of her own kid, as far as I'm concerned she facilitated his death because it wouldn't have happened on my watch.

If that were my kid same deal, that kid would be alive. And I have a very difficult time drumming up any sympathy for the father, my heart goes out to the rest of the boy's family though that they are saddled with an alive idiot.

In a position of public exposure to anything it can be very hard to idiot proof everything. People will find a way to do something so unbelievably stupid that it defies belief.

I do agree with MLeake as to the overall responsibility issues of the event organizer, but that is who I sympathize with, the guy's life gets turned upside down because of a momentary lapse created by a guy who can't use common sense.
 
If that were my kid same deal, that kid would be alive. And I have a very difficult time drumming up any sympathy for the father, my heart goes out to the rest of the boy's family though that they are saddled with an alive idiot.

In a position of public exposure to anything it can be very hard to idiot proof everything. People will find a way to do something so unbelievably stupid that it defies belief.

I do agree with MLeake as to the overall responsibility issues of the event organizer, but that is who I sympathize with, the guy's life gets turned upside down because of a momentary lapse created by a guy who can't use common sense.
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These are my thoughts also, with my own emphasis added.
sixgun
 
I got news for you, good parents do that every day. Your kids are at school where their safety is now the responsibility of the school. They go to the doctor. My son was less than 4 moths old when he was hospitalized for borderline pneumonia and I wasn't even allowed in the hospital near him because of my own health issues which laid me up.

There are NRA sponsored shooting clinics for children run near me where you entrust your child to the instructor.

This was the chief of police taking responsibility for assuring a safe environment for a child to handle a gun. He had the defacto title of expert and 99% of the public, most of which never handle guns, legitimately accept that.

You cannot ALWAYS be solely responsible for your child's safety. It scares the hell out of every parent but it is a fact.
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Would you send your kid to a school without visiting it? Would you let your son go on a diving excursion with a guide you know nothing about?

I'm drawing that line a lot closer to home. I don't easily cede responsibility to 'experts', and if I don't know enough about something, my kids don't do it.

As I mentioned, I never let my kids go on carnival rides if I didn't approve of the staff running them, or the equipment looked poorly maintained. I don't let them drive with friends who have really decrepit cars for the same reason.

In the end, crying 'but he was supposed to be an EXPERT' is going to be poor comfort to me if my kid gets hurt. And I can absolutely state that, if I didn't know anything about automatic weapons, there's no one on earth that would have been given permission to help my kid fire one.


Larry
 
Sorry, but I can't find any legal culpability for the father with the limited facts present. We have a society which is widely ignorant regarding the actual use of firearms. Most people know what they do from Hollywood. Even on these forums we are constantly batting myths which new visitors sometimes bring along as fact. For the majority of the population which is ignorant the chief of police is a defacto firearms safety expert. After all, he is empowerred to carry a gun as part of his job and is in charge of many others who do the same. For somebody who knows nothing on the subject that person is an justified expert.

The father will still carry guilt with him for the rest of his life.
 
DTGuy, Woodguru, et al...

... on the one hand, I understand what you are saying.

On the other hand, if you hired a charter to fly you out to an island, and I showed up with a turboprop or jet, would you be able to verify I had done a proper pre-flight?

If you couldn't, would you get on the plane? Or would you say, "Sorry family, I don't know enough about airplanes. We'll lose the deposit on the flight and the hotel... at least we don't go to Chuck E Cheese anymore..."

Or would you assume I knew what I was doing, since I was conducting the business, and theoretically had the proper training and licensing to do so?

There are times you have to go on faith, or else you can't function. Either that, or you abstain from an astounding number of the good things in life.
 
We have wondered very far from the original post and the questions of the propriety of using the video in the courtroom.

We are not going to solve the questions of guilt and culpability, here. Nor do I see anyone changing their minds.

Closed for the above reasons.
 
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