This makes me think of how ridiculous it is that with digital cameras everywhere, everyone wants to take pictures of everything. At what point do we miss the experience cause we're trying so hard to capture it?

Has it been established that this was indeed a fully automatic weapon? Typically, Uzi's in the US are semi-automatic. Full automatic weapons are highly regulated in the US. You can own them, but you have to have special permits, a lot of hassles, pay fees, etc. Fully automatic weapons are pretty rare in the hands of law-abiding citizens.

UPDATE: OK, strike that. It was specifically a machine gun shoot. It probably was full auto.

Sigh. Now the anti-gun crowd will want to seize on this and ...

Concur.

Although in the spirit of full disclosure, when I was 8, I was already firing an Garand from a rest. But I was seated- it was almost as long as I was tall.

Uzis are meant to be fired from the shoulder. They generally have a fixed or collapsible stock. I got to fire a suppressed full auto Uzi a couple of. Muzzle climb wasn't terrible, but I fired short bursts it had an extra foot or so of metal hanging off the muzzle.

What a tragedy.

No, not a Neanderthal, but doesn't make him an expert in automatic weapons, or weapons in general. Having been involved in aviation safety, I know doctors and lawyers can afford "toys" in which they are not expert, don't have/get the training they should have, and can get themselves in situations beyond their ability to deal effectively. Perhaps he was new to the Uzi and that's why the instructor was there. And they allowed the child to play w/ Dad's new gun.

In any respect, it's a sad situation for the family and the instructor. And yes, the antis will use it to their advantage.

Uzi's are meant to be be shoulder fires, using either a non-collapseable wooden stock or a metal one that can. It can also be fired without the stock, either not engaging the metal collapseable one or removing the wood standard one. The uzi is very "heavy" vs the size/power of the 9mm round it fires. Muzzle climb normally isn't a problem, its heavy enough that the uzi gently rocks rather than climbs. Without any of us being there we will never know why this tragedy occured. I have supervised over 2 dozen machine gun shoots for Florida Ammo Traders when the previous owner still had his class 2 licence. I have braced many an inexperienced shooter. Either placing my foot behind theirs, hand on back or one hand on hip standing close with an arm ready to grab a raising barrel. Always had a mechanics heat glove to protect from the heat of the weapon, luckily never had to grab an errant barrel.
And yes, I've had 8 to 12 year olds fire our uzi's as its the only "safe" machine gun we owned for a younger, weaker person to control, that we were comfortable with. Look at some of the news reels and you'll see children in Africa and the Middle East with AK-47's, full auto. A true tragedy at the least. My sympathies go out to the dad and brother who had to witness this and deal with it. As well as the others there that day.

-Bill Liptak

According to news reports the weapon being used by the 8 year boy was a micro Uzi.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0k6y8VOjOhc

Judging from this video the weapon appears to have has a nasty tendacy to pull up even when an adult is using the weapon. If the stock isn't correctly deployed or the stock slips from the shoulder due to recoil then I suspect this weapon would easily rotate especially in the hands of a child.

The father was apparently 10 feet away attempting to take some photographs or video. Youtube is full of videos showing very young children firing extremely powerful weapons.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=sgioghA1QEc&feature=related

And yes there are videos of very young children firing full automatic Uzi's while the photographer is in the front right quarter taking the video .

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=s6BV8P0nNas&feature=related

So I guess this type of story doesn't really surprise me.

Anyone beside OBG know the US car involved in the most fatal accidents?

Anyone know why?

Good question. I suspect it is the one with the most models on the road or more accurately the one with the most miles driven per year?

Sometimes an accident is just that, an accident.


I feel sorry for the family, I could not imagine loosing my son.