Unfortunate. A tragedy. Irresponsible. But it doesn’t qualify as gun violence, however violent the death of the instructor…so this Uzi incident will not move the chains. Even had this nine year old killed her instructor and then continued to spin our of control, killing Mom then Dad and maybe an innocent bystander, it still wouldn’t move the chains. Just a higher body count. I guess a bigger tragedy…but apparently not just cause to reexamine our cultural dysfunction with firearms.
In what universe does any such child need to fire an automatic weapon? This is no Sabra – she lives in New Jersey! Training? People trained on such weapons can disassemble them, clean them, reassemble them, know its rate of fire, range, muzzle velocity, ballistics… No, this was sport. This was about fun.
THAT is at the very heart of the matter. Children play with toys. Guns are not toys. A national mentality that regards automatic weapons as something to amuse us, to be played with, should expect more of the same. Automatic weapons exist for a single purpose; they are efficient at killing.
This should not be legal, it should not have been permitted. And that some state legislature decided to allow such foolishness, never made it a good idea.