Uzi recoils, questions echo
‘As his father raised his camera, an 8-year-old boy aimed an Uzi at a pumpkin set up at a shooting event. Before his father could focus, the third-grader from Connecticut squeezed the trigger, and the high-powered weapon recoiled and fatally shot the boy in the head.
The death of Christopher Bizilj at the Westfield Sportsman’s Club Sunday has raised questions about how someone so young could be allowed to shoot an automatic weapon, which can fire hundreds of rounds in a minute. [..]
State Representative Michael Costello, the Newburyport Democrat who co-chairs the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, said yesterday that he plans to draft a bill that would ban anyone younger than age 21 from firing an automatic weapon.
“This isn’t a knee-jerk reaction; it’s a common sense reaction,” he said. “We should take swift action to provide some reasonable restrictions on this type of unreasonable practice. It’s almost indescribable that within a year of leaving a booster seat, an 8-year-old can be holding a submachine gun.”‘
November 8th, 2008 at 8:02 am
woah woah woah…
1. “reasonable” is not setting the age at 21. Maybe 13-15, but 21 is ridiculous.
2. If your child is in a booster seat after they are old enough to be in school, wtf is wrong with you?
8 is young, but it’s not a baby in need of coddling. 8 is 3rd grade and old enough to stop believing in the toothfairy or santa clause. I’m not saying ‘let’s give ’em an uzi” but this knee-jerk reaction is exactly the overexaggerated reaction they claim NOT to be having. Just because one kid’s dad is dumb enough to give an uzi to an 8-year old, doesn’t mean a 20, 19, 18 yr old isn’t strong enough to fire an automatic weapon now.
November 14th, 2008 at 6:35 am
What? He did not have time to focus? You mean there are no picture? This kind of thing must be stopped!