re: #314 HappyWarrior

That poor little girl is going to have to live with this the rest of her life. I feel terrible for her but not at all for her idiot parents who thought it would be a great idea to teach their nine year old how to fire a military weapon.

Worse yet, her parents were recording her firing the gun. They thought it was cute and/or fun. They stupidly put their trust in an “instructor” who clearly had no goddamn idea what he was doing.

From the link:

Sam Scarmardo, who operates the outdoor range in Arizona where the instructor was killed, said Wednesday that the parents had signed waivers saying they understood the rules and were standing nearby, video-recording their daughter, when the accident happened.

“I have regret we let this child shoot, and I have regret that Charlie was killed in the incident,” Scarmardo said. He said he doesn’t know what went wrong, pointing out that Vacca was an Army veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pro tip: being a military veteran doesn’t automatically qualify someone to be a firearms instructor. Idiots. I’d ask if the gun range is going to learn anything from this experience, but I already know the answer.

Also, I have a lot of things to say about this bit, but I’ll settle for flipping a few desks instead:

Jace Zack, chief deputy for the Mohave County Attorney’s Office, said the instructor was probably the most criminally negligent person involved in the accident for having allowed the child to hold the gun without enough training.

“The parents aren’t culpable,” Zack said. “They trusted the instructor to know what he was doing, and the girl could not possibly have comprehended the potential dangers involved.”

This is the problem. At what point do you look at someone who says he wants your kid to fire a machine gun and NOT think they’re insane? WTF.