Statists.
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Family Blames Gun Show For Boy's Death
- Thread starter Wolf99
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Statists.
Where did I say that? I've just made 4 posts to this thread saying I believe whomever tied the safety down was screwed in the eyes of the law. Further the 'instructor' & RSO should be worried as well.
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richc
NES Member
Parents in denial... that's who...
I can't imagine how they feel. I can't imagine the mental anguish they suffer. I can't imagine waking up every morning with the blinding pain of knowing that my decision contributed to the death of my son. It is pain that most would do anything to eliminate.
Truth is, after this case is gone, and assuming they win, I don't think they will feel any better. The pain and guilt will eat at them until the day they die.
One year later the family decides to sue? After the father admitted resposibility and said he won't sue? This has that smell of anti-gun organizations sticking their nose into what was deemed an accident by local and state police on the scene. It wasn't until later when the DA got instructions from his "funders" did it go criminal. Plus, the rental was a commercial operation. It was not run by the club. The club ran food concessions and if lucky got a "donation" from the organizer and commercial outfit. The rest of us, even though we were clubmembers had to pay the organizer $50.00/day and sign off on liability. We were'nt going to have the match last year because the club was always left in a financial hole. The club tried its best to run a safe operation and did for six years until this incident. To drag the club into civil litigation is only their lawyers looking for who might have money. This has become a money grab. The club is built on undevelopable swamp land. Civily the family is out of luck. But the lawyers will make out, the anti-gunners will succeed in shutiing down another range. Its unfair.
Titan
Banned
The parents are clearly overreaching, but hey, this is MA.
Responsibility will be fixed first with whoever disabled the safety...
...second, with the person who put a 15 yr old in charge of the Uzi...
...and third with the father who should never have trusted a 15 yr old to provide his 8 year old with a safe gun.
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Responsibility will be fixed first with whoever disabled the safety...
...second, with the person who put a 15 yr old in charge of the Uzi...
...and third with the father who should never have trusted a 15 yr old to provide his 8 year old with a safe gun.
.
A regular UZI.... probably not so much a problem. A regular full size UZI is actually one of the more controllable machineguns out there, as it fires at a relatively tame. A Micro or a Mini..... even if I owned that gun I would never rent it or let anyone else use it without at least a little training. Even in adult hands it is trivial for someone to send some bullets over a short berm with that particular gun.
FWIW this is not "the gun's fault" here- but rather the accumulation of human error that caused this whole tragedy- starting mostly with the father and going down from there. Instead of him accepting responsibility he's now sniffing the glue fumes from an ambulance chaser's gaping maw- likely in a state of denial over the whole thing now. (I bet the ambulance chaser representing him is a wordsmith who is adept at polishing turds- the type of guy who probably blames society for his client's actions. )
-Mike
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How is a parent who is (clearly) not a firearms expert supposed to know what their kid can or can't do when there are "experts" standing there saying that everything is cool?
Sure you know better, but you have some firearms experience. Can the same thing be said about this father who was essentially being misled by someone who claimed to be an expert?
These "experts," who should have known better, were in charge of the weapon and the firing line. They screwed the pooch on this one and IMHO they should be held responsible.
+ many!
What parent without experience with a specific firearm has any business in deciding if their child can handle that firearm? The parent should not be allowed to abdicate that responsibility.
Apparently this guy had some experience with firearms- probably knew enough to be dangerous, though... probably well below average compared to the overhwelming majority of the member base here. Knowing enough to be dangerous is often worse than being ignorant.
Would be interesting to have heard the exchange going on between this guy (the father) and the 15 year old RO Even if that kid was charged with being an RO, the problem is at that age most (good) kids will still by default give some random adult too much respect, if you want to put it that way. Would also be interesting to find out when the grip safety was defeated, or if the gun was run that way all along.
I'd almost place money on the father browbeating that kid into letting his kid shoot the gun. We'll never know if that was the case though unless some transcript/deposition ends up being made public.
-Mike
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No offense and I can see where you're coming from, but come on now...First of all, the father was a "regular" in the firearms scene. Second, it does not take a rocket-scientist or even someone vaguely familiar or not at all with firearms to see that a submachine gun the size of a poundcake is potentially dangerous for an 8-year old. this again takes some of the onus off the parents for the ultimate responsibility for this negligent homicide...
I have zero sympathy for the father on this and hope and pray that a wild hair goes up the arse of whomever presides over this nonsensical lawsuit. It should be tossed out before it ever sees session....
If I'm standing next to a Tomahawk missile with my kid - even though I'm no rocket scientist, I'm not going to strap his ass on and let him go for a ride, (unless he's really pissed me off that day)....
![[wink]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/002.gif "Wink [wink]")
Any good parent in that situation would have said "Sorry, I don't know enough about this to make a qualified judgement on it. Until I do, I can't let my child participate." I also do not believe the whole "everything's cool" arguement considdering every waiver for any firearms range/course/show I've ever attended has explicitly pointed out that all these activities contain an inherent danger.
I'm not saying that the organizers of the event weren't at fault at all, but the one person who is most responsible for this death is the one person who was most responsible for this child, the father.
richc
NES Member
I hate to stereotype... but the father is an MD. Many MD's that I know are way smarter than the rest of us. If you don't believe it just ask them.
They are used to getting their way... period.
Another article: http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/family_of_christopher_bizijl_s.html
I cannot imagine allowing a minor to be a Range Officer. It makes no sense to me at all. Sure, they ought to be able to help out in some small ways, but not in gun handling or direct safety enforcement. The 15 y/o may be a fine person, but he is still just a child and ought not to be given responsibility more suited to an adult, especially in situations where severe injury or death may result.
It will be interesting to see how and if any criminal charges move forward after the December court date. Their outcome will help settle the laws about MG use and possession, which, knowing this state may not be good...
I cannot imagine allowing a minor to be a Range Officer. It makes no sense to me at all. Sure, they ought to be able to help out in some small ways, but not in gun handling or direct safety enforcement. The 15 y/o may be a fine person, but he is still just a child and ought not to be given responsibility more suited to an adult, especially in situations where severe injury or death may result.
It will be interesting to see how and if any criminal charges move forward after the December court date. Their outcome will help settle the laws about MG use and possession, which, knowing this state may not be good...
Coupla points:
The father isn't the plaintif - the estate of the kid is.
That's an important distiction because the list of who's negligent here includes AT LEAST:
1 The father
2 Whomever tied down the safety
3 The RSO
4 Potentially the RSO's supervisor
The kid can't sue the father - parental immunity. That leaves everyone else. #2 is in this without question. #2 will be coughing up big bucks. Numbers 3 & 4 have the potential to get hit under simple negligence.
YES, the father has the brunt of the responsiblity, but HIS bad actions do NOT preven the estate of the child from recovering against the other bad actions because he's severable from the child.
Fair? Maybe not.
The father isn't the plaintif - the estate of the kid is.
That's an important distiction because the list of who's negligent here includes AT LEAST:
1 The father
2 Whomever tied down the safety
3 The RSO
4 Potentially the RSO's supervisor
The kid can't sue the father - parental immunity. That leaves everyone else. #2 is in this without question. #2 will be coughing up big bucks. Numbers 3 & 4 have the potential to get hit under simple negligence.
YES, the father has the brunt of the responsiblity, but HIS bad actions do NOT preven the estate of the child from recovering against the other bad actions because he's severable from the child.
Fair? Maybe not.
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Of course - the father is a tool. No argument there. Still - if someone gets hurt with one of my guns it's my fault. If some toolbag father tells me that it's perfectly fine for his young kid to fire my weapon I know better than to just take his word for it. As a responsible gun owner, it's on me to take the appropriate safety precautions whenever anyone handles my guns. To me this is the definition of personal responsibility.
put it this way - the kid with the toolbag father would still be alive today if the "expert" who owned the Uzi had taken some basic safety precautions.
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None taken.
![[grin]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/041.gif "Grin [grin]")
If he was a "regular" then yeah, he should have known better. That still doesn't excuse the "experts" who owned the weapon and ran the line. The buck stops with them - they control who fires their weapons and under what circumstances. Whether the father was a noob or double distinguished expert doesn't change that fact.
If I'm standing next to a Tomahawk missile with my kid - even though I'm no rocket scientist, I'm not going to strap his ass on and let him go for a ride, (unless he's really pissed me off that day)....
And if it was my missile I'd never let you do so, regardless of how pissed off you were.
Bill Nance
Banned
This isn't rocket science.
If you're running a firearms event that's open to the entire public and furnishing arms, you're responsible to see that reasonable safety precautions are taken. THEY WERE NOT. If you don't want responsibility then don't hold one. If you hold one, then act like a GD grownup.
15 y/o's arent even old enough to drive for God's sake and some dumbs*** put one in charge of a range? RU fing kidding me?
I have less than zero sympathy for the idiot who put a 15 year-old child in charge of a live-fire FA range where members of the general public were shooting. It was a predictable disaster waiting to happen. If all that happens is they get sued they're getting off easy.
I also have none for the father, who should be sitting in a cell awaiting trial on charges of negligent homicide.
The only people I really feel awful for are the relatives of that little boy (excluding the father) and for the 15 y/o. He was put in a position that he had no business being in by people who should have known better and will have to live with this tragedy forever. He may have shown really bad judgment, but that's what 15-y/o's do. It's why you don't put one in charge of a firing line.
If you're running a firearms event that's open to the entire public and furnishing arms, you're responsible to see that reasonable safety precautions are taken. THEY WERE NOT. If you don't want responsibility then don't hold one. If you hold one, then act like a GD grownup.
15 y/o's arent even old enough to drive for God's sake and some dumbs*** put one in charge of a range? RU fing kidding me?
I have less than zero sympathy for the idiot who put a 15 year-old child in charge of a live-fire FA range where members of the general public were shooting. It was a predictable disaster waiting to happen. If all that happens is they get sued they're getting off easy.
I also have none for the father, who should be sitting in a cell awaiting trial on charges of negligent homicide.
The only people I really feel awful for are the relatives of that little boy (excluding the father) and for the 15 y/o. He was put in a position that he had no business being in by people who should have known better and will have to live with this tragedy forever. He may have shown really bad judgment, but that's what 15-y/o's do. It's why you don't put one in charge of a firing line.
You have a point there. I wouldn't expect him to know better than the experts, but I wouldn't let him off the hook either. All around it was a bad thing, but I couldn't see myself going after others if I was the father.
Bill Nance
Banned
yes.
I personally would never let my kids fire a Micro Uzi, or any fully auto at that age. The father if I remember the initial interviews correctly, seemed to have a limited knowledge of the weapon. A quote something along the lines of "...we chose the Uzi because it was smaller and had less recoil and stayed away from the larger guns." seems to stick in my mind.
That said, if you bring your child to the Ferris wheel, and let him ride, it's not your responsibility to make sure the safety features have been overridden, and the guy/ child working the ride is properly trained. You make an assumption that the ride is properly cared for and go forward.
While in this case the father seems to play a more active part than in my Ferris wheel story, the people running the event should and are responsible for allowing a 15 year old to be in charge of a fully auto weapon, and having a weapon with a safety intentionally overridden. If these two facts turn out to be true I have no problem with a civil suit against the organizer, the father, etc. The 15 year old is the only one who shouldn't nailed to the cross. The manufacturer is also blameless as the gun was supplied with an intentionally disabled safety.
If the proper safety precautions were followed, a tragedy might have been prevented. To an anti trying to make more of this I would reply that there are currently sufficient safety protocols in place. In this instance they were not followed and a tragedy resulted.
Again, my opinion is based on taking several items as fact. I reserve the right to change my opinion as more info becomes available.
That said, if you bring your child to the Ferris wheel, and let him ride, it's not your responsibility to make sure the safety features have been overridden, and the guy/ child working the ride is properly trained. You make an assumption that the ride is properly cared for and go forward.
While in this case the father seems to play a more active part than in my Ferris wheel story, the people running the event should and are responsible for allowing a 15 year old to be in charge of a fully auto weapon, and having a weapon with a safety intentionally overridden. If these two facts turn out to be true I have no problem with a civil suit against the organizer, the father, etc. The 15 year old is the only one who shouldn't nailed to the cross. The manufacturer is also blameless as the gun was supplied with an intentionally disabled safety.
If the proper safety precautions were followed, a tragedy might have been prevented. To an anti trying to make more of this I would reply that there are currently sufficient safety protocols in place. In this instance they were not followed and a tragedy resulted.
Again, my opinion is based on taking several items as fact. I reserve the right to change my opinion as more info becomes available.
It would be interesting to know when the safety was disabled. was it just for this kid, at the request or with the knowledge of the father so that his kid was able to shoot? who agreed to this and who knew?
