Girl, 9, who pulled trigger also a victim in Arizona shooting range death

Sydney Morning Herald

Date: August 28 2014

Nick O’Malley

There were two immediate victims of the shooting at the Bullets and Burgers gun range in Arizona on Tuesday. One, most terribly, was the 39-year-old instructor Charles Vacca who lost his life.

The other was the 9-year-old girl from New Jersey who accidently shot him dead with a sub-machinegun as her parents watched on with a video camera.

According to witnesses the girl had mastered the Uzi on a single shot setting, but when it was flicked over into its fully automatic mode she “lost control but not possession” of the weapon. As one report put it, the gun pulled up and to the left, and Mr Vacca was shot in the head.

The gun range operator, Sam Scarmado, said afterwards, “I have regret we let this child shoot, and I have regret that Charlie was killed in the incident.”

In a nation so steeped in gun violence that even mass killings have lost the power to surprise, this shooting has left people shocked.

There have been other high-profile deaths at gun ranges in recent years.

Another child, eight-year-old Christopher Bizilj, accidently shot himself in the head with an Uzi at a gun range under his father’s supervision in 2011. It was reported that a staff member had twice suggested to Christopher’s father that the gun was too powerful for the boy.

The former Navy Seal sniper known for claiming a record number of kills in combat, Chris Kyle, was shot dead at a range by a veteran he had taken under his wing in February last year.

Despite these incidents, shooting ranges tend to be relatively safe places. Across the country they are often marketed as venues for family outings. It is not uncommon for children as young as five to be allowed to shoot .22s.

Indeed another family from New Jersey has been moved to come out to media to say that their nine-year-old daughter, Shyanne Roberts, a well known competition shooter, is not the girl at the centre of this tragedy.

But sub-machineguns are dangerous things that perhaps should not be in the hands of nine-year-olds, even under close supervision.

Accidental shootings of adults by children are rare but not unheard of in the US. A recent report on gun deaths by the gun control group Everytown For Gun Safety detailed three recent incidents, though none fit these circumstances.

In April last year the Tennessee Deputy Sherriff Daniel Fanning had some friends over for a barbecue and was showing off his gun collection in the bedroom when his four-year-old nephew wandered in, picked up a loaded gun and accidentally shot dead the lawman’s wife.

Justin Stanfield Thomas was not long back from a deployment to Iraq in June last year when his curious four-year-old boy picked up a loaded hand gun, asked him what it was and shot his father in the head.

Thomas died and his son later told investigators, “Daddy got blood on him.”

The following month 33-year-old Michael Bayless was shot dead by his three-year-old, who had found a loaded .45 as the family was watching television.

The Everytown for Gun Safety report makes a strong case for tougher regulations on safe gun storage and the adoption of smart technologies to prevent accidental discharges.

But given the circumstances of this case, it appears none of those measures would have made any difference. The girl did not mean to shoot her instructor with a sub-machinegun, but she did mean to pull the trigger. That is what the family was there for.