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New Gun Outcry As Boy, 8, Shoots Himself At US Fair
MASSACHUSSETTS - Criminal charges were being considered by prosecutors today after an eight-year-old boy shot himself in the head with an Uzi submachine gun at a weapons fair in Massachusetts.
Charles Bizilj said his son Christopher had fired guns for three years before the accident at Westfield Sportsmen's Club. (Associated Press Photo / George Ruhe) The Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo reportedly boasted in publicity prior to the event that there were "no age limit or licenses required to shoot machine guns", organisers even granted free entry for children.
Christopher Bizilj was one of the schoolboys allowed to shoot automatic weapons at pumpkins but the Uzi recoiled and a round was fired into his head as his father reached for a camera to photograph his son.
Charles Bizilj, the eight-year-old's father and the director of emergency medicine at Johnson Memorial Hospital in Connecticut, said: "This accident was truly a mystery to me.
"This is a horrible event, a horrible travesty, and I really don't know why it happened."
He told the Boston Globe that his young son had fired handguns and rifles before, but Sunday's event was his first time firing an automatic weapon.
The child was attending the event with his father and his brother Colin.
William Bennett, Hampden County District Attorney, said he is investigating whether the gun fair violated the state's firearms law by allowing the boy to fire the machine gun, and also whether it was "a reckless or wanton act to allow an 8-year-old to use a fully loaded automatic weapon."
"At this point in the investigation I have found no lawful authority which allows an 8-year-old to possess or fire a machine gun," Mr Bennett said.
Police are calling the shooting an accident but are investigating whether everyone connected with the incident had proper weapons permits. Massachusetts requires licenses to own firearms, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives issues different licenses to possess machine guns.
Local, state and federal authorities are also investigating whether everyone involved had proper licenses or if anyone committed a criminal act.
Daniel Vice, senior attorney with the Washington-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said his interpretation is that Massachusetts law specifically prohibits "furnishing a machine gun to any person under 18."
"It is unconscionable that the gun fair allowed and encouraged young children to fire machine guns," he said in a statement.
On Monday, Westfield police Lt. Hipolito Nunez said it is legal in Massachusetts for children to fire a weapon if they have permission from a parent or legal guardian and they are supervised by a properly certified and licensed instructor.
The section of the statute that mentions that exception, however, only lists rifles, shotguns and ammunition and is silent on the use of machine guns.
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9 Comments so far
Show AllMuch as I stand for the Second Amendment, I have to agree -- this unfortunate kid should NEVER have been allowed to fire a submachine gun without hands-on adult control/supervision. It's stupidity like this, friends, which loses supporters for the Second and makes new hoplophobes.
I was 13 before I fired my first rifle and it was a bolt action .22. It was hardly a weapon you could get out of control with through recoil.
My dad's rule was 12 or older. I didn't get unsupervised gun use till 14. During that time, and ever since dad's supervised instruction, & guidelines are still observed. Have I done stupid things with guns? Yep. Any kid will 'test' just about any rule. We all learn the hard way, and some of us die for it.
I took a kid & his dad to the shooting range last year, no mishaps and with two on one supervision tried to allow the boy to learn proper firearm handling, & practice. I was kind of amazed even under our eagle eyes, that great kid reminded me that he is just a kid. I could see the kid make a simple connection to his video games that he knows so well. I watched him 'tune out' as the kid blasted away at the paper target. Rapid Fire was his direction, just like any kid loves to do. Naturally I quickly put the brakes on him, reemphasized control & patience...the safety of it. Did that kid listen?...I don't know, but I do know that 'unsupervised gun use' will come one day, after he has demonstrated acceptable responsibility in his decisions. I look forward to taking him hunting with me. Knowing full well that one day that kid will go hunting with his friends, and also knowing that he will have certain 'never break rules, & why' over and above what the friends say or do.
That kid & I enjoy using the bow & arrow, just about as much as firearms.
Where I live, a 'hunter safety class' certification is required, for youth (to legally hunt). Hearing the rules of safety, from certified instructor simply supports what I teach. The student accepts those rules pretty well, because it reaffirms what he has already learned at home. So hopefully the kid will 'tune in' on safety practices, instead of unbridled mayhem learned from videos, and some of the crazy things that kids teach one another.
wild;)
Sorry any gun supporting people, 8 years old is TOO YOUNG!! And if they find the gun fair negligent they ought to do the same for the father. Ridiculous and unnecessary and irresponsible.
After 8 years of Bush, arming myself against the government almost seems like a good idea (but I won't do it) but what 8 year old needs to be able to operate an Uzi?? Come on!
Oh wait, are they lowering the age you can enter the military...? Never mind, makes sense after all.
Guns don't kill people- accidents do.
your right, a child that age can not handle the jump of a fully automatic sub gun. When I was in the army, I had problems managing the recoil from a M-16 at full auto and I was 18. I have many fire arms, but my son was not allowed to fire a rifle untill he was 13 and then under my close supervision.
'Charles Bizilj, the eight-year-old's father and the director of emergency medicine at Johnson Memorial Hospital in Connecticut, said: "This accident was truly a mystery to me.
'"This is a horrible event, a horrible travesty, and I really don't know why it happened."'
For a director of emergency medicine -- of all poeople -- this guy is depressingly stupid. It is not a travesty and it is perfectly f^&*ing obvious why it happened.
I dislike being purposely mean to those suffering, but my reaction is along that line of a justified "Darwin award".
This 8-yo will no longer have a chance to pass his father's & mother's genes forward, for future generations that would have likely created additional penalties and compounded negative impacts to society at large.
If the errant bullet had instead killed the father, this accident would be significantly less noteworthy, and future generations would still potentially have these genes to redistribute -- likely still replicating harm upon society.
Can we blame the errant life-extinguishing behavior on nature or nurture -- or a combination of both? I say either way, society benefits with both the father's errant parenting skills and his genes being excised from propagation.
BTW, what possible reason could a father have in providing such an extreme experience to such a young child ?
I might guess that the kid may have already had much of the worse EXPERIENCE of R-rated violent movies and "T" rated video games -- so he just needed _ m o r e _ and stronger violence to "feel alive". Or even worse, that such a duffuss vacuous child-abusing father, is so sick as to need to vicariously use the kid's own violent experience of guns -- to fill his worth-striving empty experience of bogus life -- to "feel more alive".
¿ Have we the need to experience this depth of depravity and suffering to collectively realize that there is an ACTUAL LIMIT to violence in society -- before even worse befalls us ? I suspect that this lesson is not going to be "violent" enough to get the message out, to those who need to learn it for themselves.
I dislike govt'l infringement on the people's rights to free expression -- but a machine gun in a child's hands is way too far beyond the pale. This is an example where a really beneficial gov't can truly legislate rules to prevent this from continuing -- and society wins with a minor loss of freedom from a few "gun nuts".
Namaste
No child left behind.