A 9-year-old girl accidentally killed an Arizona shooting instructor as he was showing her how to use an automatic Uzi, according to Fox-10 Phoenix News.
Charles Vacca, 39, of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, died Monday shortly after being airlifted to University Medical Center in Las Vegas, Mohave County sheriff’s officials said Tuesday.
Vacca was standing next to the unnamed child at the Last Stop outdoor shooting range in White Hills when she pulled the trigger and the recoil sent the gun over her head.
Eerie video released Tuesday by sheriff’s officials shows the 9-year-old, wearing a gray T-shirt and pink shorts, holding the firearm in both hands. Vacca, standing to her left, tells her to turn her left leg forward. The gun is nearly as tall as the girl holding it.
“All right, go ahead and give me one shot,” Vacca says. (His back is to the camera during the entire 27-second video.) He cheers as she fires one round at the target. “All right full auto,” Vacca says. The video, which does not show the actual incident, ends with a series of shots being heard.
That poor kid. If she is not traumatized for life I will be shocked.
Agreed. She will think she killed the man when the fact is his own irresponsibility is partly to blame for his death. This was eminently avoidable. The question remains: who really thinks it’s appropriate for nine-year-old children to be handling and firing fully-automatic weapons?
Partly to blame? He was entirely to blame.
It is debatable whether or not his death is completely his own making. There are parents to consider – obviously they were lax enough to allow the child to shoot the weapon in the first place. The instructor could have refused to allow it on principle, it’s true. He didn’t have the principle, however. And the child herself had no real idea of what she was getting into. I see this as a true tragedy: anyone not involved could have foreseen this exact conclusion but the participants never saw it.
It’s a horrifying situation. All it takes in 20 seconds of not paying attention for tragedy to strike. That poor kid will blame herself forever, though
The video doesn’t show the actual incident, ends in a series of shots being heard.
So, this definitely happened right?
Yep, it’s on the front of CNN now, too.
The PARENTS of the 9 year old are entirely to blame for this disaster. For the sake of their child’s mental health, I wonder if they will give up their gun fetish? Any parent who thinks it’s a great idea for their little kid to “experience” firing an automatic weapon are clearly getting a “rush” watching their child handle a killing machine.
Sick, sick, sick.
When I was 9 years old, my parents enrolled me in the Girl Scouts and a pottery class at the local community center.
Funny, they thought co-ed softball was TOO DANGEROUS for me at that age.
What a world we live in today.
This is horrifying news, is it necessary to teach our kid at that age to handle that tipe of a weapon, the result of this incident is devastating for an innocent kid, we need to rethink and let kids be kids, they grow up too fast already with the internet and everything else!
why did they think it was a good idea to put a gun in a 9 year old girls hands…