Timing is Everything, Part II

Who the hell was in charge?

This second story has to be one of the most epic failures to observe basic firearms safety I have ever read, on so many levels:

Gun Club, Police Chief Indicted in Boy's Uzi Death

Read the article. I'll still be here.

Done? Okay, let's carry on.

What the fuck were they doing putting an automatic weapon in the hands of an eight-year-old boy? I've seen adults who can't handle submachine guns. One indoor range in this area actually rents automatic weapons for use on their 25-yard range. There are no experience requirements; any yahoo who's willing to fork over the money for the rental fee and is willing to pay for a few hundred rounds of ammo can take one on the range with minimal supervision. It always pisses me off to no end. There I am, firing slowly but steadily, always sure of my target, and some asshole saunters up to a firing point and goes rock and roll in a 25-yard long, 10-yard-wide indoor space. Recoil on these light weapons forces the muzzle up, then the shooters damage the target carriages and punch holes in the ceiling 3 yards from the firing points. I don't even know if the ceiling is armored in case these jagoffs miss so widely.

Maintaining control of a weapon in automatic fire means firing in short bursts of 4 to 6 rounds. Someone who's never handled one before will panic and keep the finger on the trigger, letting the gun run away until the magazine is empty, walking the rounds from the target up to the ceiling. In the case of this poor young kid, he lost total control and the muzzle ended up pointed at his head while he still had the trigger depressed.

From a supervisory standpoint, why were they allowing anyone under 21 to handle an automatic weapon? When the organizers decided to let a bunch of got-dam kids handle M60s and MG42s, why did they not consult Massachusetts law, which is pretty stringent about firearms in general? Where were the supposed safety observers and instructors? Why the hell was the kid entrusted to the supervision of a fifteen-year-old?

There's enough aversion to firearms here in the U.S. already. This does nothing but add to it. Teaching a child how to safely and responsibly handle guns is tough enough without taking them to a full-auto shootex. Shit, I never received anything beyond the four safety rules until I was 14 myself, and even then I only learned the rudiments of marksmanship with air rifles on my high school's JROTC rifle team. Learning with air rifles is a good start but no substitute for actual firearms. It wasn't until I was under the tutelage of the PMIs and Drill Instructors on Parris Island that I received the sort of in-depth instruction on safety and fireams handling that I needed.

When I have children, I'm not going to leave them in the same informational and safety void I was left in thanks to a gun-averse dad. It's not enough to tell children that guns are bad and to avoid them. They have to be taught to safely handle guns. The four cardinal safety rules, checking to ensure weapons are unloaded, knowing how to operate the safeties on any guns they may handle, and above all that they are not fucking toys. The carnival atmosphere at that Springfield shoot may have contributed to everyone's complacency. Now a young boy is dead because the adults around him wouldn't or couldn't act like adults.

Timing is everything

Idiots with guns, and tragic consequences

Wow, did I time this right or what? No sooner do I start posting range reports than two cases of extreme stupidity while handling firearms come to light. I'll deal with the first one here; the other one will take up a follow-on post of its own.

This tale comes from the UK's Sun magazine. The headline shows the UK's sublime ignorance vis-a-vis firearms: We were having sex, it went off"

Story goes, some idiot in Dayton, Ohio was getting it on with his wife and tried to "pick up something from the bedside table." The Sun's account is pretty muddy. In one sentence the guy is picking up something from the nightstand. He instead gets the trigger of the pistol and somehow applies enough pressure to fire it. and later they have the idiot hubby's statement that "I picked it up and put it to the side. We were having sex and it went off." Long story short, Timothy Havens' wife is in the hospital in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the chest.

Muddying the waters even further, the Dayton Daily News added a few details. Señor Havens was apparently under a protection order from his wife, and had recently spent two months in jail for violating the order and assaulting her a month after it was filed. He was under an additional court order to attend anger management classes. Havens is currently in jail pending charges for the protection order violation.

I smell a rat here. Something's not right. "It just went off?" Guns don't work that way, hoss. A round has to be in the chamber and the trigger has to be squeezed enough to fire that round. Even if the pistol fell to the floor, it would take more than the shock of the impact to set it off. Here's a guy who already shouldn't be packing heat. Protection orders are supposed to bar individuals from owning firearms. Just goes to show, as Lawdog has pointed out many times, pieces of paper make shitty armor. On the other hand, if it was Carolyn Havens' pistol, and a guy who had beaten her up and was under a court order to stay the hell away was in her house, why didn't she shoot him? Was this really a domestic assault/rape gone wrong?

Only she knows and apparently she's in no condition to tell her side of the story.