Bang, Bang, You’re Dead, Part 2.

 

Israeli Uzi. IThis file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Ferkelparade at the English language Wikipedia.

This is an Israeli Uzi, the kind of submachine gun that a nine-year-old girl was recently (August, 2014) learning to use at an outdoor shooting range in Arizona when she lost control of the gun and shot and killed her instructor . She had parental permission to learn to fire this automatic weapon; indeed her parents were videotaping the lesson.

In 2008, at a gun expo in Massachusetts, eight-year-old Christopher Bizilj lost control of the Uzi he was firing and shot and killed himself .  His parents blamed 15-year-old Michael Spano, who had been hired to assist visitors desiring to fire an Uzi.  Spano reports that he twice urged the father to pick a less powerful weapon for his son to shoot but the father insisted on the Uzi.

From the perspective of ecological theory, who is responsible for this violent loss of life? Ecological theory tells us that if we want to understand the contributing factors for any behavioral outcome, we need to look at multiple levels—the family, the community, and the macro culture.

In the case of these two children, what hypotheses do you have about the families who wanted their young children to fire those powerful weapons?  What are your thoughts about the culpability of states that allow children as young as eight to fire an automatic weapon? And how about the NRA and associated organizations like NRA Women, sponsored by Smith & Wesson? Or the online magazine that on August 7, 2014, published an article called  “7-ways children can have fun at the shooting range”?  Good wholesome family fun or another symptom of a culture of violence?

Any guesses about the likely outcomes for the nine-year-old girl who killed her instructor?