“WESTFIELD, Mass. – An 8-year-old boy died after accidentally shooting himself in the head while firing an Uzi submachine gun under adult supervision at a gun fair.
The boy lost control of the weapon while firing it Sunday at the Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman’s Club, police Lt. Lawrence Vallierpratte said.
Police said the boy, Christopher Bizilj (Bah-SEAL) of Ashford, Conn., was with a certified instructor and called the death a “self-inflicted accidental shooting.”
As the boy fired the Uzi, “the front end of the weapon went up with the backfire and he ended up receiving a round in his head,” police Lt. Hipolito Nunez said. The boy died at a hospital.
The boy’s father and older brother were also there at the time, a gun club member and school official said. Francis Mitchell, a longtime member and trustee of the club, said he was told the boy’s father was supporting his son from behind when the shooting happened.”
This is an awful tragedy, but honestly, the father should be arrested for negligence. When does it ever seem like a good idea to hand a fully automatic Uzi machine gun to your 8 year old child and let them fire it off like Rambo? I mean, what’s the point? Nothing good can come out of it. For Christ sake, pickup a baseball and glove, and do some parenting.
