To think the world has gone mad?

Archery, and target shooting are no problem for people/children of any age as long as taught responsibly. While I am sure that this young girl was being taught at a registered teaching centre, I still dont understand why anyone needs to shoot a semi automatic machine gun? Rifle shooting/hunting is one thing, but machine guns can only ever be used with intent to maim and kill. Would you teach children how to throw a grenade? There was a sickening contrast on last night's news; we saw alleged child soldiers in Syria firing what looked like anti-aircraft armoury, and then we saw this nice little American girl accidentally shooting her instructor. It would be interesting to know the NRA attitude to both sickening images.

rosequartz I saw that programme and was horrified watching families buying guns for their children as birthday presents,one family got advice from the grandfather on how to make the child more agressive when she refused to fire the gun she was bought and his reaction was to take her out on a shoot to kill rabbits so she would enjoy the experience of a real kill.Truely awful and frightening as to how the world is going.

BB guns are not a lot better.IMO

In the meantime, someone leaves a baked Alaska out of the freezer for 40 seconds ... and the UK melts down ;) (lol)

Thank goodness we don't have a free for all with guns and we can get worked up by cheating baked Alaskas .
Mind you, badly prepared they could be a lethal weopon! X

I was absolutely horrified at this. There are so many awful things going on in this world at the moment. I just don't understand what the parents were thinking of. Did anyone notice the 'target'? Not a 'bullseye', or a bear but, the shape of a human being. What message is this portraying?

The think I don't understand is this: everyone knows that guns have a recoil and the more powerful the gun, the more powerful the recoil (one of Newton's laws - every action has an equal and opposite reaction). So how could the workers at the shooting gallery not know that a child does not have the strength to handle this?
It's a kind of collective madness the USA romance with guns. Of course not all of them are in agreement. But they genuinely believe they are safer with a house full of guns.

WB - I take it your question was rhetorical? The NRA couldn't give a flying fig about images like that and would never regard then as ' sickening'

Good post WB!
Although it is a very sad subject !

Apparently 7,000 children are taken to hospital with firearms injuries every year in the USA and 3,000 of them die.

JessM It was not a shooting gallery, nor bags was it a range in the way that UK ranges operate. It was just an open area with berms and targets. The coach should have been holding both child and gun, but it should never have been an automatic weapon.