To think the world has gone mad?

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.

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

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

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'

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.

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?

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

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

BB guns are not a lot better.IMO

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.

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.

Safety is of paramount importance on archery or gun firing ranges. If safety procedures are properly and rigorously followed accidents don't happen.

I got an arrow in my right eye on my fifth birthday, and have never been able to see out of that eye since. Accidents happen, even in the street.

I disagree about a nine year old girl having no place on a firing range. Children of nine, both girls and boys, shoot air guns and bows on target ranges in Britain too. Target shooting is fun and there is skill in it. That's the appeal.

I agree about the ridiculous American gun laws and that a nine year old, or anyone outside of the military, needing to shoot a mahine gun.

The world has always been in a mess. I don't think it's worse now than it has ever been. Nature is messy. We just hear about the mess more easily than we used to and there are more of us to be messy (us being part of messy Nature).

The Americans are such welcoming and friendly people, but I would never even go there on holiday, let alone live there for three reasons: their gun laws, their lack of universal health care, and their very low minimum wage rates.

That story about the little girl is horrifying: I agree she will probably need a lot of therapy.

I wonder how many Americans move to Canada because of the above three things, the very worst of which is the gun laws. You can protect yourself against the other two by following a good career path, but no-one is safe from gun violence. Not even presidents.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/25/kids-guns-and-the-american-way

A friend told me about a programme re this - I think it was the one mentioned in the article above.

Horrifying.

It will be with the poor child for the rest of her life and through no fault of her own. So sad.

Not what the Founding Fathers had in mind, I'm sure. Certainly, they would have had no concept of automatic weapons. These are military guns with only one purpose - to kill or severely injure other people as rapidly as possible. They are not suitable for sport or self-defence and have no place on a shooting range. Nor, of course, does a nine-year-old girl.

Terrible shame!! Our thoughts are with this poor youngster who is going to be affected by this incident for the rest of her life. The gun culture in the USA is madness

I have just seen an American article explaining that this was all the parents' fault because they had left it too late to teach her to shoot!!! She would have been able to handle the recoil if she had been handed a Uzi before she was 5 !!! Well that's all right then

Well, ordinary citizens wouldn't be waving their guns around in the street, Nonu! They keep them at home for 'self-defence' don't they? Or possibly secreted on their person when out and about.

I've lost count of the numbers of innocent householders shot by family members mistakenly believing them to be intruders...

We start kids at archery at age 5, but with very strict supervision. It's not quite so lethal as a gun at that age, but still potentially could cause injury.

Well I"ve always said that the US OF A will NEVER get rid of their guns!
In my day to day going about there though, have never seen any evidence of guns except those carried by Officers of the Law.

The poor little girl could hardly lift the bloody gun, what were her parents thinking? They may regret this when they are bankrupted by paying for their daughter's therapy. The land of the free eh? And did you see the advert? A fun day out called Bullets and Burgers? The gun lobby are far too powerful as Obama has found out. Is it me getting old or is the world getting worse?

The 'world's gone mad' is not just about this case though, is it? I find the Rotherham grooming and rape story much more disturbing in many ways. 1400 girls, in a relatively small town- even if over a 15 year period, at around 100 girls a year... it is still massive.

Officials who closed a blind eye for whatever reasons are of course to blame- but surely- others in the community must have been aware- neighbours, shop-keepers... It must be such a broken society that allows that to happen in such large numbers, right under their nose. Just too easy to blame the officials and wring hands up in horror.