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You are here: Home / Gun Issues / Gun nuts / You Deserve to be Dead, You Moron

You Deserve to be Dead, You Moron

by | 208 Comments

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Sorry, but no sympathy whatsoever for this jackass:

An instructor who was shot by a 9-year-old girl who fired an Uzi at a northwestern Arizona shooting range died Monday night at University Medical Center in Las Vegas.

The girl fired the weapon at the outdoor range that caters to heavy tourism traffic along U.S. Highway 93 between Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon Skywalk.

Highway signage and Internet advertising beckons visitors to stop in, fire a machine gun and enjoy a meal at the Bullets and Burgers enterprise at the Last Stop, about 25 miles south of Las Vegas.

The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office said the accidental shooting occurred about 10 a.m. Spokeswoman Trish Carter said the girl, who was vacationing from New Jersey with her parents, was standing next to the instructor at the time.

Mohave County Sheriff Jim McCabe said the girl safely and successfully fired the 9 mm weapon several times when it was set in the “single-shot” mode.

He said the weapon was put into the “fully-automatic” mode before the girl fired again with the instructor standing off to her left. The weapon recoiled and drifted left as the girl squeezed off an undetermined number of rounds as she maintained possession but lost control of the Uzi as it raised up above her head.

“The guy just dropped,” McCabe said of shooting instructor Charles Vacca, 39, of Lake Havasu City, who suffered at least one gunshot to the head.

Jeff Frichette, director of training for The Range 702 in Las Vegas, said the incident in Arizona would never occur at his business. He credited this to how continuously shooting range’s safety officers are trained.

“Hypothetically” a 9-year-old would be able to shoot a fully-automatic weapon, but it’s a discretionary decision, he said.

That decision is based on physical and safety guidelines, he said.

Here’s a safety guideline. Don’t give a fucking nine year old a loaded fully automatic weapon. The only shame here is that he wasn’t alive long enough to suffer from his stupidity.

Seriously, I’m sure his family loved him and he was especially kind to critters, but there is just no excuse for this kind of idiocy. And if he hadn’t died this way, he probably would have died prematurely sticking forks into toasters.

Or mopping naked and braining himself in a toilet. It could happen.

Reader Interactions

208Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Folks were talking about this downthread. I’m glad the girl didn’t get hurt, although she’s probably going to need a lot of therapy.

  3. 3.

    Comrade Mary

    That poor girl is going to be deeply affected by this for a long, long time. Fuck her parents.Fuck the people running this range.

  4. 4.

    Just One More Canuck

    This is a case where I actually feel bad for the shooter. I can’t imagine having to live with that as a 9 yo

  6. 6.

    Josie

    The instructor was not the only incredibly stupid adult there. Where in the world were her parents? My husband was a lifelong hunter and a crack shot. He would never have handed one of our boys a weapon like that at the age of nine. The only thing they could use at that point was a 410 shotgun and then only with him standing right there giving strict instructions.

  8. 8.

    Bobby B.

    As long as the girl wasn’t messing with Evil Marijuana. That’s a serious charge in AZ.

  9. 9.

    Russ

    The sad thing is she will live the rest of her life as someone who has taken another life. Her parent’s should be charged with abuse. A 9 yo given an automatic weapon, just boggles my mind. and also very sad. The logic to think things thru does not occur to any of the customers and the people who work there. Darwin laughs.

  11. 11.

    Eric U.

    there are hilarious “gun fail” vids on youtube, and incidents like this form a sub-theme. Slight girl fires automatic weapon and loses control of it spraying bullets everywhere while onlookers laugh uncontrollably. My experience with full auto weapons is very limited, but it seems to me that telling people that if they think they are not in full control they should stop pulling the trigger makes a lot of sense.

  12. 12.

    The Other Bob

    Not sure if it can be verified, but I have read similar stories where a kid shot himself in the face with an automatic of some sort at a gun show.

    More of these morons need to be prosecuted.

  13. 13.

    jon

    Now I have an image of Cole wearing nothing but a football helmet while he mops the bathroom.

    Thanks?

  16. 16.

    Eric U.

    @metricpenny: early front runner for a Moore award, that much is obvious.

    It’s amazing how many ammosexuals end up dead or severely wounded, and the lot of them never understand why the rest of us think that their fetish objects are not really that great of an idea. This story is exactly why I support gun control.

  17. 17.

    TaMara (BHF)

    My guess this thread is going to be full of win. Yes, poor girl, but her parents were allowing her to do this, so she was probably headed for major therapy anyway.

    I was 8 when I was allowed to handle my dad’s shotgun. It was UNLOADED and came with a lecture on gun safety. And yes, I was fascinated. I was allowed to shoot it when I was 12. Skeet shooting, which came with a lecture on gun safety.

    Responsible gun ownership has gone the way of a sane/moderate Republican. Fuck the NRA.

  18. 18.

    Dog On Porch

    Recoil. When I heard this sad story, I recalled writer William Manchester’s account of a fellow Marine, a buddy of his, who perished when the recoil of a flame thrower enveloped him during the battle of Okinawa. The difference being, of course, that was a tragedy of war. That poor little girl.

  19. 19.

    Waynski

    Or mopping naked and braining himself in a toilet. It could happen.

    Darwin award material, J.C.

  20. 20.

    SatanicPanic

    So I was at a friend’s house a few weeks back. He’s a great guy, one of my best friends. But he likes guns. Normally I just ignore this, but we’re standing on his front lawn and he’s kind of playing with his handgun and I’m like “yeah that’s cool man, but uh, stop pointing it at (other friend)”. My other friend quickly steps out of the way.

    At this point, my list of “responsible gun owners” has been renamed “people who haven’t proven themselves irresponsible yet”

  21. 21.

    Elmo

    I can’t cosign the contempt for the instructor without more info. Was he the guy in charge? Or was he told “go out there and give that family some full-auto joy or you’re fired.”

    Tough world out there for employees of tourist traps, and if he was just trying to make a living I am very sorry for him and his family.

    If he was the range owner (“shot caller?”) then yeah, suxxors to be him.

  23. 23.

    Lawrence

    Gun safety used to be a noncontroversial norm in the gun community. At least among what used to be the NRA, the Boy Scouts, middle class people. I don’t doubt that there were always Darwin cases, go shooting with enough ‘friends of friends’ and you will find them. But they were the awkward kid at the dance when everybody else knew how to act. Not anymore. IF you want to have a child that young handle a gun you ONLY give them a single shot .22 rifle. The untrained, and even the trained, point handguns at themselves, you, other people because it seems like an extension of their hand. With a child’s impulse control it is a recipe for death. And an Uzi? Doubtful a nine year old could properly get her hand around the grip. And full auto? Now she’s like Rudy Waltz in Deadeye Dick. I hope this goes to family court. And this is a business? Who operates a business this way? Any underwriter who signed off on liability insurance for this should have his balls fed to a wolf.

  25. 25.

    PurpleGirl

    I once owned a .22 Marlin. Friends had given it to me and I went with them to a county range in Westchester (Blue Mountain Reserve). The range only permitted you to load 10 rounds at a time. The range officers also would call a halt to firing when someone needed to reload. My Marlin was semi-automatic with a 17-round tubular magazine. I’ve never fired a fully automatic or a more powerful rifle or gun. I don’t know what those parents were thinking to allow a child so young to fire a fully automatic Uzi. That child is going to be scared for life. I’m sorry for her. The instructor should get a posthumous Darwin Award.

  28. 28.

    kc

    Happened at the Bullets and Burgers roadside attraction. From Cole’s link:

    The Bullets and Burgers website markets a unique shooting experience for customers.

    “Our guests have the opportunity to fire a wide range of fully automatic machine guns and specialty weapons,” the website states. “At our range, you can shoot FULL auto on our machine guns.

    “Let ‘em Rip!”

  30. 30.

    Violet

    @Comrade Mary: Any parents who let their 9 year old daughter shoot an Uzi at some roadside shooting range while on vacation are probably crappy parents to begin with. Poor thing was probably messed up before she ever put a finger on the gun.

  31. 31.

    aimai

    The same thing happened here in MA a few years ago. Stupid family drove their kid all the way up to MA to have him shoot a machine gun and he couldn’t handle the recoil. The gun leaped up and the kid ended up being shot in the head. Beyond stupid and awful. And completely under the discretion and with the willing connivance of the father and the “instructor” at the range.

  35. 35.

    MattF

    I guess it’s notable that 100 years after the start of WW1, a lot of people who should know better still don’t quite understand that machine guns are dangerous. Kurt Vonnegut:

    Young people owe it to themselves to understand how easily machine guns and tanks can control crowds.

    There is a basic rule about tanks, and you should know it: The only man who ever beat a tank was John Wayne. And he was in another tank.

    …about machine guns: They work sort of like a garden hose, except they spray death. They should be approached with caution.

  36. 36.

    Roger Moore

    @Josie:

    Where in the world were her parents?

    Maybe they trusted the people at the firing range to know what they were doing. I would expect a place like that to have reasonable safety rules and not to let the people firing their guns do anything unsafe. It’s kind of like the people who expected banks to know what they were doing and not make home loans to people who had no realistic hope of paying them back. It’s the way things would work in a sane universe.

  38. 38.

    kc

    @aimai:

    I just did some googling about that case. Dad takes 8-year old kid to gun range to shoot a machine gun, kid gets killed, dad sues gun maker and gets a $700K settlement.

    Awesome.

  39. 39.

    PurpleGirl

    @BGinCHI: LOL. Great shirt for JC.

    I looked at the Burgers and Bullets web site. They only serve burgers, fries and (probably) soda. (They say a drink but don’t specify what the drink is.)

  40. 40.

    C.S.Strowbridge

    I feel sorry for the girl. I hope she doesn’t suffer any serious emotional harm.

  41. 41.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Laertes: THIS is the major problem with ammosexuals.

    They think these deadly tools are toys.

    NO.

    They are NOT.

    And when you suggest that perhaps we need to have some regulatory mechanism in place, like you have for driving a car, they get all upset that you might take their toys away from them.

    Because “responsible” gun owners are nine times out of ten NOT.

  43. 43.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Roger Moore: I’d like to move to that universe you just described. I’m tired of living in this Spock-with-a-beard one we’re in right now.

  44. 44.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Roger Moore: I’d like to move to that universe you just described. I’m tired of living in this Spock-with-a-beard one we’re in right now.

  45. 45.

    max

    He said the weapon was put into the “fully-automatic” mode before the girl fired again with the instructor standing off to her left.

    The instructor should have been prepared for a nine-year-old to drift off target while utilizing a fire hose that shoots bullets. Thus, he should have been standing behind her and prepared for the eventuality.

    max
    [‘Makes mopping naked look like you should win a Nobel for doing it.’]

  46. 46.

    max

    @max: [‘Makes mopping naked look like you should win a Nobel for doing it.’]

    Clearly this man deserves to be a Darwin Award finalist.

    max
    [‘Christ.’]

  51. 51.

    different-church-lady

    I ain’t gonna say I’d wish that on anyone, but I am going to say I appreciate the dark poetry of it.

  52. 52.

    aimai

    @Mnemosyne: From the article:

    The teenager who worked at a gun show where 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj accidentally killed himself while shooting an Uzi testified today he twice suggested the boy’s father pick a less powerful weapon for the boy to shoot.

    But Christopher’s father, Dr. Charles Bizilj, insisted that his son be allowed to fire the automatic weapon, Michael Spano told the court. Spano was 15 at the time of the 2008 Massachusetts gun expo and was put in charge of allowing people to fire the 9 mm Micro Uzi, a submachine gun that fires 20 rounds a second

  53. 53.

    AnonPhenom

    Nine years old? How was he supposed to know? Hell, she looked 12! What was he supposed to do? Ask for ID? It was just a kid shooting a machine gun in Amurika. Ain’t like it was some grown ass adult of the African-American persuasion attempting to vote in an election or something …..

  54. 54.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Needless to say, in a sane universe such a business as “Burgers and Bullets” would not exist.

    I’m certain there will be no reconsideration of the premise of the operation in light of this incident.

  56. 56.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @aimai:

    But Christopher’s father, Dr. Charles Bizilj, insisted that his son be allowed to fire the automatic weapon,

    What is his PhD in? Utter stupidity?

  57. 57.

    Dog On Porch

    @kc: I might open a ‘Bullets & Booze Free Firing Range’ in Arizona.

    #1) Members only.

    #2) All life insurance policies of said membership to designate me as beneficiary.

    #3) Before admittance to the ‘free fire zone’, members must register at least 1.6 on a breath-a-lizer. Upon passing, members will be issued the weaponry of their choice.

    Is this a great country, or what?

  58. 58.

    Mnemosyne

    @aimai:

    That’s what I mean — why the hell would you put a 15-year-old in charge of supervising customers using deadly weapons? I’m pretty sure that in most states you have to be at least 18 to own a gun like that. That’s like putting a 15-year-old in charge of the booze at your party: even if the kid means well, s/he’s probably going to get bulldozed by the adults.

  61. 61.

    gocart mozart

    @The Other Bob: Is this what you are thinking of?

    The teenager who worked at a gun show where 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj accidentally killed himself while shooting an Uzi testified today he twice suggested the boy’s father pick a less powerful weapon for the boy to shoot. But Christopher’s father, Dr. Charles Bizilj, insisted that his son be allowed to fire the automatic weapon, Michael Spano told the court. Spano was 15 at the time of the 2008 Massachusetts gun expo and was put in charge of allowing people to fire the 9 mm Micro Uzi, a submachine gun that fires 20 rounds a second.Former Pelham, Mass., police chief Edward Fleury is on trial for the boy’s death because he organized the gun expo. He is charged with involuntary manslaughter. He has pleaded not guilty.

    http://abcnews.go.com/US/father-christopher-bizilj-died-firing-uzi-urged-son/story?id=12565132

  62. 62.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Lawrence:

    Any underwriter who signed off on liability insurance for this should have his balls fed to a wolf.

    ASPCA on line two for you. They’re in a foul mood.

  63. 63.

    Roger Moore

    @Josie:

    See, there is your problem. Your expectations are way too high.

    I’m not the one who expects machinegun ranges to have competent safety rules and banks not to hand out mortgages just because the people taking them out are destined to default. But there are apparently other people who expect those things and keep being surprised when the world doesn’t conform to their expectations.

  65. 65.

    Hal

    On one hand if you have kids and guns in the same house, I guess you would want to teach your kid proper gun safety and handling. On the other hand, at what point in your life are you or your child ever going to have need for a Uzi? Let alone a 9 year old who I would guess might have trouble with a regular hand gun. I wonder if this little girl even cared about this damn gun, or if the father thought it would be cute. Father is a dumb ass.

  66. 66.

    Baud

    @aimai:

    But Christopher’s father, Dr. Charles Bizilj, insisted that his son be allowed to fire the automatic weapon, Michael Spano told the court.

    That’ll show Obama. libruls.

    ETA: This particular tragedy occurred in 2008.

  68. 68.

    Violet

    Apparently the dead instructor was an Army veteran. Seems like maybe he should know a bit more about gun safety than the average person, but who knows.

  70. 70.

    kc

    @aimai:

    Dad got $700K in his lawsuit. He testified at the gun-range owner’s trial and said he was going to use that money to start a foundation in his son’s name to provide adventures for underprivileged kids.

    Wonder if he ever did that.

  74. 74.

    dr. luba

    @Seth Owen: I went to that link, and got an auto-play ad for a certain blue pill, whose very mention lands you in comment purgatory.

    That is one spot-on advertising algorithm.

  75. 75.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Baud:

    This particular tragedy occurred in 2008.

    Which means that we still get to blame Obama, that was during his pre-election term in the White House.

  78. 78.

    dr. luba

    Sorry for the duplicates. I was informed that my comment was a duplicate, and assumed that meant it would not be posted. So I re-wrote it, only to find two copies of the previous post up. Please, someone, delete them, since there is no timer on them for edit or removal.

    I think this deserves a hearty FYWP.

  81. 81.

    MattF

    @Iowa Old Lady: I like this one:

    Professor Chomsky then turned his critique on The X Factor audience. ‘You are all complicit in a hegemonic construct designed primarily to keep you from questioning what is really going on in the world,’ he told them.

    True dat, actually.

  83. 83.

    JCT

    I posted this on the other thread, we were bantering about this and the tragedy in Mass that I remember very well. The dad in Mass (and he bears responsibility for encouraging his son to do this) was apparently videotaping the whole thing. And that tape was repeatedly played in court. Horrific.

    I think cckids put it well, since Obama was elected these rabid “guns everywhere” nutjobs have migrated from the fringe to the norm. Their goal is to “normalize” guns as part of everyday life and the first step is to convince others that they can easily be handled by anyone and we shouldn’t be “afraid” of guns. I think incidents such as this are the outcome.

    I own firearms, I’m an avid target shooter and have been for years. Every time I handle one I am vigilant and fully aware of how dangerous they can be – this nonsense of having folks (and their kids) just drive up to any old range in the middle of nowhere or walk up to a booth at a freaking county fair and get to handle an UZI in full auto mode with just a few minutes of instruction (as in “hold it like this and pull the trigger”) is sheer insanity.

  84. 84.

    Lavocat

    Damn, you’re one mean sober person!

    But I so love it when you go off on one of yer rants.

    Have you given any thought to becoming a motivational speaker for geriatric misanthropes?

    You could give Grampa Simpson a run for his money.

  85. 85.

    eyelessgame

    No sympathy here either (I already had all the sympathy I can muster for the girl, given the nutbars her parents obviously are, this won’t be the most horrific thing that happens to her).

    At this point when a gun owner gets shot I’m pretty much figuring it’s win-win. His blood gets to water the tree of liberty, so his friends are happy; and it means one fewer gun owner and +1 vote differential in favor of sanity in all future elections. It’s not like I’d ever have any other interaction with this moran.

  87. 87.

    Mike G

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Anyone who uses his “doctor” title outside of work is a jerk.

    This. Pretentiousness to the max. Particularly if they are a PhD.
    We don’t all need to know about your doctorate in Linguistics when you’re picking up your car at the mechanic.

  88. 88.

    Mart

    Letting the nine year old fire a fully automatic Uzi was intentional, her drift to the left was the accidental part. Should be charges filed and shooting range regulations, but what can you do if it was God’s will?

  89. 89.

    shortstop

    “Hypothetically” a 9-year-old would be able to shoot a fully-automatic weapon, but it’s a discretionary decision, he said.

    Yes. People with a modicum of discretion would never make the jackass decision to give a nine-year-old an Uzi.

  90. 90.

    raven

    @Mike G:

    “doctor” is Latin for “teacher” and the title originally had no special connection with medicine. Instead, a doctor was anyone qualified to teach at a university (in medieval Europe teaching qualifications were typically determined by the church). The concept of a formal PhD degree came much later, but it continued this earlier terminology.

    The confusion in English is irritating, but not problematic enough to make universities give up a 1000+ year old tradition. It’s not clear why this situation arose. One natural explanation is that if you want to emphasize your medical skills, you can do it by explaining that you are not just a healer, but in fact someone qualified to teach other people the healing arts. In other words, you’re a doctor of medicine in the academic sense of the word “doctor”. Until very recently universities were fairly exotic, and most people didn’t talk about academic doctors very much, so the medical usage was much more salient for the general public and for most people it became the standard meaning of “doctor”.

  91. 91.

    scav

    @raven: Put in context with the surgeons once being classed with butchers, it does make sense, no? ETA I mean Barbers, the other
    b word.

  92. 92.

    shortstop

    I talk to academics all day long. I don’t care what they call themselves off campus. I just wish they’d answer their office phones with something a little more self-identifying than “Hello?” Seriously, in what other business is this acceptable?

  93. 93.

    raven

    @Mike G: The funny thing is that there was a long discussion on Car Talk when a woman with a PhD in Art History called herself doctor and the boys (Tom has a doctorate) let her have it! Lots of people called in but, in the end, Tom and Ray agreed that physicians were not called “doctor” and the woman had every right to if she wished.

  94. 94.

    raven

    @scav: Myt wife’s surgeon said that the spinal surgery they did on me 40 years ago would be considered barbaric now but it was state of the art then.

  95. 95.

    shortstop

    @scav: An understandable mistake.

    Sorry, a little bitter and raw right now. Surgeon failing to read the third baseman’s chart/problem list before diving in caused complications that almost killed my fellow infielder last month.

  97. 97.

    Roger Moore

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Anyone who uses his “doctor” title outside of work is a jerk.

    Where I work, anyone who insists on using their “doctor” at work is highly questionable. A large enough fraction of the people here have PhDs that it comes off as pretentious to insist on the title. I think insisting on using your title (either doctor or professor) is suspect as an attempt to argue from authority. A lot of really important people go by their first names, or even by nicknames, as a way of appearing more approachable and less like authority figures.

  98. 98.

    Roger Moore

    @MattF:

    True dat, actually.

    So is:

    ‘I have the utmost respect for Chomsky,’ said Walsh, ‘but his greatest work was done more than forty years ago. In that respect he’s not much better than Geri Halliwell.’

  100. 100.

    raven

    @Roger Moore: I just put together a series of faculty development sessions with faculty as the presenters. Most of the presenters and participants have doctorates. If they submitted their information with PhD on it, I put it on. If they listed themselves as “Dr.” I put that on. About half did and half didn’t.

  101. 101.

    shortstop

    @Roger Moore: It can be a handy way of separating the douchebags/those with douchebag tendencies from the normal folk. I even give top points to medical doctors who identify themselves by their first names the first time I see them as a patient. (Especially if they’re older than I am, which used to be true all the time but now…isn’t.)

  102. 102.

    dmsilev

    @Roger Moore: I work in an academic department, where a large fraction of the population either has or is working towards a PhD, and it’s the same way. I think the last time anyone addressed me as ‘Doctor’ without it being a joke was immediately after my thesis defense.

  103. 103.

    scav

    @shortstop: funny thing about times. The Barber end of things had more real-world experience so one often did better with them attending than with the snooty intellectuals. Although I hear some of the Islamic texts available were not bad, and some of their eye tools are still near standards? (blades can be like that.) What a seine net of odd details I drag along . . .

  104. 104.

    shortstop

    @dmsilev: Dude, just say, “DM Silev” or “Dr. Silev” (is joke) when you answer. Seriously. I’ve worked at and with universities for 20-plus years (maybe even at yours, but best not to probe that), and believe me, the staff and students crack up at this professorial habit.

  106. 106.

    shortstop

    @scav:

    What a seine net of odd details I drag along . . .

    To our everliving edification. Don’t stop anytime soon.

  107. 107.

    JCT

    @shortstop: Hah! I answer my phone with my first and last names, always have. I’ve gotten some really weird comments about it – don’t know why.

  111. 111.

    Violet

    @raven: In my experience academics can be really prickly about making sure you know they have the proper letters after their names and are addressed as Dr. It’s worse in academic medicine where the hierarchy is MD then PhD in a biomedical science and then PhD in anything else. PharmD, EdD, DrPH, etc. are way down the list. There’s a real argument as to where MD-PhDs fall in the hierarchy. Practicing MDs view them suspiciously as just lab rats so might as well just be PhDs and want to push them down that hierarchy. But they do bring in the grant money.

    It’s a pain in the ass for anyone not an MD or PhD and you can expect to be treated as the lowly serf they think you are.

  116. 116.

    shortstop

    @Violet: Much less of this across the pond. When I lived in Eng-a-land, every prof was Mr. this and Ms./Mrs./Miss that. Not sure if that’s changed; it’s been a while.

  117. 117.

    raven

    @Violet: I’d just like to call myself doctor to some of those fuckers that helped ship my ass off to the Army on my 17th birthday. I got my GED when I was 17 and my EdD when I was 50. Anyone who doesn’t like it can kiss my fucking ass. I do not, however, use doctor very much.

  118. 118.

    Roger Moore

    @raven:
    Bear in mind that I live and work in California, so there’s probably some laid-back, left coast spin in there, too. I get the impression that stuffy, back East types are more likely to insist on using their titles.

  119. 119.

    MattF

    @shortstop: I recall that at Cornell in the late 60’s, all the (male) faculty used ‘Mr.’ rather than ‘Professor’ or ‘Doctor’. Don’t know if that’s still true.

  122. 122.

    Iowa Old Lady

    I make people call me Doctor IOL only if they’ve ticked me off.

    At work, undergrads called me professor. Grad students and co-workers used my first name.

  124. 124.

    JCT

    @Violet:

    There’s a real argument as to where MD-PhDs fall in the hierarchy. Practicing MDs view them suspiciously as just lab rats so might as well just be PhDs and want to push them down that hierarchy. But they do bring in the grant money.

    And don’t forget – the PhDs assume we are substandard scientists, grants or no. We call it the “MD taint”. Can’t win for losing.

    @shortstop: Hey – that’s what my patient’s kids usually call me, I love that.

  125. 125.

    dmsilev

    @shortstop: It’s usually not that bad, honestly. Most of the phone calls I get are from people I know (thanks, Caller ID!); I’m not actually faculty so I don’t teach and hence don’t have to field calls from students asking about classwork and the like. My office number is one digit off from the number for our business school’s admissions office, so there are a fair number of misdirected calls from that, but that’s easily dealt with.

  126. 126.

    Linnaeus

    Re: “doctor”, when I do finish my Ph.D., I will not use that title. Even if I’m teaching a class somewhere. I’ve got no use for that.

    As for the topic of the post, was it really stupid for the instructor to do what he did? Yes. Did he deserve to die for it? No.

  127. 127.

    raven

    @Iowa Old Lady: I spent a decade coordinating teams of faculty in building online courses. Three of us in our shop had doctorates and one did not. I hated it but the one without was treated differently by many of the folks she worked with. It was bullshit but it was real.

  128. 128.

    shortstop

    @Iowa Old Lady: “Professor” is nice. My undergrad degree is from a very stiff-necked institution (part of my parents’ failed attempts at instilling conservative values in me, forgetting that reverse psychology can be effective well into one’s child’s 20s), and the profs called me “Miss Shortstop.” Not even Ms., which was well established as polite usage by that time. Makes me laugh now.

  130. 130.

    Citizen_X

    SO ANYWAY, back to the firing-range idiots…

    Is it me, or is there some kind of attitude now that “Gun safety is for fa99ots?” I mean, you don’t want to let anyone think you have a “fear of guns,” now, do you? You don’t want anyone to think you’re a–and I hate this idiotic word–“hoplophobe,” do you?

    Me, I think anyone that owns deadly weapons, and doesn’t have a healthy fear of them–even if they use them on a regular basis–is a fucking menace.

  131. 131.

    Ernest Pikeman

    I’ve been to that place. Didn’t shoot guns, listening to camo clad low lifes at the next table talk about Obummer was quite enough.

  135. 135.

    mclaren

    Here’s a safety guideline. Don’t give a fucking nine year old a loaded fully automatic weapon.

    Here’s an even better safety guideline. Don’t give a fucking nine year old a weapon OF ANY KIND.

  136. 136.

    Mike E

    @shortstop: I make lots of phone calls from a voters’ database with many many unpronounceable first names (not to mention last names, wow) so I often go with Mr. or Ms. to avoid obvious pitfalls. More than a few times, I was corrected by some elderly women after saying ‘Ms’, they’d reply, “it’s Miss.” You can never win some times.

  137. 137.

    Roger Moore

    @Violet:
    Insisting on titles definitely seems to be a bigger deal in medicine and medical research than it is in basic research. The people on the medical side here are always careful to spell out exactly what qualifications people have, including not just their medical degree but also any higher-level certifications. They’ll often have three or more sets of initials after their name, and if they’re the head of a department they’ll definitely let you know. It’s actually a huge deal with nurses, since there is a big range of nurse training levels, and you don’t want to confuse a Licensed Practical Nurse with a Nurse Practitioner.

  138. 138.

    srv

    Obama has deprived another American of his Constitutional Rights

    A former Minnesotan linked to the terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant has been killed in Syria.

    Douglas McCain had lived in San Diego in recent years and was a 1999 graduate of Robbinsdale Cooper High School, said two cousins who still live in the Twin Cities and are roughly his age.

    Kenyata McCain and another first cousin said Tuesday that McCain’s mother received a call Monday from the State Department reporting that her 33-year-old son was killed over the weekend.

    The New York Times reported Tuesday night that a senior U.S. official said McCain died fighting for ISIL and that a human rights group that monitors the fighting in Syria said he was killed in a battle in Marea, a city in northern Syria near the Turkish border.

  141. 141.

    The Dangerman

    I enjoy shooting trap (I’m a bit of a klutz but have seriously good hand eye coordination when it comes to games and guns)…

    …and, on a recent shooting outing saw a teenager damn near blow off his foot when he was shooting some mini-cannon downrange a ways (missed his foot by inches though, thankfully, he always had the weapon pointed downrange and not, say, at me). Scared the crap out of me because you can take all the safety precautions in the world (we thought we had) and shit still finds a way to happen. This was an older TEEN; having shit happen with a 9 yo is unconscionable.

  142. 142.

    Donut

    @Roger Moore:

    Most firing ranges have liability insurance and many buy it through an NRA-sponsored program administered by a brokerage firm called Lockton Affinity. It’s actually the biggest profit-center for that company’s division. Don’t ask how I know this, but it’s true. And no, I don’t work there or for the NRA.

  143. 143.

    Donut

    @Roger Moore:

    Most firing ranges have liability insurance and many buy it through an NRA-sponsored program administered by a brokerage firm called Lockton Affinity. It’s actually the biggest profit-center for that company’s division. Don’t ask how I know this, but it’s true. And no, I don’t work there or for the NRA.

  146. 146.

    Arclite

    @Josie:

    The instructor was not the only incredibly stupid adult there. Where in the world were her parents? My husband was a lifelong hunter and a crack shot. He would never have handed one of our boys a weapon like that at the age of nine. The only thing they could use at that point was a 410 shotgun and then only with him standing right there giving strict instructions.

    Or MAYBE a .22 rimfire single shot bolt action rifle.

  150. 150.

    shortstop

    @dmsilev: That makes sense. I shall stop gigging you now.

    @Citizen_X: Yeah, at the risk of sounding like I’m about to extend instructions for small people to vacate my grassy acreage, I remember when gun safety wasn’t associated with weakness, lack of masculinity or insufficient courage.

    @Mike E: Well, I was 18 and wasn’t complaining, just smilin’ on the inside. You’re pretty safe going with “Ms.” nowadays…the number of elderly dames who will protest not having their married status publicly acknowledged by strangers is shrinking yearly.

  151. 151.

    Gvg

    it’s possible the parents had no experience with guns and didn’t know it was stupid. if you have not been brought up with guns, you get your ideas from TV even if you don’t know it.
    People have much less practical use for guns these last few decades even while the romanticization of guns have grown. they can be very ignorant. frankly I am ignorant that way. difference is that makes me afraid of guns….and I do have expert relatives who can tell me. some of their stories about friends they refuse to go hunting with anymore are pretty scary.

  152. 152.

    Arclite

    @Russ:

    The sad thing is she will live the rest of her life as someone who has taken another life. Her parent’s should be charged with abuse. A 9 yo given an automatic weapon, just boggles my mind. and also very sad. The logic to think things thru does not occur to any of the customers and the people who work there. Darwin laughs.

    Second Amendment, bitches. Never you mind that whole “well-regulated militia” part.

  154. 154.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Needless to say, in a sane universe such a business as “Burgers and Bullets” would not exist.

    I’m actually kind of surprised it’s not called “Bullets and Brewskis” or “Shots and Shotguns,” or sell “Uzi Coozees” for your cold drinks.

  155. 155.

    Gene108

    If a restaurant / tourist stop has rides, kids will be tempted to go on those rides. It is human nature. This place advertises guns as its ride.

    Adults used to live in a country, where some degree of regulations existed, such that chances of people getting maimed or killed on those rides would be minuscule.

    I think the assumption is, if the ride does not say you just be “this tall” to get on, it is safe for everyone.

    If these gun ranges do not say you must be “this tall/old/skilled” to fire a gun, they should be shut down. There’s more fucking safety rules in place for go-karts and bumper-cars at my local Funplex than there seem to be at these gun ranges.

  158. 158.

    Hal

    At the hospital I worked at an attorney wanted to be registered in the appointment system with his job title attached. Apparently he made a big stink about it that went all the way up to administration since patient were listed only by legal name, but he ultimately got his way, and when you looked him up he was listed as last name, first name – attorney. I don’t know if he thought that would be intimidating to the Doctors or was just title obsessed, or both, but he ultimately got his way.

  162. 162.

    PhoenixRising

    Lemme say one thing about this incident: Family from NJ, visiting Vegas, ran out I-40 to see some desert…I’m saddened but not surprised.

    4 years ago, when my friend brought her family out that way from NJ, I had to use up a lifetime of credibility with the kids (8, 12, 15) to convince them that the edge of the Grand Canyon was as dangerous as it looked. Having spent their lives to that point in environments that had been engineered for their safety, the notion that there wasn’t a guardrail or fence….was tough to get across.

    I’m wondering if the parents of that poor 9 year old were under the impression that OF COURSE things were regulated, inspected and safe like they would be at a range in Jersey. It’s possible that they were unaware of the fact that the border crossed us.

  163. 163.

    Mike in NC

    The only thing that can stop a bad child with a submachinegun is a good child with a submachinegun.

    / LaPierre

  164. 164.

    rikyrah

    2008 Meltdown Was Worse Than Great Depression, Bernanke Says
    4:03 pm ET Aug 26, 2014
    By PEDRO NICOLACI DA COSTA

    Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a prominent student of the Great Depression, contends that the 2008 financial crisis was actually worse than its 1930s counterpart.

    Mr. Bernanke is quoted making the statement in a document filed on Aug. 22 with theU.S. Court of Federal Claims as part of a lawsuit linked to the 2008 government bailout of insurance giant American International Group Inc.AIG +0.34%

    “September and October of 2008 was the worst financial crisis in global history, including the Great Depression,” Mr. Bernanke is quoted as saying in the document filed with the court. Of the 13 “most important financial institutions in the United States, 12 were at risk of failure within a period of a week or two.”

    Former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is quoted in the document offering a similarly apocalyptic assessment. From Sept. 6 through Sept. 22, the economy was essentially “in free fall,” he said.

    http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/08/26/2008-meltdown-was-worse-than-great-depression-bernanke-says/

  165. 165.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: I do that with my kitties. It’s Mr. Bear and Miss Willow. Not quite sure how that started, but it stuck.

    How’s the mug? Was my mom right? She always said the day after the day after is always the worst.

  166. 166.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: Nah, it was never a problem. The worst thing is getting the damn bandages to stick to whiskers after I hit the stitches with vaseline. They come out Friday so it’ll be cool.

    thx

    ps Raven was known as boo-boo and the bride and I call each other Mr and Mrs boo-boo to this day.

  168. 168.

    Jebediah, RBG

    @Russ:

    The sad thing is she will live the rest of her life as someone who has taken another life.

    And I am sure that Not-Joe the Not-Plumber would be happy to chime in and inform us all that her trauma does not trump his Constitutional right to completely unfettered guns guns guns. Gotta have priorities.

  170. 170.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: Wow. I knew it was bad at the time, but I’m kind of glad I didn’t know just how close to the edge we were at the time.

  173. 173.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I see you were/are a fan, as well. I was a voracious reader and ever so proud to share a name with her.

  174. 174.

    Gene108

    @PhoenixRising:

    I do think the assumption of safety played a roll. I mean look at how much safer cars have gotten.

    I have an 11 year old Corolla. Side impact airbags and anti-lock brakes were optional. Test drove a new one. ABS is standard and so are at least half a dozen air bags.

    We live in a world where consumer products are safer and safer. A lot of folks probably cannot grasp that there is a segment of the population – gun-nuts- who are moving in the opposite direction.

    Also, why would it surprise you that family from the east coast would want to see desert? I have been to AZ, from a lifetime mostly spent on the east coast and the landscape was mind blowingly different.

  175. 175.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    Just a fan of those titles. I used to read mysteries when I was a kid, but I never got into either Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys.

  176. 176.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: Okay, that gave me a happy laugh!

    My kitties were named Lucy and Fred when I got them from the humane society. Apparently Ethel and Desi rounded out the litter, but they had already been taken by the time I found Willow & Bear.

    They are so not Fred and Lucy material; I had to rename them.

    Edit: Though it might have been fun to be able to do the “lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do” when I get up in the morning and someone has opened the kitchen cabinets, trying to find some contraband.

  178. 178.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    I was really into The Three Investigators for a while. I really thought their secret buried-in-the-junkyard RV hideout was cool. A little Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie. It was all so long ago, I barely remember any of it.

  180. 180.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: You remembered more than I did! I know I started with the Trixie Belden books before I moved on to read every single Nancy Drew, but I was sitting here scratching my head trying to recall what I started reading after that. It was Agatha Christie, so thanks for that.

    I don’t know who the Three Investigators are, but I have a 5-year old nephew, so I might have to look those up. Thanks.

    Edit: wow, you can’t even buy them from amazon, except the kindle edition. The first book is going for 291.00 or something like that from a third-party. Yikes.

  181. 181.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    I have a 5-year old nephew

    I thought we were talking about what we were reading when we were 20.

    ;-)

    (I was older than five, but less than 20 when I was into all this stuff.)

  183. 183.

    pseudonymous in nc

    “Hypothetically” a 9-year-old would be able to shoot a fully-automatic weapon, but it’s a discretionary decision, he said.

    He’s going to get all sorts of shit from the NRA and its flying ammosexuals for that, because the gospel of Saint Bangstick says that little Jenny should be started on her first .22 before she can walk so that she’s adequately prepared to tote that Uzi at 9.

    And that statement shows just how fucked up the discourse is. The correct reply is “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING?” but you’re not allowed to say that in the United Guns of Guns.

  184. 184.

    ShadeTail

    @Elmo: I understand where you’re coming from, but I simply don’t agree. Yeah, perhaps he was just a low-level grunt employee who would have been fired for refusing to let a tiny child play with a fully-automatic gun. And if that had been the case, life after being fired would probably have been tough. But at least he wouldn’t have been dead.

    His incredibly stupid decision cost him his life, and his reasons for his decision do not make it any smarter. When you give a fourth-grader such a dangerous weapon, an accident like this is the most predictable result.

  185. 185.

    Citizen Alan

    Tangential to the main issue, I know, but if you click through, there’s cellphone video that cuts off right before the girl opens fire on the idiot. I’m really curious as to who took that video and how it ended up in the hands of the local newspaper so quickly.

  186. 186.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Lawrence:

    this is a business? Who operates a business this way?

    I know that certain British visitors who go to Vegas (bachelor weekenders) often schedule a day at the Shoot Whatever Shit You Like, Heck We Have Tanks Range in Desertsass, Nevada, and the competence of those people with weapons has to be suspect. Only surprise is that it hasn’t happened more often.

    Bullets and Bloodshed is apparently the #1 attraction in the Vegas area on TripAdvisor. Make of that what you will.

  187. 187.

    joe citizen

    Yes, a lot of very bad decisions here.

    But man, you people are nasty and cruel.

    Isn’t compassion, especially in moments of great sadness, a virtue that is quite consistent with a leftwing point of view?

  188. 188.

    Mnemosyne

    @joe citizen:

    Isn’t compassion, especially in moments of great sadness, a virtue that is quite consistent with a leftwing point of view?

    I feel a lot of compassion towards the little girl who now has to live the rest of her life with the knowledge that she killed a man.

    Towards the parents who put the gun in her hands and the “instructor” who didn’t show her basic gun safety or point out that maybe a nine-year-old couldn’t physically handle shooting an Uzi on full auto? Not so much.

  190. 190.

    Death Panel Truck

    @raven: Actually, the funniest scene in A Day At The Races is Chico at the piano playing “On The Beach At Bali-Bali.”

  192. 192.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @raven:

    Myt wife’s surgeon said that the spinal surgery they did on me 40 years ago would be considered barbaric now but it was state of the art then.

    Pardon the expression, but I dodged that bullet at exactly the same time through no fault of my own. The neurosurgeon stopped in the night before my surgery was scheduled to discuss the results of the day’s tests. “I don’t see anything that could be causing your problems,” he said, “and I’m not about to open you up just to poke around in there.” Bless him. It turned out to be arthritis & was successfully treated without recourse to sharp objects.

  193. 193.

    Chad

    @Baud: Baud, a helpful hint: If you’re going to call someone a moron, you should at least spell the word correctly.

  197. 197.

    Paul in KY

    @ShadeTail: I think he probably felt ‘Well I warned them, but Doc wants the kid to fire that gun, so if anything bad happens, it’s on him’.

  199. 199.

    Paul in KY

    @Chad: I think he meant to spell it that way. There’s an infamous tea party sign that misspelled it & a lot of people spell it that way on purpose.

  200. 200.

    ShadeTail

    @joe citizen: I’m not going to tell you that you’re wrong, but I will tell you that that’s your opinion, and I don’t entirely agree with it. My idea of liberal compassion is that people in general should not have to deal with unnecessary hardships that could be cleared away by the government or by society at large. But when someone does something incredibly stupid and suffers very predictable consequences, well, I don’t take any glee in their suffering and/or death, but I also don’t feel any pity for them.

    After all, liberalism can’t save people from themselves, and freedom means being responsible for yourself and accepting the consequences of your own actions.

  201. 201.

    HR Progressive

    There are so many “Gun Fails” that get posted by noted DFH David Waldman that I actually still think this one has to qualify as “The Dumbest Gun Fail Ever”, or, very close to it.

    I’ve had my own local gun range yell at shooters for shooting too fast (the range has a ban on “Rapid Fire”), yet this supposed gun instructor allowed and apparently encouraged a small, 0 year old girl, to fire a fully-automatic Uzi machine pistol in fully-automatic mode.

    The only person who is to blame for the death of this individual is the guy who died. Period.

    I like guns, and I like being a liberal who thinks that people should not have unfettered access to said guns. But I have no problem feeling like this is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard, and the person to blame is the whackjob gun fetishist who is now deceased.

    His family can be sad, and the girl can be traumatized, but if this guy thought this was a good idea, society at large is probably better off without him.

  202. 202.

    ASevins

    His Facebook page is full of right-wing gun propaganda, including a patriots-mistrust-their-guv’mint quote falsely attributed to Thomas Paine (was actually Edward Abbey in a different context).

    There’s also a coin image with bad spelling that I wouldn’t have posted for that very reason; your vs you’re and loose vs lose. We weren’t dealing with a scholar here.

  203. 203.

    ASevins

    @pseudonymous in nc: That ammo word is funny, and I also stumbled across “Gundamentalism” while looking it up. I have come to see gun worship as a form of intellectual and moral weakness more than anything. These people don’t want us to get more civilized and are happier when there’s some eternal threat they can prepare for.

  204. 204.

    Tim

    I agree with everything you’re saying. That said, if you’re going to use the word “moron,” please learn how to spell it (or use spell check)…

  205. 205.

    HilltownGrrl

    @WaterGirl:

    I adore (yes, still, even though I’m 55) Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Donna Parker, Dana Girls (even more than Nancy) & many, many more including Three Investigators, which I’m reading to my 9yo twin nephews. I love this series! I’ve even finding new series I never read & am happily escaping the real world into them.

    I worked at a bookstore then a library for years (I now work for an author doing research – I love books!!) & my advice is – never use Amazon for used books – the prices are insane (either insanely low or insanely high).

    The site I trust the most for used books is Abe.com – you are dealing directly with shops & individuals whose job is selling books (lots of people selling on Amazon aren’t specifically booksellers).

    Anyway, tl/dr – here is the link to the Three Investigators on Abe; the prices start at $3.95. Try to find the older versions of the books (the ones with Alfred Hitchcock). The newer ones replace Hitchcock with Hector Sebastian & are not as well written.

    http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=three+investigators

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