John Lott’s latest piece at the Daily Caller starts this way:
Even experts sometimes make mistakes. That happened this past Sunday when a firing range instructor at the Last Stop outdoor shooting range in White Hills, Arizona was accidentally shot to death by a 9-year-old student.
The reaction has been swift. Calling it “sick” over and over again, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough “Who would put an Uzi in the hands of a nine-year-old girl? What is wrong with these people? What is wrong with this culture? What right is advanced by doing that?” The New York Timesquotes one person’s outrage: “What in the name of Jesus is wrong with us, Americans?” And, of course, Shannon Watts from Michael Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action was on television yesterday to discuss the tragedy and call for more gun control.
Anyone who has been to Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport has probably seen the signs advertising shooting ranges that allow visitors to try shooting machine guns. People come from all around the world to visit these shooting ranges.
The accident is the first in the 14 years that the gun range has operated. It occurred when the girl couldn’t handle the recoil from the automatic gun. Actually, each .22 LR caliber bullet is very small and has very little recoil. But while a semi-automatic weapon has only one bullet being fired per pull of the trigger, an automatic or machine gun will continue firing bullets as long at the trigger is depressed. What might be a very small recoil from a single bullet is obviously much greater when many bullets are fired in rapid succession. . . .
The piece is continued here.
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