When the aim goes wrong
While my sympathies go out to the family of an eight year old boy in Massachusetts, some stories could only come out of a CNN generation. Over the weekend, the young man was fulfilling the sort of dream that I never had as boy; he was shooting an Uzi at “vehicles and pumpkins” during a regional fair. However, real guns don’t handle like the ones in the standard video game. There are less buttons on the controller and there’s something called recoil.
While under supervised conditions (that’s the part that really makes things special) he lost control of the weapon and managed to shoot himself in the head. Fatally. I may have fired a lot of “air guns” when I was a boy, but that never entered into any scenario dreamed up while playing in my neighbour’s yard. The gun isn’t supposed to work that way.
Perhaps my own children have been underprivileged; we’ve never even seen a Uzi, let alone fired one at a pumpkin. Instead, we had to put up with weapons of mass destruction like snowballs and crabapples. Not nearly as noisy, and the risk of terminal lead poisoning was non-existent. Do you think they’ll ever forgive me? I’m not sure I’d want to live in a neighbourhood where fun at the fair involves clips of ammo.
Discounting Toronto, which has its own issues lately, kid in Canada have a safer play routine. Parents don’t have to buy Kevlar snowsuits (which probably cost a pile of money), and ear protectors can be replaced with earmuffs when the cold weather arrives.
