mc wrote:
> http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/10/police_identify_6.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed6
>
> Dr. Charles Bizilj stood 10 feet behind his son this weekend at a
> "Machine Gun Shoot" in Westfield as the 8-year-old aimed an Uzi at a
> pumpkin in the distance.
>
> As Bizilj reached for his camera, the boy clutched the gun in his
> arms, squeezed the trigger, and lost control of the weapon, which
> flipped backwards and fatally shot his son, Christopher, in the head.
>
> “It was all a blur,” Bizilj said this afternoon in a telephone
> interview. “I’m still in the grieving process.”
>
> Christopher was accompanied by a trained professional as he held the
> 9-
> mm Micro Uzi machine gun at the Westfield Sportsman's Club Sunday
> afternoon, but Bizilj said he doesn’t think the shooting guide was
> holding the weapon as his son pressed the trigger.
>
> “This accident was truly a mystery to me,” he said. “This is a
> horrible event, a horrible travesty, and I really don’t know why it
> happened. I don’t think it’s relevant that he wasn’t holding the
> weapon.”
>
> He said his son, a third grader who loved to hike and bike, had
> experience firing handguns and rifles. But he said this was the first
> time he had fired an automatic weapon.
>
> "I gave permission for him to fire the Uzi,” Bizilj said. “I watched
> several other children and adults use it. It’s a small weapon, and
> Christopher was comfortable with guns. There were larger machine guns
> with much more recoil, and we avoided those.”
>
> Bizilj, the medical director of the emergency department at Johnson
> Memorial Hospital in Stafford Springs, Conn., said that his son was
> “very cautious, very well trained, and very much enjoyed firing.”
>
> When his son pressed the trigger Sunday, it was the first gun he had
> fired all day. “It took about an hour to get there, and it was
> something he was looking forward to for months,” Bizilj said.
>
> The annual Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo is a two-day event.
> Police are investigating whether the Westfield Sportsman’s Club and
> the group running the event were licensed. “We haven’t confirmed
> whether either have been licensed,” said Westfield Police Lieutenant
> Hipolito Nuñez.
>
> The sportsman's club boasted in an advertisement for the event posted
> on its website that the $5 entry fee was waived for children under age
> 16 and there was "no age limit or licenses required to shoot machine
> guns."
>
> "It’s all legal & fun," the advertisement says. "You will be
> accompanied to the firing line with a Certified Instructor to guide
> you. But You Are In Control – "FULL AUTO ROCK & ROLL."
>
> Shooting targets for the event included vehicles, pumpkins, and "other
> fun stuff we can’t print here," according to the advertisement.
>
> Christopher Bizilj was firing the weapon at an outside firing range
> and was wounded once in the head when the recoil forced the gun to
> rotate upward and backward, Nuñez said. The boy was taken to Baystate
> Medical Center in Springfield. He was pronounced dead at the hospital
> with one gunshot wound to the head. No one else was injured.
>
> State law requires anyone under age 18 to have parental consent and a
> licensed instructor to fire an automatic weapon. Otherwise, there’s no
> minimum age to fire such a gun, Nuñez said.
>
> “We do not know at this time the full facts of this incident, and it's
> being investigated," Nuñez said.
>
> The event at the club was organized by C.O.P. Firearms & Training, an
> Amherst company that, according to its website, organizes machine gun
> shoots throughout New England. Officials from that group also could
> not be reached.