January 14, 2011
No Winners. Just One Fewer Losers.
Surprisingly (to me at least) the jury has acquitted a gun fair organizer in the the death of a child that shot himself to death with a machine pistol.
A Massachusetts jury acquitted a gun fair organizer of manslaughter in the 2008 death of an 8-year-old boy who accidentally shot himself in the head with an Uzi submachine gun.A Hampden Superior Court jury found former Pelham Police Chief Edward Fleury not guilty on Friday of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Christopher Bizilj (buh-SEEL') of Ashford, Conn. The charge carried up to 20 years on prison.
Fleury was also cleared of three charges of furnishing machine guns to minors.
The jury returned the verdict on its first full day of deliberations. It got the case on Thursday after closing arguments.
Fleury's firearms training company co-sponsored the annual Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman's Club, about 10 miles west of Springfield. Christopher was shooting a 9 mm micro Uzi at some pumpkins on Oct. 26, 2008, when the gun kicked back and shot him in the head.
Since first hearing about the case in October of 2008, my first thought was always, "what kind of idiot parent puts a submachine gun in the hands of a child?"
In this case, it was Dr. Charles Bizilj, the boy's father. You would thing a trauma room doctor would have enough presence of mid and enough sense not to arm a child with a weapon he could have no reasonable expectation of controlling, but this apparently wasn't the case.
Fleury won't spend the next 20 years in jail, which is something, but the family has still lost a son and the father has his own stupidity to blame. It's a harsh sentence for a mistake, and one I would think that is almost unbearable.
Parents, be smart with your kids and machine guns. I would have thought it didn't need to be said...
There's a reason why Americans of a mentality long since past started us off with BB guns, Pellet guns, then 22's. Not incidental was learning what igniting gun powder would do in different... containers.
Tis a shame for the loss non the less.
Posted by: bains at January 15, 2011 01:23 AMDas Radio and tee vee made it sound like one of those non-existent buy here pay here leave today with an M-60 gun shows. Reading this is the first time I learned the child was actually shooting the weapon. In this state the gun show has a column of police at the entrance who check every weapon whether it is for sale or personal carry. When I first heard this on the radio I thought why was this weapon loaded at a gun show.
Posted by: all guns are always loaded at January 15, 2011 08:05 AMWhen I taught my kids to ride a bike, I was right there, holding on to the bike. When I taught them to drive, I was sitting right next to them holding on for dear life, but right there. If I were going to teach one to shoot an uzi, and I have my doubts that I would, I would have had one hand on my kid's back and one right on his wrist next to the gun. Such a tragedy that was totally preventable.
Posted by: TimothyJ at January 15, 2011 03:29 PM
