Reply #31: How's the Brady Campaign spinning this one?

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Looks like the same old "think of the gangbangers children" song and dance routine that they're constantly droning on about...

Indictment Of Gun Club
That Gave Child Machine Gun
Should Serve As Warning
To Gun Promoters Nationwide
For Immediate Release:
12-04-2008

Contact Communications:
[phone] Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence

Washington, DC - The indictment of Westfield Sportsman’s Club for running a “gun fair” with a machine gun shoot for children where an eight-year-old boy was tragically killed shows the need for strong laws to keep children and dangerous persons away from firearms. At the time of the shooting, the Brady Center issued a statement saying that the gun club’s actions appeared to violate Massachusetts law.

“It is only right that this club and these individuals are being held accountable for furnishing a machine gun to a child,” said Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence President Paul Helmke. “It should be obvious to any responsible adult that eight-year-olds should not be firing Uzi machine guns. We need common sense gun laws nationwide that keep children and dangerous people away from deadly firearms.”

Eight children and teenagers are shot and killed in an average day in this country, and 48 more are wounded. Over 3,000 children and teenagers are shot and killed every year in America. The rate of firearm death of children under 14 is nearly 12 times higher in the U.S. than in 25 other industrialized countries combined.

The Hampden County, Massachusetts District Attorney announced today that a grand jury indicted the Westfield Sportsman’s Club and three individuals with multiple counts of furnishing a machine gun to a person under 18 years old and involuntary manslaughter. The indictments stem from the tragic shooting of Christopher Bizilj, 8, of Ashford, Connecticut, at the Westfield Sportsman’s Club’s annual “Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo” on October 26, 2008. The club advertised that the “full auto rock & roll” was “legal and fun,” and that there was “no age limit or licenses required to shoot machine guns.”

The club was indicted under Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 140, subsection 130 which provides that “whoever sells or furnishes any alien or any person under eighteen years of age a… machine gun or ammunition… shall be punished by a fine of not less than $1,000 nor more than $10,000, or by imprisonment in a state prison for not more than ten years or by imprisonment in a house of correction for not more than two and one-half years, or by both such fine and imprisonment.”

On October 28, two days after the tragic shooting, the Brady Center issued a statement saying it believed the Club had illegally supplied the child with the gun based on that section of the state criminal code. The Brady Center issued a press release that same day quoting Brady Senior Attorney Daniel Vice as saying “Massachusetts law specifically prohibits furnishing a machine gun to any person under 18.”

http://www.bradycampaign.org/media/release.php?release=1087