{"id":83,"date":"2008-10-27T13:38:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-27T13:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/boy-8-killed-in-mass-gun-show-accident.html"},"modified":"2008-10-27T13:38:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-27T13:38:00","slug":"boy-8-killed-in-mass-gun-show-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/boy-8-killed-in-mass-gun-show-accident.html","title":{"rendered":"Boy, 8, killed in Mass. gun show accident"},"content":{"rendered":"Date: 10\/27\/2008 1:50 PM<br \/><br \/>WESTFIELD, Mass. (AP) _ An 8-year-old boy died after accidentally shooting himself in the head while firing an Uzi submachine gun under adult supervision at a gun fair.<br \/><br \/>The boy lost control of the weapon while firing it Sunday at the Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman&#8217;s Club, police Lt. Lawrence Vallierpratte said.<br \/><br \/>Police said the boy, Christopher Bizilj (Bah-SEAL) of Ashford, Conn., was with a certified instructor and called the death a &#8220;self-inflicted accidental shooting.&#8221;<br \/><br \/>&#8220;The weapon was loaded and ready to fire,&#8221; police Lt. Hipolito Nunez said. &#8220;The 8-year-old victim had the Uzi and as he was firing the weapon, the front end of the weapon went up with the backfire and he ended up receiving a round in his head.&#8221;<br \/><br \/>Christopher died at Baystate Medical Center.<br \/><br \/>Police said the boy&#8217;s father, Charles Bizilj, attended the event with his son. The father is the medical director of emergency medicine at Johnson Memorial Hospital, in Stafford Springs, Conn.<br \/><br \/>Francis Mitchell, a longtime member and trustee of the club, said he saw the boy&#8217;s father supporting his son from behind when the accident happened.<br \/><br \/>&#8220;My reaction is shock,&#8221; said Mitchell, who lives down the street from the club. &#8220;In the last five years, there has never been a problem or a bad accident. I&#8217;ve been sick all night.&#8221;<br \/><br \/>Although the death appears to be an accident, police and the Hampden district attorney&#8217;s office were investigating, officials said.<br \/><br \/>It is legal for children to fire a weapon if they have permission from a parent or legal guardian and are supervised by a properly certified and licensed instructor, Lt. Hipolito Nunez said.<br \/><br \/>Those conditions were met in this case, he said. He declined to release the instructor&#8217;s name.<br \/><br \/>The event, run in conjunction with C.O.P Firearms and Training, said in an ad that people are allowed to fire weapons at vehicles, pumpkins and other targets at the event.<br \/><br \/>The club said it would offer machine gun demonstrations and rentals and free handgun lessons.<br \/><br \/>&#8220;It&#8217;s all legal &#038; fun \u2014 No permits or licenses required!!!!&#8221; reads the ad, posted on the club&#8217;s Web site.<br \/><br \/>Officials with the firearms group could not be reached for comment. Messages left on answering machines for the club and the C.O.P. group were not returned Monday.<br \/><br \/>The sportsman&#8217;s club was founded in 1949 and describes itself on its Web site as promoting &#8220;the interest of legal sport with rod, gun, and bow and arrow, both directly and through training.&#8221;<br \/><br \/>It has eight firing ranges as well as archery and fishing facilities located on 375 acres in Westfield, about 100 miles west of Boston.<br \/><br \/>___<br \/><br \/>On the Web:<br \/><br \/>Westfield Club: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.westfieldsportsman.com\">http:\/\/www.westfieldsportsman.com<\/a><br \/><br \/>COP Firearms: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.copfirearms.com\">http:\/\/www.copfirearms.com<\/a><br \/><br \/>Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Date: 10\/27\/2008 1:50 PMWESTFIELD, Mass. (AP) _ An 8-year-old boy died after accidentally shooting himself in the head while firing an Uzi submachine gun under adult supervision at a gun fair.The boy lost control of the weapon while firing it Sunday at the Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman&#8217;s Club, police [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[64,344,346,347,350,348,358],"class_list":["post-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-accidental-shootings","tag-child-gun-fatalities","tag-child-shooting","tag-children-and-guns","tag-gun-show-accident","tag-guns-as-sport","tag-self-inflicted-shootings"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Boy, 8, killed in Mass. gun show accident - Brain Injury Lawyer Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/boy-8-killed-in-mass-gun-show-accident.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Boy, 8, killed in Mass. gun show accident - Brain Injury Lawyer Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Date: 10\/27\/2008 1:50 PMWESTFIELD, Mass. (AP) _ An 8-year-old boy died after accidentally shooting himself in the head while firing an Uzi submachine gun under adult supervision at a gun fair.The boy lost control of the weapon while firing it Sunday at the Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman&#8217;s Club, police [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/boy-8-killed-in-mass-gun-show-accident.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Brain Injury Lawyer Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-10-27T13:38:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gordon Johnson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gordon Johnson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/boy-8-killed-in-mass-gun-show-accident.html#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/boy-8-killed-in-mass-gun-show-accident.html\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Gordon Johnson\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3db3864e6ca028327e090439e0b4b262\"},\"headline\":\"Boy, 8, killed in Mass. gun show accident\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-10-27T13:38:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/boy-8-killed-in-mass-gun-show-accident.html\"},\"wordCount\":474,\"commentCount\":0,\"keywords\":[\"accidental shootings\",\"child gun fatalities\",\"child shooting\",\"children and guns\",\"gun show accident\",\"guns as sport\",\"self-inflicted shootings\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/boy-8-killed-in-mass-gun-show-accident.html#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/boy-8-killed-in-mass-gun-show-accident.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/boy-8-killed-in-mass-gun-show-accident.html\",\"name\":\"Boy, 8, killed in Mass. gun show accident - Brain Injury Lawyer Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-10-27T13:38:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3db3864e6ca028327e090439e0b4b262\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/boy-8-killed-in-mass-gun-show-accident.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Brain Injury Lawyer Blog\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3db3864e6ca028327e090439e0b4b262\",\"name\":\"Gordon Johnson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ed4f3ab71dec1a856724f965e0fb35e567125a9a212a401c3cf9357dd1b8c83d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ed4f3ab71dec1a856724f965e0fb35e567125a9a212a401c3cf9357dd1b8c83d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ed4f3ab71dec1a856724f965e0fb35e567125a9a212a401c3cf9357dd1b8c83d?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gordon Johnson\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/tbilaw.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/author\/gjohnson\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Boy, 8, killed in Mass. gun show accident - Brain Injury Lawyer Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/boy-8-killed-in-mass-gun-show-accident.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Boy, 8, killed in Mass. gun show accident - Brain Injury Lawyer Blog","og_description":"Date: 10\/27\/2008 1:50 PMWESTFIELD, Mass. 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