As the son of a World War II Greatest Generation veteran who believed showing a teenager how to shoot a gun was a way to instruct him or her on concentration and target practice and not a game or flippant political statement, I’m still sorting out my complex feelings on the case of the 9 year old girl who mistakenly killed her gun instructor who was teaching her how to use an Uzi. The last part seven words of the sentence still stun me.
So I was saddened but not surprised to see this report in Americablog about how Groupon is now selling target practice with Uzis the same week the girl accidentally killed her instructor in a session that her parents and instructor shouldn’t have set up for a 9 year old in the first place:
Only days after a 9-year-old girl accidentally shot her firearms instructor to death with an Uzi submachine gun, Groupon is offering its subscribers target practice packages that include Uzis.
Groupon initially shut down its gun packages after the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre in Newton, Connecticut, where nearly two dozen young grade school kids were shot to death. The packages however started up again six months later.
Here’s one from Groupon’s Florida operation. It, and the deal below from Texas, include Uzis:
Go to Americablog to see the offers and predictable reaction from those seeking to make gun use more reasonable, sane and age-restricted.
It seems as if Groupon may feel that the news about the Uzi is what years ago Variety called “Big B.O.”
Which means “Big Box Office.”
But in the case of the offer, the other meaning of “big b.o.” fits as well: there is an bad smell about it.
And, I’m sure, some will argue that, hey, you’re wrong, it smells like perfume.
(Stay tuned for my Cagle column this week which will likely deal more with this issue.)
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.