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Weapons Instructor Dan Roberts demonstrates with his daughter Shyanne the proper way to "ghost" a shooter's hands to maintain safety at a shooting range and prevent the shooter from losing control of the weapon at their Franklin Township home on Aug. 27, 2014. Shyanne, who will be 10 on Aug. 28, is a highly trained competitive shooter with national sponsors and spoke about a recent accident involving a 9-year-old girl from New Jersey accidentally shooting an instructor at an Arizona gun range. (Staff photo by Michelle Caffrey | South Jersey Times)

A nine-year-old girl fires an Uzi after just a couple of words of instruction, killing her instructor standing next to her at a Las Vegas area gun range Monday.

Shyanne Roberts isn't deterred.

The highly trained competitive shooter, who will turn 10 on Thursday, said that she was upset when she heard a 9-year-old New Jersey girl accidentally shot and killed an instructor as he showed her how to shoot a fully automatic weapon on Monday, but that didn't dampen her desire to learn to shoot one herself.

"This is what I do, and I don't want to stop," said Shyanne outside of her Franklin Township, Gloucester County home on Wednesday night. "I want to do more."

While she showed off five of her custom-made weapons, provided to her by some of her dozen or so national corporate sponsors, she has yet to handle a fully automatic weapon.

Her father Dan Roberts, a weapons instructor who began teaching Shyanne to shoot at age 4, said that's more to do with the lack of opportunity to shoot a fully automatic rifle in New Jersey, where they're highly regulated, than concerns she couldn't handle one.

"It really depends on the individual circumstances," said Roberts when asked if children should be allowed to operate automatic weapons at a young age. "It's situational."

A video of the moments leading up to the accident at the "Bullets and Burgers" range in White Hills, Arizona, show instructor Charles Vacca, 39, of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, standing beside the girl at the Last Stop outdoor shooting range when she pulled the trigger of what was reported to be an Uzi.

The recoil sent the gun over the head of the girl, whose name has not been released, and the instructor was hit by an unspecified amount of bullets.

Vacca died Monday, a short time after being airlifted to a hospital in Las Vegas, authorities said.

Roberts said that when Shyanne does get the chance to shoot an automatic rifle, they'll be following strict safety rules that Vacca clearly violates in the video.

First, Roberts said Vacca was standing to the side and slightly in front of the girl at the range, violating the "180-degree" rule in which instructors are required to stand behind the shooter and not within the 180 degrees in front of them.

He also should have been physically over top of her, and if not, at least hovering right above.

"What that would've done, as soon as she started to lose control, he could've immediately directed that weapon in a safe direction," said Roberts.

He also said the automatic weapon should not have been fully loaded with a 30-round magazine. Whenever he starts out a student on a platform they're new to handling, he starts out with one round, and then moves to two.

"You progress as you add rounds in increments," said Roberts, noting if the girl in the accident had only three rounds, the magazine would've been empty before any could reach the instructor. "Absolutely no way would I ever allow, 'Oh here's a 30-round magazine, have fun. Especially with a novice, you have no idea what they're capable of."

Shyanne said she watched the video as well, and could tell the girl was inexperienced and could not have handled the weapon on her own.

"It seems a little bit scary," said Shyanne. "She wasn't in full control and didn't know much about [the weapon.]."

The incident in Arizona has stirred up debate surrounding children's use of firearms, with many anti-gun violence advocates arguing a child as young as 9 should never be able to shoot a fully automatic weapon.

"[Kids] should not be operating these kinds of weapons made to kill as many people as quickly as possible," said Bryan Miller of the faith-based, anti-gun violence group Heeding Gods Call.

"When you hand a child a firearm, you are forcing them to make a life and death decision that they are incapable of and never should be responsible for," said Miller.

He said the parents who put the girl in that situation and the instructor who didn't follow safety measures are both to blame for what's sure to be a traumatic event for the young girl.

"There are plenty of very safe, law-abiding gun owners, but they're not all that way. We would be mistaken to think everyone who operates a gun operates it safely," said Miller. "This guy was a shooting instructor. How reckless can you be?"

Miller and Roberts fall as far apart on the spectrum of gun control and gun rights issue as you can get, but both agreed on one point Wednesday — the 9-year-old girl should not be held responsible for what happened Monday.

"I don't blame her. It wasn't her fault," Roberts said. He mentioned earlier Wednesday that he hopes the girl gets the mental health attention moving forward to make sure she realizes that.

"She's going to be dealing with this for a long time, I hope her parents get her the counseling she's absolutely going to need," said Roberts. "I hope the counselor makes it perfectly clear she has absolutely no responsibility for this at all. It's a tragic accident."

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Michelle Caffrey may be reached at mcaffrey@southjerseymedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ShellyCaffrey. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.