Dad says 8-year-old daughter who tests out handguns and flamethrowers on YouTube is a ‘great role model’

An eight-year-old from Pennsylvania has swapped toys for real-life deadly weapons to showcase on her YouTube channel.

Autumn Fry and her family have been on the road for over a year visiting multiple gun ranges along the way. The eight-year-old has amassed over 160,000 subscribers to her channel, where she is shown testing a variety of guns and flamethrowers as her father comments on her reactions.

Her father, Randy, taught Autumn about guns from a young age and has since branded her an “amazing role model.” He began filming her around a year ago while teaching her about gun safety.

“Children are the future of guns in America and Autumn is an amazing role model for our future,” Randy said.

In a video posted in July, Autumn uses a flamethrower that spits fire for metres. Unfazed, she compared the XM-42 to “a square gun that shoots fire.”

“To start this little guy up, you just turn this little gas nob until you can hear it,” she explained.

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“Spark it up, and turn it on right over here on the side, push this button – this is your trigger,” she said before the flamethrower broke out into blazing flames across the water.

She proclaimed: “Aw, this is such a fun gun!”

“This is really useful for a campfire starter which is what we are about to use it for.”

Autumn’s YouTube channel has racked a staggering total of 12 million views. Inevitably, the eight-year-old’s videos have surfaced on other social media platforms and due to their controversial nature, have caused quite the divide.

One took to Twitter with a clip of Autumn firing two pistols and asked, “What kind of madness is this?”

Others, however, slammed critics and said: “Teaching your kids to defend themselves from predators from an early age is not madness.”

Another added, “It’s a skill. And she’s good. Better than sitting in front of an iPad all day eating junk food.”

A Child Access Prevention law (CAP law), sometimes known as the safe storage law, makes it illegal for an adult to keep a gun in a place and manner so that a child can easily access and fire it. And while CAP law is in place in over a dozen states, it is not a federally mandated law.