In brief: Eric Cantor takes lucrative job at investment bank

Washington – Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor became the latest politician to move to Wall Street, taking a high-paying job at investment bank Moelis & Co. and boosting the profile of the boutique company founded in Century City, California.

Cantor, 51, who resigned last month after an upset loss in a Republican primary, will be vice chairman and managing director at the company started in 2007 by longtime Southern California investment banker Ken Moelis.

Moelis & Co. has grown to more than 500 employees in 15 offices around the world.

In Cantor, the company gains a well-connected former congressional leader who can offer clients “judgment, experience and knowledge about what’s going on in the world,” Moelis said.

Girl hurt in gun range killing, mom says

Phoenix – The mother of a 9-year-old girl who accidentally killed her gun instructor while learning to fire an Uzi told sheriff’s deputies that the weapon was “too much for her” daughter and that it hurt the girl’s shoulder, according to a report released Tuesday by the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office.

The girl’s father told a deputy that he, his wife and three children arrived at Last Stop in White Hills, Arizona, around 9:45 a.m. Aug. 25 and took a ride in a monster truck before being brought to the establishment’s Burgers and Bullets shooting range, the report said.

According to the report, the father said he shot the gun first. Then, instructor Charles Vacca began showing the girl how to fire the Uzi. After she fired off “a couple of rounds,” her father said in the report, he suddenly heard several rounds fire and saw her drop the gun. She was holding her shoulder, so the family thought she was injured and crowded around her without realizing Vacca had been hit, he said.

Last week, asked why a 9-year-old had access to the automatic weapon, range operator Sam Scarmardo told local television station KTNV that Bullets and Burgers allows children 8 and older to shoot firearms.

“We instruct kids as young as 5 in .22 rifles,” he said.

The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office has said it will not file charges.