I hadn't planned on blogging today. The day job's been rambunctious and I more or less just wanted to chill for a while. And one thing led to window shopping.
And then I found this.

It's long, so I'll give the short version.

Maxsell is one of the companies I go to for my prop firearms. It's a small business in Florida run by a older gent named Vico who sounds like he walked off the set of the Sopranos. They sell imported prop guns (usually from Italy and Turkey), blanks, and assorted other stuff. He's pretty much stayed out of the news, outside of being sued hard by Glock a while back.

And now his shipments of stock are being seized by U.S. Customs. It's hard to tell with no opposing statement and Vico's curmudgeonly belligerence, but it looks like there's at least a degree of bureaucratic shenaniganry going on in Miami. Paperwork, fines, fees, incompetence, belligerence, you know, government stuff.

It may be another copyright and trademark suit going on (The only firearm manufacturers I know of that license their frames for blank-fire versions are Colt and Walther. Maxsell sells neither.) It may also be related to good old Chapter 76.

I'm personally inclined to believe it's the latter, if nothing else because Front firing weapons are rapidly disappearing off of various commercial sites, while top and side venting ones are staying in place.

It's really too early for me to even see what's going on, let alone make a judgement call over what should be done. But I will point out a few things.

Despite what if-it-bleeds-it-leads excuses for journalism may make it seem, there's a huge world of law and regulation hovering in the background of anything having to do with a firearm in the U.S., real or simulated. It doesn't take public outcry to change the world of guns, it takes lawyers and money.

There are indie directors and performers around the country now who have no idea of the bigger picture, in which the manner in which they fire off blanks before audience or camera is too small to even be noticed. Hell, if the state of New York can pass sweeping firearms legislation while giving no creed to their own entertainment industry (New York! For fuck's sake, New York of all places!), it's entirely possible for a small potatoes prop gun business in Florida to be paperworked off the face of the earth with scarcely a byline to note its passing.

I get hired a good bit because film culture only talks to gun culture through those who can translate between them. I'm fortunate enough to have the skills and tools to do so, and tell awesome stories and keep my people safe at the same time.

I filmed Just Blanks using weapons bought from Maxsell.

You've sold me worthy tools in the past, Vico. Here's hoping you're around long enough to sell more.

~J.

Yep. You read that right.
I'm justifying teacupping.
Hell, I've done so once in a private class and once on a gig in the past month, I might as well keep at it.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, "teacupping" is a derogatory term used for a certain way of gripping a handgun that's currently out of favor.

In fact, nowadays I'd have to say in the top ten of "things to make your firearm advisor happy on set," "not teacupping" might rank just below "calling it a magazine, not a clip," and "not flagging me."

So, what is it? What makes it a bad thing? (if it even is a bad thing?) Why the bad rap?

History lesson time.

For the bulk of its existence, the pistol was a one-handed weapon. Once technology could scale down from the "handgonnes" of earlier times, the pistol became a favored backup weapon alongside the saber and cutlass, not to mention reins or rigging. Until WWI, U.S. Army holsters were designed to cross-draw, reflecting a right-handed officer's instinct to use the sword with the right hand and pistol with the left.  

Here and there, two-handed grips were used for whatever reason, but on an ad hoc basis. It's my personal belief that the first use of a two-handed grip was what we now call The Teacup.

This grip is almost invariably the first two-handed grip that an untrained shooter uses.

The reason is simple. With the pistol operable with one hand, the other is relegated to a support role. The most immediately needed support to a new shooter the vast majority of the time isn't against recoil, but against weight. Pistols are heavy, so the support hand naturally rests under the butt to take some of the weight off of the shooting hand.

Looking at it this way, teacupping is the untrained, but natural and instinctive response to having to hold a pistol two-handed.

It felt so natural the U.S. Army was recommending it in WWII.

(Teacupping ensues at 5:20)

So, if teacupping is a natural and instinctive response, what's the big deal?

Well, the major sin of teacupping these days is inefficiency at worst. When actually shooting, the support hand offers no support against the force of the shot (what with coming from the wrong direction and all), leaving the shooting arm to absorb the recoil.

There's a couple different ways to be more efficient. Jack Weaver took a teacup and turned it into a sort of piston grip by having the support hand pull back while the shooting hand pushed forward. This helped get the pistol back on target after the force of the shot lifted the muzzle up.

The most popular grip these days, however, seems to be a wraparound of one kind or another.

In this particular case, the support hand comes up on the side, fingers sliding into the grooves left on the grip by the fingers of the shooting hand. The shooting hand's thumb curls down and forward, paralleling the thumb of the support hand.

(Hint: if you ever hear gun enthusiasts yell "thumbs forward!" while watching an action scene, this is what they're talking about.)

What this grip ends up doing is keeping the grip balanced between both hands, giving the shooter the strength of both arms (and in some instances, the torso) to alleviate the effects of recoil.

That's pretty much it.

So, why teacup in a gunfighting scene if you know that?

Any number of reasons: an untrained character, a period piece (wraparound grips didn't become popular until the great pistol technique argument was kicked off by folks like Cooper, Weaver, and Chapman in the late 50's-early 60's), character fatigue or injury (where a steady shot is more important than recovery for follow-up shots), or any number of other reasons.

I can recognize the teacup isn't the best grip out there. But it's there for a reason. And knowing why and how lets me and my performers come to a more informed choice, and ultimately, a more nuanced story.

~J.

For those who don’t recognize the byline, Tucker Thayer was the most recent victim of a fatal firearm accident involving shooting blanks in a theater or film setting.

There’s a lot of news articles and a court brief involved in this, so let me outline the major players first:

Tucker Thayer: 15 years old. Died of a gunshot wound to the head in the light and sound booth of the Desert Hills High School Theater.

Michael Eaton: Drama teacher at Desert Hills H.S. and director of the production.

Officer Stacey Richan: St. George, Utah police officer, assigned to DHHS as a resource officer.

Robert Goulding: Vice Principal of DHHS

David Amodt: Father of the production’s stage manager.

In the fall of 2008, DHHS was putting on a production of Oaklahoma. Wanting a realistic sound effect, Eaton asked Richan and Goulding for permission to use a gun that fired blanks. All agreed, under the provision that an adult would be the only person to transport, posses, and fire the gun used, that adult supervision would be in place at all times, and that the weapon would be transported in a locked case with no other access other than the adult mentioned above.

(Though there has been some confusion on this point, all three were acting within Utah state law by having a weapon on school property with these rules in place. While I haven’t looked at the laws of the City of St. George or Washington County, Utah law considers firearms possession lawful if “approved by the responsible school administrator” (Goulding, in this case), and “the item is present or to be used in connection with a lawful, approved activity and is in the possession or under the control of the person responsible for its possession or use.” (Utah Code, 76-10-505.5 (4) (b-c). So, while it wasn’t necessary and proved to be ultimately tragic, possession under the rules they established together was legal.)

Amodt volunteered use of his personal .38 revolver. At first, all of the above rules were followed. Then, at some point, he began allowing Tucker to shoot the gun during rehearsals, and Tucker knew the combination to the gun’s lockbox at some point as well.

On November 5, 2008, Amodt could not attend rehearsal, sending his wife with the gun in his place (after gaining Goulding’s permission by phone). Mrs. Amodt put the case in her daughter’s pack, accompanying her to rehearsal. Along the way, they encountered Richan(pg 4-5), who indicated that Eaton knew the rules and all was well.

On November 15, 2008, Amodt and his daughter left her pack (with the gun case inside it) inside the booth. Both left the booth, attending to other tasks. Soon afterwards, Tucker entered the booth and shot himself in the temple with a blank. The expanding gas cloud drove skull fragments into Tucker’s brain, and he died later that night.

In May of 2009, Thayer’s parents filed a lawsuit against Eaton, Richan, Goulding, Amodt, Washington County Schools, and the city of St. George.

In December of 2009, Goulding and Eaton tried to be dismissed from the lawsuit, citing the Utah governmental Immunity Act. The case is currently being looked at by the Utah supreme court.

Amodt and the Thayers settled sometime between 2009 and 2011.

On February 2, 2012, a judge dismissed Richan and the city of St. George from the suit.

The rest of the case is still ongoing.

Something of note here is that Tucker was an accomplished shooter. As a Boy Scout, he held 2 shooting merit badges and was a range instructor the previous summer. But he wasn’t familiar with either pistols or blanks.

But what I do not see is any indication that cast and crew were shown the dangersinvolved in using that weapon as part of the show.

In the end, if nothing else, 2 big things need to be remembered as a result of this tragedy.

#1: Complacency kills.

Those two words were painted just at the edge of “the wire” on every single base when I was fighting overseas, and they applied here. Had the adults involved in this tragedy followed their own rules, and followed them diligently, Tucker would still be alive.

#2: If you’re going to do it, do it right.

One of the things that scares the piss out of me about the theater scene today is the rapid increase in firearm use without a corresponding increase in firearms education. Despite the considerable efforts of some, movements to add firearms education to an actor’s skill set are few and far between. University programs are understandably reluctant, given that we live in an age that’s post-Columbine, post-NIU, post-VA Tech, and so on. The professional world is not much better, with far too many of the U.S.’s major theatrical cities also being some of the most unfriendly to firearm owners in the country. Even if actors in cities like L.A., NYC, D.C., or Chicago are willing to pursue their own education, onerous laws make it expensive and difficult at best and damn near impossible at worst to do so.

Here’s to hoping the future changes for the better.