While packing for con last night, I found an arrowhead in my armory. And it reminded me of something.

Last year I wrote this particular missive on Facebook the week after Dragoncon. With just a few days to go, I wanted to say it again. I'm also taking it a step further (yes, there's more at the end).

***************************

I'm about to talk about something that fortunately hasn't become a crisis yet.

I'm talking about cosplayers whose characters are archers.

Green Arrow, Katniss, Merida, Hawkeye, them sorts.

I did not witness this personally at Dragoncon this year, but I was told of it, and I'm starting to notice it in pictures. In onesies and twosies, and no I don't have examples and I'm hoping that's indicative of the problem really being that small.

That said, I know the fun of cosplay that involves getting stopped and posing for pictures. Which is perfectly fine (as long as you're not blocking traffic for more than 90 seconds or so, and even that's pushing it).

What's not cool is pointing weapons into the crowd while posing.

And even then, I can kinda, sorta, maybe understand waving the orange-tipped airsofts about, to a degree.

But there's that, and then there's posing with a bow.

With an arrow nocked.

At full draw.

What in the WILLIAM TELL FUCK ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING!?!?!

I don't care how light the draw is.

I don't care if the arrow is blunt.

Unless the arrow has a fucking boxing glove on the end and the bow is strung with slack yarn, someone posing like that has their arms full of what physicists call potential energy.

And all it takes is for one photobomber to bump into someone posing this way for them to lose their grip and turn potential energy into kinetic energy.

Sending a foot-and-a-half-long, pencil thin projectile into flight.

Into a crowd of dozens.

At eye level.

Do I really need to explain why this is a bad thing?

I really want this to fucking stop. Right now. BEFORE someone gets hurt.

I'm not advocating that con weapon policies start outlawing arrows or requiring bows be unstrung or anything like that. I'm cool with bows.

I'm cool with posing with them drawn but without an arrow (and you still get good shots that way.)

I'm even cool seeing them nocked with the bow aimed at the ground (the archer's version of the "alert" carry.)

What's NOT cool are loaded weapons being aimed into a crowd for the sake of a fucking cosplay photo.

So let's cut that shit out.

And stay safe out there, ok?

***************************

A few additions need to be made, now that time has passed and con is almost upon us again.

~ First, if you're a cosplayer of an archer character who definitively HASN'T gone and put people at risk like this, you have my respect, my gratitude, and my thanks. By no means am I trying to be a buzzkill or an asshole by claiming that anyone with a bow is a walking hazard. Only those who draw one while showing no arrow awareness. (I don't even know if arrow awareness is a thing, but bows don't have muzzles, so fuck it, close enough for government work)

~ Second, I am not now nor have I ever been a member or representative of the security department at any convention. I'm just a weapons specialist who's somewhat of a stickler for safety. I have absolutely zero say as to the weapons policies of Dragoncon or any other convention.

(FWIW, from the D*con website as of the evening of Monday the 25th:
~"No functioning projectile weapons"
~"Any weapon used in an offensive manner will be confiscated and rule #7 enforced. We expect you to use good judgment" )

~ Third and final, I'm willing to put my money where my safety-conscious mouth is. If you're a Dragoncon photographer who's dead set on doing a shoot with an archer character and absolutely ~must~ have some shots of a drawn bow, I will gladly rent you one of Barbarian Labs' safety mats for use as an arrow backstop.

And I will waive my usual rental fee.

(To do so: hit the email icon and drop me a line by 5 PM EST on Wednesday, August 27th, 2014. Offer not valid at any other convention. First come, first served.)

Look, weaponry is my life's work. I love making art with implements of destruction, and I love having fun with them too.

But having fun and staying safe aren't mutually exclusive, and shouldn't be.

Have fun and stay safe out there, ok?

~J

The question of "how much training time does one need?" has been on the mind of late.

A couple weeks ago I was talking a friend through purchasing their first handgun, what training they were looking for, how much practice time they could/should take and so on.

And recently it's been a side topic of discussion with some colleagues over how much training time is considered good or adequate or even above average over in the stage/screen combat world.

And few outside the fight choreography world know this, but there's a particular boom-and-bust cycle usually centered around pilot season. It goes something like this:

1. Combat-heavy show is announced in the trades.
2. Every actor fitting the description of the combat-heavy roles chases what combat training they can get.
3. The show gets cast.
4. The bulk of actors training, not being cast, suddenly lose interest in combat training.

The short answer to my original question is the ever-dependable copout of "it depends."

That said, I did some math on real-world operator training time, specifically USMC grunts.

So the question becomes, on average, how much combat training time to people who fight for a living get?

Grab a pencil and a calculator, we're off!

Call it 8 hours training time a day starting from boot camp (8 hour days, my ass, but long hours plus hurry-up-and-wait time makes it close enough for government work.)

8hrs/day, 7days/week. Figure 3 weeks of actual combat training (as opposed to other business being taken care of). That covers grass week, range week, BWT and Semper Fu. That takes us to 168 hours by the end of boot.

Off to SOI (Grunt school). Now, our non-grunts go to a short version of grunt school. It's a month long, 7days/week. That adds another 224 hours. 392 in total by the end.

Now bear in mind, this is for our cooks, clerks, and mechanics. 392 hours to ensure that even if they do nothing but push paper the rest of their careers, they at least know what a raid, ambush, patrol, and guard post look like from both sides.

Refresher training? Figure about 2 weeks annually. Call it 80 hours/year.

Now back to our grunts.

 SOI for grunts is a 2-month course, minus weekends but similar hours.

That gives us 320 hours in SOI, 488 hours total.

That does NOT give me an advanced level of warfighter. That gives me a boot that can be called upon to shoot who they're supposed to 4 falls out of 5.

Let's be generous and say that on dropping to the fleet, what with this, that, and the other, our new Grunt gets about 2 month's worth of training before deploying. That covers ITX (which they used to call CAX, Mojave Viper, and other things) and about a month's worth of miscellaneous field ops, ranges and so on. Add another 320 hours.

Now we're at 808 hours. To get someone competent in at least 3 weapons systems and familiar in at least 4 more. (YMMV depending on specific MOS).

Now deploy them. 7 months. Full time. Is that always combat? Nope. But I'll use the 9-5 M-F option again to distinguish patrols, raids, and combat from working parties, standing post, and suchlike. Again, mileage may vary, but it's the yardstick we've been using so we'll get some good rough numbers from it.

Now we're at 808 hours of training and 1120 hours of experience. 1928 in total. To create what grunts call a "one-hump chump." Still might be a dirtbag of some variety. But on the whole, generally reliable and effective fighters with their own weapons systems. Some may have effective cross-training outside their MOS. A few might even be ready to lead teams soon.

A good skillset. And like all skill sets, perishable if not used.

Not only that, but keep in mind what these numbers don't cover...

- Workouts. Training burns some calories, PT builds more. So tack a good workout schedule on that.

- Study. There are a lot more bibliophilic grunts than you'd think. For every one that's reading Hustler, there's another that's reading Gates of Fire and On Combat, and a third reading both, along with some Clauswitz, Musashi, and Kipling.

-Any manner of super secret special ninjas black classified elite pick-your-own-hardcore-adjective training. I've been talking about standard Marine ground-pounders. Highly skilled, not-to-be-fucked-with ground pounders, but ground pounders all the same.

Something to keep in mind when judging exactly how well trained a weekend seminar makes you.

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.

Today in my home state of GA, Gov. Deal signed into law what's officially known as HB 60, or the Safe Carry Protection Act, and what the Brady crew have been referring to as the "Guns Everywhere Act."

Since no news outlet I've seen has actually detailed what the provisions are, I just went through the entire bill, translated the changes into simpler language, and added my own commentary.

If you'd like to check my work, here's the Bill Itself.

And for cross-referencing, you'll find the GA title code here and here.

My comments will be in Italics.


Section 1-2
- An exception in housing law. It prohibits landlords from banning or restricting lawful gun ownership from their tenants, unless federal law says otherwise.

No, you don't get to discriminate against the law-abiding because you don't like guns.


Section 1-2A
- Makes using suppressors while hunting illegal, unless on private property with the owner's permission.

I'm not a hunter, but at first glance, this looks like an enforcement on hunting season restrictions (by keeping people from hunting out of season in a way that won't be easily noticed).


Section 1-3
- revises a code on justified use of force.

More or less just clarifies which article of GA code to get your definitions from.


Section 1-4

- Private property owners can decree who carries and who can't. If they don't want you to do so, they're within their rights to not let you enter or kick you out.

Essentially, this clarifies that being armed on private property where the owner doesn't want you armed is trespassing, and treated as such.


Section 1-5

- Allows carrying in Bars, unless the owner specifically prohibits doing so.
- Allows carrying in churches if the church authorities allow it.

Bars=can opt out. Churches=have to opt in.

Carrying is still prohibited in jails, courthouses, mental health facilities, and nuclear power facilities.

Carry is allowed in government buildings that are open for business and do not have security screening. Although if there is screening, a CCW holder just has to leave the area upon being discovered to be armed. (for non-CCW holders, it's a misdemeanor)

Yes, kids, drinking and carrying is still illegal. That said, why disarm your Designated Driver?

Section 1-6 (Guns on campus section)

- Allows "A duly authorized official of a school... local boards of education" to allow someone to possess a weapon on school property they would otherwise not be permitted to. "Such authorization shall specify the weapon or weapons which have been authorized and the time period during which the authorization is valid."

I'm not sure what exactly was the impetus behind this one, but as a fight choreographer who occasionally works on campus, having a framework in state law to provision the need for me to legally have weapons  and weapon-style props on campus will make my job a lot easier in the future. 

- Allows a CCW holder to have a weapon in their vehicle parked on campus.
(Elementary, middle, and High school students with hunting liscences are specifically an exception. No going straight from class to hunting)

I hated having to park off-campus when I carried as a college student and left my pistol locked in the glovebox. Picking up a kid from school shouldn't mean that you have to be disarmed the entire day when you're out of the house.

I think this was the section that was watered down the most from the original proposal. Senator Carter (Jimmy's grandson) was bragging in one article that he'd kept it from being "worse," by which I assume he meant that he got campus carry out of it. Ass.

Section 1-7

- Focuses on eligibility requirements for CCW
- requires a guilty verdict for conviction (previous version included nolo contendere and such)
- Allows an 18 y/o servicemember who has finished basic to apply for a CCW (for all others, the age is 21)
- Institutes a time limit on applying after a license has been revoked (3 years, in this case)
- Prohibits applications by those found incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity.
- Allows petitions of relief of various prohibitions. (looks like a "jump through enough hoops to damn well prove you've paid your debt to society" kind of thing)
- Allows private GBI approved fingerprinters to fingerprint applicants for the background check. Does not require fingerprinting for renewals.
- No multijurisdictional database of CCW holders may be created or maintained.
- A judge has to confirm whether or not a CCW was issued, but cannot give out further information on the license holders.

A lot of this is administrative cleanup, but allowing for 18 y/o servicemembers to carry is a very positive step in my eyes. If they can carry to defend us, they can carry amongst us.

Section 1-8

- Expands eligibility of CCW for various types of judges and retired judges.

Section 1-9 (The "arming teachers" section and the airport part)

- Gives local school boards and administrators the option to form a policy that allows certain school employees to possess and/or carry weapons.
The policy must include:
- mandated training (which can include prior military or LE service training)
- lists of Approved weapon types, ammunition types, and authorized quantities
- exclusion of personnel with a history of mental or emotional instability.
- mandated method of securing the weapons used.
- such personnel are required to be licensed, and the local board of education is responsible for background checking them
- Being an armed school employee is strictly voluntary.
- The local board of education is responsible for the costs. That said, the approved-to-be-armed school employees can pay themselves if they so choose, or apply for sponsorships, grants and suchlike to do so instead.
- Records of which school employees are armed are considered exempt-from-disclosure.

Another part that caused a flood of bitching from the left. Oh me, oh my, without the blue island of Atlanta in the midst of this backwater red state, who knows what these crazy local school boards will do with such terrible POWER?

I dunno, maybe be the adults entrusted with our children that we've empowered them to be?


Airports
- Can carry outside restricted areas.
- If they do carry inside a restricted area and are discovered, they have to leave immediately, otherwise it's a misdemeanor charge.
- Doing this sort of thing while intending to commit another felony, makes it a felony in and of itself.
- renders null and void any county, city, or local law that contradicts this one.

I don't think this is an expansion of weapons carry more than a way to get Hartsfield running smoother. As it stood before this law, if Jimbo from the gun show packed the wrong carry-on that still had a pistol inside from a range trip, there was a hue and cry, fines, jail time, TSA applauding themselves on actually finding something, DHS filling out forms,  and more important: delays out the ass.
With this law, he just has to grab his stuff and walk away. Yeah, he'll lose his flight for his lapse in judgement, but everyone else will get to go about their business as usual. I don't see much to not like here.


Section 1-10
- If you're a CCW holder, have it on you at all times when carrying a weapon.
- A weapon carrier will not be detained for the sole purpose of finding out whether or not they're licensed.
- Not having your license on your is a $10 fine.

Some police officials have spoken out against this one. I can see their point, but at the same time, I'm all for seeing weapons carry not being a crime, while misuse of weapons still being crimes. And if it's denial of a profile tool, so much the better. I have no idea if something along the lines of "Carrying while Black," is a thing, but if it is, good on this provision for acting against it.

- Self defense is an absolute defense to any Chapter 11 offense.

Self defense even with a weapon you're not supposed to have is still self defense.
Even felons have the right to defend themselves.


Section 1-11

- The GA General assembly is the only one who regulates firearm commerce in GA.
- Allows Sheriffs and D.A.'s to regulate issue firearms to deputies in their jurisdictions.

Not sure about this one. Eliminating the firearms equivalent of "dry counties," maybe?


Section 1-12

- Self defense is an absolute defense to a violation of a public transport safety law.

This one, like section 1-10 above, has been lambasted as an extension of GA's Stand Your Ground laws. Without going into a whole 'nother post about how SYG is mislabeled, I will say that these provisions look more like a prevention on selective sentencing.

No, a felon isn't legally supposed to possess a handgun. But if one is attacked and defends themselves with one, there's something a tad fucked up about dropping charges of murder/manslaughter on self-defense grounds, then turning around and charging the same person with possession of the weapon that saved their lives.

I can also see this provision aiding in some of our lousier sentencing habits (AKA putting women who kill their abusive S.O.'s in self-defense behind bars, which happens way too damn often).


Section 1-13

- Amending and adding what mental health records will be submitted to the National Instant Criminal Background check system.

Admin cleanup. Moving on.


Section 1-14

Repeals chapter 16 of title 43 of the Georgia code, relating to firearm dealers.

Wait, what?

If I'm reading this right, and I think I am, GA's book of law on firearms dealers has been struck down in its entirety. Either that Chapter is being rewritten for whole cloth, or ordinary GA business and Federal Firearms Dealer laws are currently what regulate GA dealers.

I THINK it's the former, but I can't find evidence of that.


Section 2-2

- Prohibits confiscation, registration, or prohibition of possession or carry of privately owned weapons during a state of emergency.

Apparently this sort of confiscation happened all over the place during Hurricane Katrina. Don't see a downside to this one being in place.


Section 2-3

- Denies the Governor the emergency power to prohibit firearm or ammunition sales.

See my commentary on section 2-2

The rest of the sections are just minor corrections, updating where reference points are now in the current edition versus where they are now.


*********************************

So, Guns Everywhere?

Not really.

Yeah, it's opened up somewhat. For the most part, it's still respecting private property owners while loosening some of the dumber location-based carry restrictions. The biggest potential change is the wiping the slate clean of dealer laws, which was pretty much ignored by the press.

As for the school parts, it offers reasonable guidelines for a local school board to decide on their own if they want to take those steps. It's not a mandate by any means, but it keeps the option on the table, which beats the no-way-no-how alternative that hasn't worked.

The self-defense expansions may seem wide-reaching, but they highlight something that has plagued self-defense for generations: costly and often vicious court battles that often do more damage than the initial conflict the defender survived in the first place. They honestly look like perhaps overly broad but honest attempts to alleviate some of that.

So, what do you think?

~J.

Been a busy time the last month and change.

The biggest for anyone reading this is the move of the site over to the current digs, which are much, much easier on my limited coding skills. Between a host and a wysiwyg editor that even a savage like me can understand, I got this place up and running in an afternoon, where the old site would have taken me weeks. As an unfortunate consequence, the old email (Jay at Jaythebarbarian dot com) no longer exists. It was mostly a redirect anyway, and there's a handy button at the top that will accomplish the same thing.

Went up to Cincinnati OH to T.A. at the Cease & Desist workshop. Fun was had all round, saw a lot of old friends and made some new ones. Actually went up a day early to go shooting with some friends. Ready Line outside Cincy is a brand new facility with a really nice setup.

Did some work on Public Enemy #1 (an action-comedy short) and a music video for a film school bud of mine, along with a day of military advisement for a production of Ruined.  

Gig-wise, its been a tad slow lately. But I haven't minded, as that means I've had the time to photograph and catalog my rental stock page. Local business has already picked up, and made the "Jay, do you have a ...?" questions answerable with a quick url.

And in the coming soon section, the Theatrical Firearms Handbook, penned by Kevin Inouye over at Fight Designer. Definitely looking forward to this one.

Spent the last several days in the shop, making about a dozen viking-style round shields. By the end I may well have enough to build a literal wall.

~J.

Oh yeah, my new business cards came in the other day, too.

So, last Thursday, Madonna performed a concert at Denver’s Pepsi center. What makes it newsworthy in this instance was performing her song “Gang Bang.” The performance involved blood-splatter effects on the screen and much use of prop guns, at which point she chose to MUZZLE-FUCK THE AUDIENCE ON NO LESS THAN 3 OCCASIONS!

Definition time.

Muzzle-fuck, n. 1). To aim a weapon in the direction of another person the gun wielder (presumably) does not intend to shoot, violating the first law of handgun safety.
see also: “flagging”

The few bloggers who have picked this up are going more towards the possible insensitivity of performing this particular work in Denver, which is a stone’s throw from aurora, where a nutcase who I will not dignify by naming shot indiscriminately into a room full of theatergoers at a midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises this past summer.

What disturbs me more is the incoherent babble of a statement she released once news started hitting over how many locals she pissed off with her antics. I literally can’t make heads or tails of it one way or another. What strikes me is this:

“It’s true there is a lot of violence in the beginning of the show and sometimes the use of fake guns – but they are used as metaphors.

I do not condone violence or the use of guns.

Rather they are symbols of wanting to appear strong and wanting to find

a way to stop feelings that I find hurtful or damaging.”

A metaphor can’t kill from a distance, ma’am. Neither do symbols. And it’s a damn shame you don’t condone the use of guns, because then you might have associated with someone who would have filled you in on the fact that you DON’T AIM A GUN OR ANYTHING THAT LOOKS LIKE ONE INTO THE AUDIENCE!

It honestly wouldn’t have changed the number all that much. 3 tweaks to the choreography, only pointing the muzzle at other performers, I would’ve been cool with that. That’s all it would’ve needed. But either nobody on team Madonna brought it up, or (more likely) nobody wanted to press the point with her and risk their job.

Which leads me to the other thing that chaps me about this: the casual use of firearms as art pieces while having no respect for them as tools.

A lot of Americans who don’t interact with firearms regularly have what I call a Lust-Fear relationship with them. The idea (or the symbol or the metaphor, to quote Madonna’s ramblings) is scary and cool and exciting, but the reality is unfamiliar and terrifying. The whole “ooh, a gun.. OHSHITITSAGUN!” reaction.

Unfamiliarity breeds ignorance which breeds fear. The end result is performers who wonder why there’s a slew of paperwork involved in bringing a firearm into their production while simultaneously advocating the Brady Campaign.

Madonna’s not the first anti-gun performer to use them when it’s convenient for her, (I’d go over the laundry list, but it’s a bit depressing) but she is the first to be so in a way that both illustrates her lack of safety knowledge (or willful disregard of it, hard to tell which) and garnered the attentions of the press for a short while about it.

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.