According to the affidavit for the search warrant obtained by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, Assistant Director David Halls stated: “I check the barrel for obstructions, most of the time there’s no live fire, she (Hannah) opens the hatch and spins the drum, and I say cold gun on set.”
In short, Halls depended on Armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed to check guns used on the set. But anyone familiar with guns sees something else: Halls knows little about guns and is unfamiliar even with basic terminology. He calls the loading gate “the hatch,” and he calls the cylinder “the drum.”
This is similar to the transportation captain calling the steering wheel of a car “the tiller,” and calling the gearshift “the control stick.” The basic meaning can be discerned by someone who knows cars. But clearly, the transportation captain is not such a person, and is in a job for which he is utterly unqualified.
If someone is being considered for the position of assistant director on a Western movie, where guns are sure to be used, and that person is in any way responsible for gun safety, do you suppose, just possibly, that the person should know something about guns? Do you suppose, just as a suggestion, that passing a two or three day course on firearms should be required?
Would we hire someone who does not know how to drive as transportation captain? No? Then why would we hire someone who does not know even basic terminology to be responsible for gun handling and gun safety?
This may be a symptom of a wider disorder. The self-anointed elite consider themselves superior to us ordinary folk, whether by education or merely by thinking themselves superior. Actually knowing how to do things is often beneath them. Actually learning basic facts is just too tedious.
If you check Halls’ extensive list of credits, you will find – eerily – that he served as second assistant director on the movie “The Crow, Salvation,” in which Bruce Lee’s son Brandon was killed by a gunshot from a supposedly safe gun. That movie was made in 2000. In 21 years, Halls still has not troubled himself to learn basic terminology of the dangerous weapons he hands actors.
They say ignorance is bliss. They couldn’t be more wrong. Ignorance causes untold misery and suffering.
