Travis Haley Negligent Discharge

[Dagga Boy]

Salves, you can read it however you want. If it is the way you say it was....then I will change my opinion of it was a mistake that luckily nobody got hurt, to he is a total fucking asshole and purposely injured others with no regard for safety. See, not only did he not have ear pro, but none of the film crew did. So when people light off AK's negligently "on-purpose" with no eye pro, and nobody else has ear pro on....unsafe asshole. He was also holding the gun in a manner in which lacks control if you are intending to negligently discharge a round.

I swear people are making this ridiculous. He lost track of the weapon status that the gun was loaded while demonstrating an unsafe technique and what "not to do". That failure to know the weapon status caused an embarrassing situation, and should be a learning experience. Trust me, not the first guy to not know his weapon status. Not the first guy who knows what he is doing to lose track of weapon status when heavily distracted. Happened to me and caused the most embarrassing situation of my proffesional life as well. Guess what, professionals own that stuff, learn from it, and likely are hyper sensitive about safety afterward and truly understand how important removing distraction is during administrative procedures, like loading and unloading. All this excuse making actually makes Haley look ten times worse than the incident itself, which garnered a simple "oooops" from me when I was originally sent the video.

[rsa-otc]

General I think favorably of Travis Haley. But with regards to this incident, after looking at the YouTube video from Panteo last night the context that he discribed the ND at the end and everything going wrong leads me to conclude this was unintentional. Own it. I did mine 30 years ago. It's was learning point for me at the time and my students past and future as well.

[rob_s]

This, like almost everything else in this industry... sorry, community... is more about everyone using the same information in different ways to confirm their original bias, or apply it in some self-serving/promoting/aggrandizing way.

[TCinVA]

That's interesting. I'm kind of curious as to what actually defines an "industry", as simply having standards doesn't really seem to mean anything unless those standards are dictated by law. As the old saying goes, "Standards are great. Everyone has one."

IT is a good place to look. Not a whole lot of laws out there governing how things must be done in the main, but best practices and standards have evolved pretty readily without legislative power to back them up...usually propagated by thoughtful people interested in fulfilling their mission.

So when OPM does some truly kindergarten level nonsense it gets looked at in stunned disbelief because it's just about unthinkable that they would really be that stupid.

As for the Haley thing, I think he had a legit ND.

And I'm not a professional firearms instructor, but if I was going to demo something...especially with others around me...I'm going to demo with an unloaded gun. I've done demonstrations of bad safety practices to make a point to students before, but always with an unloaded gun verified as such by everybody there and done in a manner so that even if a round gets touched off it goes into a berm instead of a person.

I think we're dealing partially with what Todd termed "The Safety Sin":

http://pistol-training.com/archives/8265

...which prevents rational reaction. Truth is, Travis fucked up. He's not the first to fuck up, and he won't be the last. It was completely avoidable and we'd do well to learn important lessons like "This is why we don't demo with loaded weapons." but instead it becomes an effort to save face because of The Safety Sin.

[David S.]

An "Uncut" video of a mistake, perfectly edited (cut) to remove after action context, was "accidentally" released to the public.

And the masses cry out, right on cue.

[Slavex]

I failed to notice that no one else was wearing hearing protection, where was that mentioned?

Edited to add, watched the "unedited" version again. If others weren't wearing their earpro I'd say it's monkey see monkey do. They see him not doing it, and they have no idea if the gun is loaded or not. Yes he should have caught that, and that he wasn't, but again, time pressure of production, multiple takes. I don't see it as any kind issue that would stop me from taking a course with him. And I am not some big Haley fan.

[MichaelD]

I failed to notice that no one else was wearing hearing protection, where was that mentioned?

From Panteao's explanation as quoted in post #41 on this thread:

The big question now is “was this really a negligent discharge?” or something staged or edited to look like one. The scene in question was not intended to be live fired, thus none of the crew had their hearing protection on, neither did Travis. It was strictly a demo of different Russian techniques. There were MULTIPLE individuals standing in close proximity to Travis, any of whom who would have reminded him to put his ears on if live fire was intended. In the crystal clear light of hindsight, one of the errors that occurred was having a hot gun for this particular scene. As the ones ultimately responsible for the safety of the production, that particular error falls on us, and it was one of the many lessons we took away from the incident. When the rifle discharged into the side berm, ears were ringing and as is common in these situations, everyone took a moment to look at each other and inspect for new holes. Travis summed it up best in the video “That didn’t work.”

[Dagga Boy]

I failed to notice that no one else was wearing hearing protection, where was that mentioned?

Edited to add, watched the "unedited" version again. If others weren't wearing their earpro I'd say it's monkey see monkey do. They see him not doing it, and they have no idea if the gun is loaded or not. Yes he should have caught that, and that he wasn't, but again, time pressure of production, multiple takes. I don't see it as any kind issue that would stop me from taking a course with him. And I am not some big Haley fan.

Okay, so he is a total fucking unsafe asshole for knowing he was going to ND a round on purpose and not telling anyone to don proper safety equipment like ear and eye pro. And you want to take a course with a guy who will not tell you when he is going to discharge a round and let you properly prepare? It is the staff's fault for "monkey see, monkey do" and their responsibility for hearing damage. In this case if Haley "knew" the gun was loaded and intended to fire it later "negligently on purpose", then he was also a mega failure for the little stunt where he flipped the gun over with his finger in that goofy position all the way through the trigger guard and pressing against the trigger. That is a position that if fired he would have very little control on the gun, could injure himself...which can then lead to a dangerous situation for everyone around.

I was fine with Haley making a simple mistake on the status of a gun while distracted with memorizing lines for a video. It was a simple error anyone could make and nobody was hurt and some positive learning occurred. I d still take a class with that guy. Heck...I was that guy once.
On the other hand, if this is a guy who doesn't care about anyone around him, eye and ear pro is your own damn problem, will purposely fire a round from a weapon like an AK that is a very loud gun, and is in a position of uncontrolled round ejection that could cause injury to unprotected folks right next to him....that guy is an irresponsible idiot, should not be teaching, and have zero respect for. I guess, by your thinking, he was just teaching the film crew a lesson about basic ear and eye protection, and they deserved what they got.

[Trooper224]

Slavex,

Why are you having such a hard time believing Travis simply screwed up?

[Kimura]

I don't think I'm explaining myself well here, he intended for their to be an ND, that's why he was showing what he was showing, he knew these techniques were prone to NDs, so referring to it as one, fits the bill, do this technique get an ND, BOOM. Shit, no hearing protection. The embarrassment and being shaken up etc, all because he didn't expect the loudness of the boom. And they are loud with no hearing pro on.

Right after it happens, he says "well that didn't work" "don't put that on fucking film". Why say that if it was intentional?

Based on the video, I think it was an unintentional ND. Ok, no one got hurt and as many have commented, shit happens. We'll see what he says when he gets back in the country. If he owns up to his mistake; awesome, I personally wouldn't have a problem taking classes from him. If he doesn't, IMO, it becomes a credibility issue; which to me is a bigger issue than the ND itself.