Burt Gummer - Background

Background

Although very little is known about Burt's past, it has been hinted that he might've been involved in the military, and at the very least possesses extensive knowledge of military history, tactics, and protocol. Burt has also had an affection for guns since middle-school, evidenced by his telling Desert Jack that he "converted BB gun to automatic by the eighth-grade." While he is very fond of his firearms, he is also strict about personal safety and care in the handling of firearms.

Burt settled in the town of Perfection with his wife, Heather (Reba McEntire), sometime before Tremors 1, a site they chose tactically due to its geographic isolation. It was later revealed in Tremors 4, however, that his ancestor Hiram Gummer (again played by Gross) inherited a silver mine in the town (which was named "Rejection" at the time), and went on to marry the local town-mistress. Stampede Entertainment's official website states that Hiram and his wife left in 1902 for San Francisco after a disagreement with Nevada bureaucrats over the date of the town's founding, and never returned (which may hint at the origins of Burt's anti-government sentiments). It may also simply be that Burt inherited the land, and given the choice, Burt & Heather located themselves in Perfection for the "geographic isolation".

Whether there is any direct connection between these events and Burt's choice to move to Perfection is unknown, but prior to the events of Tremors 3, Burt did possess an inheritance of silver bars from Hiram's ownership of the mine (as referenced in Tremors the Series). This massive inheritance also explains Burt's extensive weaponry and supplies, though some of the weapons may have been inherited as well, as Hiram developed a fondness for firearms over the course of Tremors 4.

In the first film, Burt was shown to be paranoid about surviving "World-War III", and his main cause as a survivalist. He had spent all of his years preparing for the possibility, building a stock of several years' worth of food and provisions in his home's underground bomb shelter. After the Graboid attacks of Tremors 1, Burt instead begins to worry less about World War III (possibly owing to the collapse of Soviet Russia, after which he sank into a deep depression as seen in Tremors 2), and becomes obsessed instead with Graboids, growing more obsessed with each new installment of the series, even having a massive underground concrete wall built to protect his compound. This actually saved his life as in Tremors 3 Desert Jack killed a Graboid that had swallowed Burt by tricking it into ramming into the wall, allowing him to rescue Burt. These obsessions and possibly the fear of the Graboids eventually cause his wife to divorce him sometime shortly before Tremors 2.

His regard to the final surviving albino Graboid from the end of Tremors 3 and the subsequent TV series, El Blanco, who is protected by his endangered species status (and inability to spawn the far more dangerous Shriekers, making him the only stable Graboid specimen ever found), is as something of a nemesis (their relationship was once compared to be somewhat like Captain Ahab & Moby-Dick), as Burt must balance his survival tactics with efforts to intentionally avoid harming the Graboid. Despite his animosity towards El Blanco, Burt has saved the Graboid's life on a few occasions, in the series premiere even begging the driven insane Graboid not to make him kill it, before destroying the machine driving it nuts. El Blanco also, if inadvertently, saved his life from an Ass Blaster when Desert Jack tricked it into eating the creature as it was about to kill Burt.

One controversy is how he gets his weapons and ammo, despite all of his guns being legal (except an SMG he is seen to own, though it may be a National Firearms Act registered weapon, and therefore lawful), the bullets for the Grizzly Big Boar and Barrett M82 .50 caliber BMG sniper rifle he wields are a topic that could be debated. How he obtained a minigun legally is also questionable. While it is possible he obtained them illegally, his repeated interactions with Department of the Interior official W.D. Twitchell in Tremors the Series made implications that Twitchell kept a close eye on all activity in Perfection valley, making it less likely that Burt accomplished illegal imports unnoticed. It is also possible that he undertook a special NFA process to purchase completely legal transferable title II weapons, which would include any of an array of sub-machine guns or even his minigun.

Burt has had many firsts and unique experiences with Graboids, having been the first to directly kill one via weaponry (the first was killed when it accidentally collided with a concrete wall at high speed), as well as being the only person to ever survive being eaten by a Graboid, having been eaten while inside a barrel; the Graboid was subsequently killed and cut open, allowing Burt to escape and survive. Burt has also probably killed more Graboids and their offspring than any other person, having taken out one in the first film, many of them with explosives in Tremors 2, having defeated an entire group of shriekers by himself during Tremors 2, another group of Shriekers at the start of Tremors 3, a number of the ass-blasters in Tremors 3, and a number of Shriekers in Tremors the Series. Recognized for his skill and expertise in the matter, W.D. Twitchell of the Department of the Interior often enlists Burt to deal with Graboid hatchlings in various populated areas of the United States when they occur.