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‘Rust’ crew describes on-set gun safety issues and misfires days before shooting
- pewpew_ 5y agoA friendly reminder: 1. All firearms are always loaded. 2. Be sure of your target and what is beyond it. 3. Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot. 4. Keep your muzzle pointed in a safe direction. Do not point the gun at something you do not want to destroy.
- dotancohen 5y agoFor those who don't know, these rules are well-established "4 Laws" that _responsible_ gun owners and handlers abide by.
- suzzer99 5y agoThat's not how it works in movies though. Actors aren't expected to know how to inspect their own firearms. They're given a gun and told whether it's cold or hot.
- ALittleLight 5y agoThis is a good reminder to actors then that they should learn to safely operate guns if they will be using them. It's not too hard to learn and very important.
- capableweb 5y agoThat's like saying kids should learn how to safely operate guns since they use toy guns and might confuse them for the real deal. The problem would be if you hand a kid a gun, saying it's a toy gun and they aim and fire it towards their friends. This is basically what happened in this scenario with Alec Baldwin.
- furgooswft13 5y agoSo actors are children that cannot be expected to take responsibility for their actions... I don't necessarily disagree. I too long for the day when entertainers were considered nothing more than trained monkeys. This guy still needs to go to jail though. He could pretend he's Trump while frowning in his prison cell if it makes him feel better. I'm sure SNL could spare a new cinematographer.
- ALittleLight 5y agoNo, it's like saying an adult professional operating a deadly machine should learn to do it safely.
- dotancohen 5y ago> The problem would be if you hand a kid a gun, saying it's > a toy gun and they aim and fire it towards their friends. Why do toy guns exist at all? What do children learn other than to point weapons at each other and carelessly pull a trigger without consequence? I would understand a toy hunting rifle, but all that I've ever seen are toy assault rifles and pistols. My three children have never had a toy gun. For context, I've served in infantry and have multiple firearms in the house.
- capableweb 5y agoBecause kids like to play with stuff? Most people in the world (outside the US) will never hold a gun in their hand in the lifetime, so learning vs not learning to pointing weapons doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of it all. Also, not sure what children playing with guns have to do with this accident on the Rust set.
- suzzer99 5y agoI'm sure some actors do. But a lot of prop guns have been specially modified to only take blanks, or take no bullets at all. It's going to be very hard for an actor to discern the difference between blanks, dummy bullets, and prop-gun modifications on a wide range of guns. That's why you have a licensed armorer on set.
- OrvalWintermute 5y agoThere is a problem with this, and that is the amount of time required to truly develop expertise in a weapons system may be significant. I estimate I have fired > 5,000 rounds of 5.56 and > 100,000 rounds of 7.62, and, I have worked as an armorer, and while my weapon handling may have been safe, it would be insufficient to create a safe environment, because that is inherently an organizational function You personally need the training with each of the firearms you are handling, as well as the oversight of safety personnel, and a safety culture with strong processes. You also need the safe equipment since a mechanical failure can easily cause one of these accidents too. People, processes, technology, and leadership. On a low-budget film pressed for $, & time, neglecting safety, I think it is much easier to understand how this tragedy occurred.
- matthewmarkus 5y agoMaybe actors should take the same course hunters have to take. I'm not a hunter, but I took one for fun, and the first thing you learn is always to assume a gun is "hot" until you've checked it yourself. I'm pretty sure someone wouldn't have an unschooled actor operate a motor vehicle. The same thinking should apply when they operate a firearm.
- dfsegoat 5y agoThese are the 4 most basic tenants of gun safety. You are expected to know them on any gun range, and most staffed ranges will safety brief / quiz you on them before they let you shoot. In this case, they say industry SOP would be for 2 people to verify that the weapon is unloaded (set armorer + 1 other).
- mschuster91 5y ago> Actors aren't expected to know how to inspect their own firearms. They should be ffs. Even if it's only prop guns. Basic gun safety rules aren't that hard, and most guns are easy to take apart.
- cronix 5y agoAnyone who picks up a gun is 100% responsible for what happens with it. There are 0 acceptable excuses for pointing a gun directly at another human, blanks or not, loaded or not, and pulling the trigger. He broke a cardinal rule of firearms. And in movies, you aim over the shoulder or otherwise slightly away from the "target." Never directly at. The camera angle makes it look like they're directly aiming at them, but they aren't. There are several rules if not laws broken here. Negligence at a minimum. And Alec is quite vocal about firearm violence. Unless he doesn't know what he's talking about, it would be hard to say he didn't know of the possibility. Ignorance is no excuse. If you want to see an actor who actually knows firearm safety and how to handle firearms, go watch Keanu Reeves train for John Wick.
- suzzer99 5y agoAccording to the article he accidentally fired the gun while practicing pulling it out of the holster. Maybe more will come out but that seems to be the story at the moment. Yes still people shouldn't have been in the line of fire when he was practicing, just clarifying.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- johndoughy 5y agoIt should be standard practice for the operator of a firearm to check whether it's loaded with blanks or live rounds. Pushing that responsibility off to an 'armorer' invites situations like this.
- saturn_vk 5y agoI don't think there are ever any live rounds on set
- Glant 5y agoIt's mentioned near the bottom of the article, but blanks seem to be considered "live rounds". Do we actually know if it was a real bullet or just a blank? I can't think of any reasons you would use real bullets on set.
- lolc 5y agoHow can a blank injure people at a distance?
- capnrefsmmat 5y agoBlanks typically contain wadding to hold the powder in place; this wadding is ejected from the gun and can, at short range, kill people. This has famously happened on several film sets before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_(cartridge)#Safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_(cartridge)#Safety
- cronix 5y agoyes, but that is not the case here. Even if the gun was right next to the target when it went off, a blank would not penetrate the body, go through it, and enter another person like it did here. 2 people were stuck with this single "blank." Only something with the mass of a bullet can do that (unless there was a serious manufacturing defect, which is highly unlikely). I believe that is also where the term "point blank range" came from. A blank is generally not lethal unless it is fired at extremely close range, such as holding it to your head, like in the examples in that wikipedia article if you research the individual incidents.
- lolc 5y agoIs it a common thing to have live rounds on a set? I'm trying to understand how a mistake like this is even possible. One of the rules I remember is that we'd always pull the trigger upon receiving an uncharged gun, to avoid it going off uncontrolled later if there was a mixup. Pretty sad to think they couldn't do even that.
- zeteo 5y agoFor some reason Western directors like to show bullet impacts e.g. shooting bottles, hats or just wood planks. This could be easier to do with real bullets. It's also possible they brought in guns from an unrelated activity (e.g. cowboy action shooting) and failed to check them properly.
- Waterluvian 5y agoI had no idea. I thought those were always small explosive charges planted in walls and bottles and such.
- suzzer99 5y agohttps://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-10-22/rust-shooting-movie-prop-gun-safety-blanks-rounds-more https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021... "Productions using operational firearms can opt for those intentionally designed to fire blank cartridges — shell casings loaded with gunpowder — or decommissioned firearms tweaked to shoot them. Live ammunition is not allowed on any set."
- skymt 5y agoPlease understand that blanks are live rounds and can be deadly if handled without care. Saying it was a live round does not mean it was a bullet. From the article: > A source close to the union said Local 44 does not know what projectile was in the gun and clarified that “live” is an industry term that refers to a gun loaded with some material such as a blank ready for filming.
- suzzer99 5y ago
- zeteo 5y agoSince the projectile injured multiple people at some distance it may not have been a blank but a live round. The Old West style revolvers are somewhat difficult to check for loaded rounds as each chamber needs to be examined individually. It's possible to miscount or skip one.
- suzzer99 5y agoMovie sets never use actual live bullets. But they do use dummy bullets sometimes (to show loading or unloading). And if a piece of one of those is still in the barrel when a blank goes off it becomes a real bullet. That's what happened to Brandon Lee and may have happened here. Seems like a pretty simple fix would be to say that no prop gun that touches a dummy bullet ever touches a blank. Maybe even rig them ahead of time somehow so that it's impossible to load one in the other.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- gnu8 5y agoWatch The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for a tutorial on this.
- suzzer99 5y agoI see a lot of confusion in the comments here about guns on set. The LA Times has several other good articles that clear most of this up. In a nutshell: 1. Live ammo is never used on set. 2. Sometimes dummy rounds are used to show loading/unloading. If these are not cleared out properly, they can become projectiles if blanks are loaded after them (like Brandon Lee and maybe here). 3. When a gun is to be fired in a scene, no one is supposed to be in the line of fire. In this case Baldwin was practicing pulling the gun out of the holster and apparently accidentally fired the gun, as others including Hutchins lined up the shot. 4. Baldwin was told he had a "cold gun", which was clearly wrong. This had happened earlier on the set, and nothing was done to correct the problem. 5. Yes blanks can kill you at close range. But it is basically impossible that a wadding is all that came out of the gun in this case. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-10-22/rust-shooting-movie-prop-gun-safety-blanks-rounds-more https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021... https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-10-22/alec-baldwin-what-is-a-prop-gun-how-does-it-work https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-10-22/...
- patrec 5y ago> 4. Baldwin was told he had a "cold gun", which was clearly wrong. This had happened earlier on the set, and nothing was done to correct the problem. That makes it sound like Baldwin was a victim of others' negligence. But he's not just an actor but the producer, so the buck for repeated safety violations stops with him.
- causi 5y agoAlso, anyone handling a gun, even a prop gun, should be aware of and follow the rules of gun safety. The fact Baldwin didn't check the weapon himself is an enormous act of negligence on his part. You don't just take someone's word for whether or not a weapon is dangerous, ever. Nobody ignorant of weapons safety should even be in the same damn room as a gun. I don't blame Baldwin personally, but whomever is responsible for fostering an on-set culture and policy that would ever allow this to happen deserves to be in prison.
- eternalban 5y agoThere is a worker union and working conditions dimension in this story that is not being discussed. I specifically posted the LA Times’s coverage since as of this morning, the East coast papers — NYT and WP — entirely ignored that aspect and focused on set safety issues. (Variety, which is a trade paper) also devoted considerable focus to the labor issues aspect of this tragedy. From the op: But after filming began, the crews were told they instead would be required to make the 50-mile drive from Albuquerque each day, rather than stay overnight in nearby Santa Fe. That rankled crew members who worried that they might have an accident after spending 12 to 13 hours on the set. Hutchins had been advocating for safer conditions for her team and was tearful when the camera crew left, said one crew member who was on the set. “She said, ‘I feel like I’m losing my best friends,’” recalled one of the workers. As the camera crew — members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees — spent about an hour assembling their gear at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, several nonunion crew members showed up to replace them, two of the knowledgeable people said. One of the producers ordered the union members to leave the set and threatened to call security to remove them if they didn’t leave voluntarily. “Corners were being cut — and they brought in nonunion people so they could continue shooting,” the knowledgeable person said. The shooting occurred about six hours after the union camera crew left.
- carlivar 5y agoThis is strange, since Baldwin is such a big part of the film. Is he a producer? I would not expect him to use non-union workers.
- eternalban 5y ago6 individuals listed as produces in imdb pro, Alec Baldwin as first entry.
- suzzer99 5y agoHe's one of 7 producers or something. But he's the face of the film and probably could have just paid the film crew out of his own pocket if needed.
- DaveExeter 5y ago
- gandalfian 5y agoInteresting articles saying that previous gun deaths in films are just one in 1915 and The Crow in the 80's. Which while no comfort or help to those in this incident does suggest it's not actually a prevalent problem and the current standards may be working.
- suzzer99 5y agoThere are more than that: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-10-22/alec-baldwin-prop-gun-accidents-in-movies-tv https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-10-22/...
- gandalfian 5y agoAh thanks, two more, though still four deaths over a hundred years not too common. One bored person playing Russian roulette with blanks and one complete failure on a straight to video production in mexico.
- donarb 5y agoIt's more prevalent than that. Just on this movie set alone, there were prior problems with accidental firings of prop guns that were supposed to be unloaded. On the morning of the deadly shooting, union members walked off the job due to safety concerns. This is going to be one huge lawsuit.
- suzzer99 5y agoWow this thread just got orphaned into the ether.
- pessimizer 5y agoAccording to the articles on the shooting, "live" is film-ese for loaded with anything that goes bang. It doesn't mean that there's a bullet in the cartridge.
- caseyross 5y agoMany people here are discussing gun safety, which is orthogonal to the actual causes of the shooting. There are hundreds of specialized pieces of equipment on a film set and a gun is just one of them. It's not anyone's job but the person responsible for that category of equipment to ensure safety. Here, that would be the armorer, who appears to be have gotten her job through family connections and is clearly a mortal danger to herself and others. But the buck doesn't stop there. This wasn't even the first misfire on this particular set. A few days prior, when two rounds were negligently discharged, anyone responsible for weapons should have been immediately fired. This didn't happen, showing that the gun safety issues were not only the armorer's fault, but also a symptom of irresponsible and dangerous management at the higher levels of the production. As a matter of fact, according to the article, the movie's managing team routinely cut corners on the filming environment, forcing crews to commute 100 miles round trip for 12 hour work days, delaying paychecks, and bringing in scabs to keep shooting (both cameras and guns, apparently) when a half dozen crewmembers walked off set to protest working conditions. Underlying all of this, and at least partly to blame, is the hard truth that every dollar spent to make the set safer for the crew is a dollar that won't be going into the pockets of the people backing the film. Notably, one of the financiers for this movie is BondIt Media Capital, which specializes in lending to troubled or otherwise high-risk productions, and surely expects to be repaid commensurate with that risk. So in the end, would gun safety have prevented this tragedy? Yes. But the gun was just the weakest link in a chain that was "Rust"ed through from the start.
- dzhiurgis 5y agoWeird thought, but how come California doesn’t ban movies with guns altogether?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]