News Alec Baldwin Accidentally Shoots & Kills Cinematographer, Wounds Director with Prop Gun

Curious as to what killed the victim ...

...was it a bullet or a broken cleaning rod lodged in the barrel?

any weapon firing blanks has to be cleaned more often, why? Our armorers always cautioned us that blanks are more dirty

If you want accurate training with MILES gear you needed a dependable weapon you can count on.

Now if it was a bullet that's a serious matter, someone besides Alec is gravely responsible.

 

It's all but confirmed it was a live round. The AD was in charge of gun safety and, apparently, he and others had some bouts of for-fun target practice (apparently unknown to the armorer) and he handed Baldwin the gun saying it was "cold."

 

The sheriff's office has said they have a "lead projectile" (removed from the director) and an empty cartridge casing in evidence, so it was a real live shooting round.

Bullets will push some gunpowder residue out of the barrel, while it can just build up with multiple blank firing. But either needs to be cleaned after each use.

 

That detail always strikes me as too good to be true. Though lots of crazy shit does happen I’m curious if that is going to stand over time as they look into this.

 

It sounds even worse when you realize he was actually taking part in the target practice, an activity that he should have prevented from happening, and let alone checking the guns to make sure they were safe and didn't do properly. Almost as if he was trying to hide something.

 

Now that got me to thinking…in an Old West revolver, you can see the bullets in the cylinder. Now, I think wax bullets were used for training…and they could hurt worse than paintballs.

Did they want something to show on camera for close ups and forgot that the way the cylinder spun?

I think I see where this is going…

For the sake of gravitas, and cinema verite, live rounds were used thinking the weight of the situation would promote safety. A blank was put in one chamber the camera would not see off to the side a tad.

Or…

Someone talks about burial money put in an empty cell where the hammer rests to prevent discharge…forgetting the cylinder cycles off that. That was where the blank was perhaps, so it would not show?

She frames up the scene…looking right down the barrel…sunlight glinting off the ugly slugs. Clockwise from one vantage point…but counter clockwise from the other!

THEY FORGOT HOW THE REVOLVER REVOLVED!!!

I am an imbecile!

The crime involved not one fatal shooting…but two.

As she was shooting him…he was shooting her.

 

Wasn't there a Columbo almost exactly like this?

 

It’s worse than I feared. I heard Baldwin did a cross-draw and then said “I go bang” with the actual gun. I would have just used my pointing fingers while rehearsing and right before “action” would have looked at the shells individually. I always count money even after the bank tellers do their own count. No chance of change blindness.

 

I think the catch with that is that they have to be using what they're filming with in order to get a feel for the weight and aiming, something you wouldn't be able to do by simply pointing fingers, and would lead to issues when doing the actual filming. They want to make things look as natural as possible.

 

Also with a single-action there's more technique, you have to work the hammer with your thumb or your other hand, you can't just pull the trigger.

 

Yeah, that too. I mean, one could mime it with their hands all they want, but it would never replace the physical practice of going through the motions.

 

It seems now their was multiple live ammo on the set. This story gets more weird all the time and disturbing.

 

Baldwin has called for police to monitor safety on film sets. This strikes me as a massive misreading of the issue. Just pay proper safety experts - why should a publicly funded organisation do so? https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....for-police-to-monitor-gun-safety-on-film-sets

 

^Strange, the link still works for me, but perhaps it’s a geo-blocking thing. Thanks for the alternative link, though.

Yes, it doesn’t seem like a good idea to bring cops onset. Twitter was full of gallows humour jokes about black actors being shot dead as soon as they reached for their guns.

 

Police in the US have accidental discharges all the time, but no one is usually hurt so you don't hear much about it. As a retired cop friend of mine said, "Show me a police station without a patched bullet hole somewhere and I'll show you a brand new police station."

Police departments have firearms training and range officers who are well-versed in safety, but no more so than a similar civilian professional would be.

 

Just because someone is a cop.. doesn't mean there a subject matter expert on guns. Had a friend that worked a gun range for years, said, there not much better than average on gun competency. They use them more often, and do training, but that doesn't make them good enough to teach, or watch over others. But that's for regular line officers, I'm sure there are training officers that do the training that could be good for the job, but there busy, you know, training officers..

Plus, "Normal" armorers have more experience in weapons than the cops.

Now on cleaning guns, you don't have to do it after every shot, but worth it to maybe do at the end of the day, after firing hundreds of rounds, just to make sure the gun is operating properly, and not have any problems.
Also depends on the rounds, blanks probably leave alot more residue than regular rounds.

 

Gibe a cop an old west revolver, or a lever action rifle, or any German gun from WW1 or 2 ask them to break them down for cleaning.. They'd look at it and say.. No idea.. Ask a good armouer .. They'd do it.