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

I've seen twice on Cops or one of those type of shows officers pick up a single action revolver (probably a Ruger) at a crime scene and not have the first clue how to unload it or make it safe.

 

I think having a nationwide industry standard with certification for armorers with defined protocols and duties would go a long way. Think about how many movies and TV shows have been made over the years and how many major injuries or deaths have occurred?

 

Having the police in charge of safety on a film set sounds like an exceptionally bad idea, for a very long list of reasons.

 

"Certification for armorers, with defined protocols and duties" -- and most of all, ACCOUNTABILITY, and the possibility of disciplinary action.

 

old black powder cap-n-ball revolvers (and reproductions) are ridiculously easy to clean. hot water, dish detergent, then oil. my old ww1 and ww2 era rifles are about as easy.

 

from guns? very few. The problem isn't the current rules, it's people not following them. Regulations don't solve that, enforcement does.

 

There's already plenty of rules and regulations on filming with guns the thing is they weren't following them

 

As has been mentioned previously in this thread, the fact that such firearms related accidents on film sets is at such a low number in the century that firearms have been used on film sets is proof the pre-existing rules and safety protocols work. The problem on Rust, or so I gather based on all the coverage of this incident is that those rules and protocols weren't being followed.

 

That makes sense, as a cop would only have experience with the firearm they'd been trained to use, and unless they're a hobbyist with historical weapons, older weapons are going to be foreign to them. Which makes a lot of sense that when movies about the American civil war are made, they use tons of civil war re-enactors because they tend to know their details.

 

I’m right the opposite. Folks with clip-feds must like taking clocks apart and putting them back together.

Clip feds are sneaky…they can bite your thumb webbing, still leave a round even after a clip has been removed.

An accident with those I get. Not a simple revolver that is more easily checked.

You always act as if you are the only one who checks things.

Case in point:

Many years ago, I took my Dad to a local hospital, after writing down all his prescriptions…only to be sent to another room to be asked the same damn question.

Some time later, my Mom was due for a test while she was already at the hospital after a fall. I guessed correctly that the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing…and here I’m directing traffic in a god-damn hospital where no one seems to know their ass from their eyebrows. It was called “Medical Center East” though law enforcement called it “Murder Center East” or “Kill on the Hill.”

You have to have that same outlook on a movie set.

 

Basic rules for firearms should always apply:

1. Always assume a weapon is loaded unless you have personally checked it and it has always been in your control since.
2. Never point a weapon at anything you do not wish to destroy.
3. Fully identify your target before firing.
4. Know what is behind your target.

 

These are rules that are standard in the industry pertaining to guns and gun props, crewmembers know this and if not its mandatory to have a meeting conducted by the weapons master and it is drilled into the crews' head. This was not Baldwin's first rodeo, he should know better than that.

 

Alec Baldwin sat down in an interview with George Stephanopoulos that aired tonight (THU 2DEC) on ABC. During the interview, he described being handed the gun by the Assistant Director, who declared that it was a "cold gun." Baldwin, the director Joel Souza, and cinematographer Halyna Hutchins were blocking the scene and working on where Baldwin was going to aim the gun. According to Baldwin, it was Souza and Hutchins who were telling him where to point. Baldwin said he pulled the hammer back but did not have his finger on the trigger and not squeeze the trigger. He did release the hammer and the gun fired.

The scene being rehearsed was not intended to have any firing of the gun and should have only had dummy rounds, not even blanks.

 

At first glance I have to be a little skeptical. If he pulled the hammer back all the way, the trigger would have to be pulled to fire or de-cock. If he pulled it back less than that, it would catch at half-cock. It seems unlikely that the hammer slipping from less than the half-cock position would have enough impact to fire the primer. Or, there were not one but two horrible safety shortcomings: A live bullet round loaded in the gun, and a mechanical defect that allowed it to fire from a hammer drop without a trigger pull. That seems like too much of a coincidence. It should have been obvious to anyone handling the weapon if the hammer wasn't engaging correctly due to worn or broken action parts. I guess we'll find out through the forensic examination of the revolver.

I think maybe more likely that Baldwin had his finger inside the trigger guard and didn't think he was pulling the trigger but accidentally did.

 

single actions can have hair-triggers. I have a Taurus that you can barely touch in single action. I'm also guessing he did touch the trigger and didn't realize it, but i suppose that will come out, eventually.

 

I also have a Ruger Security Six with a scary-light single action pull. Which surprised me because they have a reputation for stiff triggers, but the previous owner must have had a job done on it. But yeah, it often doesn't take much to trip a SA trigger if your finger's in there somewhere a little closer than it ought to be.

 

yeah, no.
He pulled the trigger some how. He still was pointing it at her.
Questions:
Was it the first time he handled that weapon? If not did he note a hair trigger or a problem?
If they were just rehearsing, why give him an actual weapon? why not a dummy, and why even loaded with "Dummy rounds"?
Does that gun have a history? was it brand new? was it in other movies? Where has it been?
But yes, negligent discharge at the least, Negligent homicide at most.

 

Irrelevant. In the studio environment I am taught to treat whether its a prop, or toy or SF or rubber firearm and especially a real gun to treat them AS IF THEY ARE DEADLY WEAPONS and you NEVER, EVER point a weapon at a human being ON SET. PERIOD. For a man who's been working in the business BEFORE THE BRANDON LEE INCIDENT, where this policy had been implemented claimed ignorance and blame other people and now it was an act of God after that pathetic interview just showed Baldwin is evil.

 

I don't believe for one minute he didn't cause the gun to fire, one way or another, in accidental discharge. If it was THAT defective of a firearm, then the investigators will be able to tell easily.

Older Colt style single action revolvers were not safe to carry hammer-down on a loaded cylinder. This is something anyone who handles one is either aware of or made aware of. The are not carried holstered with all 6 loaded. There's even a pattern for how to load them to be absolutely sure there are only 5 and the hammer is on empty. If it was loaded on all six, or else improperly handed to him with a hammer on a full cylinder, he would not have known. There's no swing-out cylinder to tell. But it still wouldn't just magically go off unless it was somehow jostled hard enough for the hammer to ignite the cap.

It sounded like he was going on advice of his legal team, as he wants no culpability in a wrongful death suit, that or he is lying to himself.

 

Seems to me that even if Baldwin is not legally responsible for the immediate action that killed the cinematographer, he is, as one of the film's producers, partially responsible for creating the conditions on-set that led to the accident -- that is, for choosing to hire inexperienced staff and cut corners so much that other staff members walked off out of safety concerns the morning before the accident. And the fact that he won't accept any responsibility for having created those conditions, and that he says he feels no guilt at all, to me is evidence of a fundamental amorality at play here. This is a guy whose choices created a line of dominoes that resulted in someone dying, and he's most concerned with saving his own ass instead of taking responsibility for his choices.