quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

I will repeat my question about how depicting things like someone’s being shot or having a gun pointed at them is possible without pointing a gun at them—?

You serious, Clark?

*Spoiler Alert*

The shark in Jaws, not real.
Laser cannons, blasters, light sabers in Star Wars, not real.
Matt Damon was not on Mars in The Martian.
Mr. Spock, not from Vulcan and his ears were fake to.

I mean, it's been almost 120 years since Georges Méliès put men on the Moon, but the movies do have a long history of depicting things without doing them for real.

Alec Baldwin is not going to face criminal charges . There might be some activity in that direction for a while but at the end of the day he will be another victim of the " unfortunate incident " or however they label it . Hollywood will rally around their boy and in time he'll be back in front of the camera . I hope I'm wrong . I really do .

Thell Reed is one of the first names that pops into my head when I think Hollywood armorers.

His daughter Hannah though, I've never seen any credit for her at the end of a flick, and her resume confirms she only recently started serving as a Head Armorer. It wouldn't surprise me if his legendary name and experience were 'transferred' to her when Baldwin's production team was looking for a set armorer.

Several reports that there were repeat safety violations and safety meetings were not being held.

Her own resume and words pretty much confirms her lack of experience, and likely played a big part in this tragedy, BUT there were earlier reports posted that a union armorer was on set, before either walking off or asked to leave, on the day of the shooting.

I could easily envision a couple scenarios in which one armorer leaves part way through the job and another takes over. Mis-communication or no communication as someone angrily stomps off the set. Perhaps the two armorers were never on the set at the same time. Or perhaps even sabotage or tampering. A new inexperienced armorer trying to step in might easily miss some things and fail to take a step back and assess the situation from a safety standpoint.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
You serious, Clark?

You are right that sometimes it would be possible to use something that was not a real gun for some scenes, but clearly not always, and that’s what I am referring to. And if we want to be picky, a gun with a firing pin removed is still a gun and therefore subject to the “four” rules. See my post about unintentional substitutions. If live cartridges can be loaded in guns without anyone noticing, introducing a functional gun to the set is equally possible.

But perhaps this incident will lead to more stringent restrictions on the use of real guns in movies and TV shows. Everyone knows the scenes aren’t real, so why not make everyone use blue plastic guns and just say “BANG, BANG!” real loud?

In any event, thus endeth the lesson.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

even when dummy guns are supposed to be used, sometimes things get switched and real ones substituted.

Yes sir, there certainly are a lot of "what ifs," each of which needs to be considered.

A possible answer to this scenario is an innocuous mark on the disabled gun, with everybody, including the actor, trained to look for this mark before handling the gun. Still not a perfect answer, there are too many scenarios to consider, and there will probably always be a loophole.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
You are right that sometimes it would be possible to use something that was not a real gun for some scenes, but clearly not always, and that’s what I am referring to.

You make a point that should be obvious to members of a gun forum. Countless threads and comments by some members over the years, pointing out the various gun and shooting discrepancies in movies and TV shows. Wrong gun, wrong caliber, wrong gun for a certain time frame, bad shooting technique etc..

In the early days of Hollywood there were plenty of gun mistakes made, revolvers that never needed to be reloaded, fingers on triggers.. but eventually gun owners demanded more realism in their Hollywood gunfights and, slowly, Hollywood started to respond. Some directors started to research the correct weaponry and gear, started bringing in professionals and experts. In some cases they even sent actors expected to handle guns in movies, to professional shooting schools.

In certain scenes with certain camera vantage points, I can easily see why real guns are used over prop ones, when realism is the goal for that scene. Why these real guns aren't modified to prevent live rounds from being loaded, I can only speculate that the gun might be privately owned and only being loaned or rented.. or perhaps the conversion isn't possible for a certain gun or caliber.. or, maybe modification is cost prohibitive, and it just makes sense to use a real gun with blanks.

In the Jimmy Stewart movie Winchester 1873, the famous scene in which there was a shooting match held in town, with the winner taking home the prized rifle, the director brought in a famous trick shot artist and hid him off camera. Every time one of the actors fired a blank round he fired off a live shot from a real gun that hit the targets.

The fact that, with all the movies/TV shows over the decades that have depicted guns shooting, and with only a handful of gun related injuries and deaths seems to suggest that they more or less understand the safety aspects of gun handling on a movie set, and it's just a matter of following the protocols and rules already in place.

Hanna the Armorer listed 4 months experience loading blanks on linkedin.

Edit: the link below was taken down.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ha...-gutierrez-a840a6191

Baldwin will blame everyone but himself.

I own the hero prop used in The Mummy.

It was rented out through a prop company the owner.

It was fitted with blanks for live action shots, even though live ammo is obsolete, it is still very capable of being fired with it.

All the back and forth about who did what and how much experience, etc. has still failed to answer the overriding questions:

What was LIVE AMMO doing on a movie set, who brought it onto the set, and why?

And who loaded LIVE AMMO into a firearm that was intended to be used as a “prop”?

Those questions need to be answered through a criminal investigation of this incident.

It seems like following “the four rules” is at least occasionally impractical, if not impossible, when filming some scenes. It also seems like hollywierd has gone to the effort of developing processes that usually allow the scenes to be filmed without having a tragedy.

It appears that this production didn’t follow the processes and the results were not good. I suspect that Alec Baldwin the shooter may escape prosecution for pulling the trigger, but Alec Baldwin the producer may have a tougher time escaping liability. Time will tell.

Look, I think we can all agree that Baldwin is an arrogant gasbag who few would piss on if he were on fire. But I don't wish this grief on even someone like him. It's most tragic for the family of the crew member. I'm sure it's a time of intense grief for them.

Some of this tragedy does fall on Baldwin. Ultimately, the safe operation and use of a firearm rests with the one whose booger hook is on the bang switch. To effectively do a safety check, he would have had to spend a little time learning how the firearm works and how to verify it's in a safe condition prior to pointing it at someone and pulling the trigger. But Baldwin, being the arrogant prick he is probably thought that was 'beneath him' and assumed others would do it for him. We've all seen those videos of Keanau Reaves training with live firearms. Does anyone here think this would have happened had this been him on the set? I don't. But unlike Baldwin, Reaves did the work to learn how to operate the firearms he uses. I'd wager he's had MANY safety briefings during all that training. And unlike Baldwin, Reaves is humble enough to listen and accept that he doesn't know everything. But rather than actually LEARN anything about firearm safety, Baldwin would rather spew whatever hot air talking points he's handed and tell himself how he's smarter than everyone else.

There's not enough reliable info now to have a good idea what happened. But from what I've seen, the armorer put the guns on a cart, then someone else (assistant director) picked this one off the cart and handed it to Baldwin and told him it was a 'cold gun'. So that's 3 people that handled it and none performed a safety check. IMO, that's inexcusable when you KNOW that it will be pointed and fired at human beings in close proximity. The local LEO likely have a solid story of what happened. And I'd bet the insurers will have a detailed account of everything as I'm sure they're wanting to make sure they're not the ones footing the bill for this. It does sound like a lot of corners were being cut on this film just reading between the lines in the stories posted. Sounding like the armorer screwed up. But also reading they had a few 'misfires' on the set the day before as well. Don't know if they mean ND, or a FTF. Either of those should have put the armorer on high alert. But from initial reports it sounds like this one was asleep at the switch.

IMO, what SHOULD have happened is when they needed the gun for the scene, the assistant director goes out and asks the armorer for the gun. Armorer picks it up and does a safety check, then hands it to the assistant director. Assistant director does safety check then hands it to Baldwin, who does a safety check before setting up the scene.

Again, if you're planning to point a firearm at a film crew and pull the trigger, there should have been multiple safety checks with the final one being by the one pulling the trigger. No one on the set should have been allowed to handle a firearm on the set without being trained to do a safety check the moment they lay hands on it. To simply rely on the armorer alone is a systemic failure. That is a failure to manage risk.

If I'm an insurer and I have a client that's supplying firearms to film companies, I'm asking for written copies of their safety protocols and looking to see what they put into their contracts to force the film production companies to actively enforce those on the set. And insurance carriers and probably taking another look at their coverage of film companies. My guess is they have some pretty strict guidelines in place for film companies regarding use of firearms on set. But I'd bet this film crew largely ignored them.

quote:

Originally posted by 2BobTanner:
All the back and forth about who did what and how much experience, etc. has still failed to answer the overriding questions:

What was LIVE AMMO doing on a movie set, who brought it onto the set, and why?

And who loaded LIVE AMMO into a firearm that was intended to be used as a “prop”?

Those questions need to be answered through a criminal investigation of this incident.

I don't disagree, and a criminal investigation is under way.

More unsupported speculation on my part.

Possibilty A) the gun that fired the fatal shot was privately owned or perhaps owned by a prop supply company. Perhaps the owner left a live round in it.

Possibility B) perhaps the gun was used with blanks during filming, but after the movie shoot day was over and the crew was released for the day, some members wanted to see what it was like to shoot a real gun, and live ammo was used. Somewhere along the way between plinking in the desert and going back to being used on the movie set, a live round was mixed in with blanks or just forgotten in the cylinder.

Possibilty C) a disgruntled set employee intentionally placed a live round in the cylinder when no one was looking and an armorer failed to verify unloaded. Perhaps they thought it was a practical joke..or perhaps they thought they'd give everyone on set a real good scare and make the armorer look bad, but they never intended for the round to actually kill someone.

Possibilty D) ????

One of the reports indicates that after the fatal shooting the armorer took possession of the gun, and handed it over to police evidence collectors, along with the spent shell. I'm assuming that fingerprints on the ammo she handed over, including the spent shell, will be checked. It probably would've been best to simply secure the weapon with whatever round(s) or spent shells were in it, but I'm guessing she unloaded it to prevent any further safety issues. I'm guessing police will find her fingerprints on the spent shell, but will they find any others?

quote:

IMO, what SHOULD have happened is when they needed the gun for the scene, the assistant director goes out and asks the armorer for the gun. Armorer picks it up and does a safety check, then hands it to the assistant director. Assistant director does safety check then hands it to Baldwin, who does a safety check before setting up the scene.

Guy like Baldwin doesn’t ever want responsibility like that.

I have not seen anything from the State of New Mexico's movie production office or whatever it's called on this.

But being that so far this year movies and TV shows have brought in over 600 million to the state's economy I would probably doubt that anything critical or negative will be officially released as not to upset that apple cart.

While I do not doubt that the Sheriff's Office will do a full investigation the case will still have to go to the District Attorney for a decision on charges and prosecution. As the District Attorney's office is under the state a case can be deferred to another office for "cause". And with the number of media "stars" living in the area of Santa Fe I would imagine that the case will be shuffled off to another county in the state if it goes to trial.

quote:

Originally posted by Tgrshrk99:

quote:

IMO, what SHOULD have happened is when they needed the gun for the scene, the assistant director goes out and asks the armorer for the gun. Armorer picks it up and does a safety check, then hands it to the assistant director. Assistant director does safety check then hands it to Baldwin, who does a safety check before setting up the scene.

Guy like Baldwin doesn’t ever want responsibility like that.

Yep. Arrogant pricks like him think it would be 'beneath him'. But it was his booger hook on the bang switch. Charging him with negligent manslaughter or homicide COULD have the potential of setting a precedent and getting actors to pay attention in gun safety briefings. I'd bet, given his arrogance he didn't even attend one for this film. Told himself "I already know everything".

There were clearly personnel and process problems related to the handling of prop firearms on the set, and as a producer of the film, Alec Baldwin has responsibility for those failures, regardless or whether or not he should be held responsible for the act of the shooting. He was definitely complicit in the series of events that ultimately led to a live round being in a weapon he was handed.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Previous firearm discharges on that set? Live ammunition or blanks?

This whole thing makes me wonder; with all of the high-tech methods available to film makers, why not use a disabled gun (firing pin removed?) for filming, and add the "bang" and other effects in post-processing?

They do this sometimes. All/most of the Walking Dead is filmed this way.

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:
speculation on my part.

I believe all those scenarios are plausible.

One thing that’s become clear to me from trying to learn as much as I can about unintentional deaths and injuries from law enforcement accidents is that the most unlikely sequences of events can ultimately result in such incidents. That’s why whenever someone incredulously asks, “Who would …?” my first thought is, “More people than you can possibly imagine.”

quote:

Originally posted by bigwagon:
There were clearly personnel and process problems related to the handling of prop firearms on the set, and as a producer of the film, Alec Baldwin has responsibility for those failures, regardless or whether or not he should be held responsible for the act of the shooting. He was definitely complicit in the series of events that ultimately led to a live round being in a weapon he was handed.

Yeah, this is where he will likely get hammered.

The 'armorer' was clearly in over her head. I mean, she was nervous handling blanks? She had no business being there. I wonder if she got the job because of her gender - it CLEARLY was not because of her qualifications.

With the previous firearms handling mistakes on set, it should be easy to demonstrate gross negligence with the gun handling. It was also a low budget film, so it sounds like they did not hire hollywood's absolute best.

I read a story here of a negligent discharge at a gun show, where some idiot slipped a live shell into a shotgun, and somebody subsequently picked it up and fired the weapon (obviously without clearing it first). It sounds like this was a viable scenario here. A disgruntled crewmember easily could have framed baldwin by inserting a live round into a gun they knew he would fire. Whether or not it was done with the intent to kill, it would have been bad press for baldwin having him fire a live round at the crew. . .

quote:

Originally posted by Greymann:

Hanna the Armorer listed 4 months experience loading blanks on linkedin.

Edit: the link below was taken down.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ha...-gutierrez-a840a6191

From her resume in the quoted link:

"Armorer Yellowstone Film Ranc Mar 2021 - Jun 2021 -- 4 months

Montana, United States

Loading firearms with appropriately sized blanks. Ensuring gun safety on set along with instructing actors on how to use their guns."