Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

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Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#1 Post by SportsFan68 » Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:35 pm

SANTA FE, N.M. — The director of photography on a movie starring Alec Baldwin has been killed and the film's director injured, according to the sheriff's office of Santa Fe County, N.M. They were shot by a prop firearm that was discharged by Baldwin, who is also a producer on the film, the sheriff's office statement says.

Halyna Hutchins, 42, the director of photography, was airlifted to the University of New Mexico hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The second victim, director Joel Souza, 48, was being cared for at Christus St. Vincent Medical Center.

The investigation is ongoing and authorities say no charges have been filed in this incident. Detectives are continuing to interview witnesses.

Production has been halted on the Western movie "Rust," which is being directed by Souza with Baldwin producing and acting.

A spokesperson for Baldwin said there was an accident on the set involving the misfire of a prop gun with blanks.

The Santa Fe New Mexican reported Baldwin was seen Thursday outside the sheriff's office in tears, but attempts to get a comment from him were unsuccessful.

"According to investigators, it appears that the scene being filmed involved the use of a prop firearm when it was discharged," sheriff's spokesman Juan Rios told the Albuquerque Journal. "Detectives are investigating how and what type of projectile was discharged."

Deputies responded about 2 p.m. to the movie set at the Bonanza Creek Ranch after 911 calls came in of a person being shot on set, Rios said.

Filming for "Rust" was set to continue into early November, according to a news release from the New Mexico Film Office.

The movie is about a 13-year-old boy who is left to fend for himself and his younger brother following the death of their parents in 1880s Kansas, according to the Internet Movie Database website. The teen goes on the run with his long-estranged grandfather (played by Baldwin) after the boy is sentenced to hang for the accidental killing of a local rancher.

In 1993, Brandon Lee, 28, son of the late martial-arts star Bruce Lee, died after being hit by a .44-caliber slug while filming a death scene for the movie "The Crow." The gun was supposed to have fired a blank, but an autopsy turned up a bullet lodged near his spine.


https://www.npr.org/2021/10/21/10482462 ... new-mexico
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#2 Post by silverscreenselect » Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:59 pm

SportsFan68 wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:35 pm
SANTA FE, N.M. — The director of photography on a movie starring Alec Baldwin has been killed and the film's director injured, according to the sheriff's office of Santa Fe County, N.M. They were shot by a prop firearm that was discharged by Baldwin, who is also a producer on the film, the sheriff's office statement says.


In 1993, Brandon Lee, 28, son of the late martial-arts star Bruce Lee, died after being hit by a .44-caliber slug while filming a death scene for the movie "The Crow." The gun was supposed to have fired a blank, but an autopsy turned up a bullet lodged near his spine.

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/21/10482462 ... new-mexico
Back in the 1980s, there was a D-list actor named Jon-Erik Hexum who accidentally shot and killed himself with a blank cartridge on a film set. During a break in shooting, he removed all but one bullet from the gun and played Russian roulette. What Hexum didn't realize was that a blank has no bullet but discharges a paper wad when the gun is fired. The wad packs the gunpowder in, same as an actual bullet would so that the gun makes the familiar explosive noise when fired. If a person is close to the gun when it goes off, they can be injured by the discharged wad. In this case, the wad penetrated Hexum's skull, killing him. For that reason, actors are told never to point a gun directly at someone when shooting blank rounds. They point to one side of the other person and the scene is photographed from an angle that it isn't apparent.

Obviously, something went wrong with the blank cartridge here. If this occurred during the filming of a scene, I'm not sure how the cinematographer would be in the line of fire. This could have occurred while the gun was being carried or moved around prior to filming beginning.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#3 Post by BackInTex » Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:58 am

silverscreenselect wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:59 pm

Obviously, something went wrong with the blank cartridge here. If this occurred during the filming of a scene, I'm not sure how the cinematographer would be in the line of fire. This could have occurred while the gun was being carried or moved around prior to filming beginning.
How is it obvious something went wrong with the cartridge? You don't think Alec capable of screwing around on the set and not being "gun safe". This is a terrible tragedy and I'm sure Alec meant no harm, but the articles clearly say he discharged the firearm. He is an arrogant idiot and it is very likely he was doing something foolish when the accidently shooting happened.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#4 Post by silverscreenselect » Fri Oct 22, 2021 9:09 am

BackInTex wrote:
Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:58 am
silverscreenselect wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:59 pm

Obviously, something went wrong with the blank cartridge here. If this occurred during the filming of a scene, I'm not sure how the cinematographer would be in the line of fire. This could have occurred while the gun was being carried or moved around prior to filming beginning.
How is it obvious something went wrong with the cartridge? You don't think Alec capable of screwing around on the set and not being "gun safe". This is a terrible tragedy and I'm sure Alec meant no harm, but the articles clearly say he discharged the firearm. He is an arrogant idiot and it is very likely he was doing something foolish when the accidently shooting happened.
When I said there was something wrong with the cartridge, I meant in the broadest sense that whatever was in the round went far enough to kill one person and severely injure another. Here's an article that goes into a little more depth about prop guns and their use on film sets.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/22/entertai ... index.html

When I was a child, I remember hearing a news bulletin on the afternoon news one day saying that George Reeves (Superman) had died of bullet wounds. What happened was that he had killed himself (although some people still believe he was murdered). The pre-teen me thought that it happened during filming a scene and that somehow real bullets had got in the gun that the bad guys shot him with.

EDIT: I just heard a news update and they said that the accident occurred while filming a scene. This would seem to indicate that this wasn't a case of horseplay gone wrong, but it could have been while they did a dry run walkthrough before the actual filming or discussed details like how Baldwin should draw and fire his gun.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#5 Post by Bob Juch » Fri Oct 22, 2021 11:35 am

I don't see how a regular blank round would be able to kill someone and wound another. It would have to be like a shotgun shell. Is it possible that the gun fractured and shrapnel did the damage? Or maybe there was something in the barrel?
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#6 Post by silverscreenselect » Fri Oct 22, 2021 12:01 pm

Bob Juch wrote:
Fri Oct 22, 2021 11:35 am
I don't see how a regular blank round would be able to kill someone and wound another. It would have to be like a shotgun shell. Is it possible that the gun fractured and shrapnel did the damage? Or maybe there was something in the barrel?
According to an email that's gone out from the IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) to its members, the gun contained a single live round. If that's the case then it would have been a very lucky (or unlucky) shot that went through one person and hit another. Also, director Joel Souza, who was injured in the incident, has now been released from the hospital. It should be noted that this movie is a non-union independent production and that the technical personnel involved were not union members. However, this email may have been somewhat self-serving on the union's behalf, implying that the accident wouldn't have happened with union personnel on site.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#7 Post by Bob Juch » Fri Oct 22, 2021 2:01 pm

silverscreenselect wrote:
Fri Oct 22, 2021 12:01 pm
Bob Juch wrote:
Fri Oct 22, 2021 11:35 am
I don't see how a regular blank round would be able to kill someone and wound another. It would have to be like a shotgun shell. Is it possible that the gun fractured and shrapnel did the damage? Or maybe there was something in the barrel?
According to an email that's gone out from the IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) to its members, the gun contained a single live round. If that's the case then it would have been a very lucky (or unlucky) shot that went through one person and hit another. Also, director Joel Souza, who was injured in the incident, has now been released from the hospital. It should be noted that this movie is a non-union independent production and that the technical personnel involved were not union members. However, this email may have been somewhat self-serving on the union's behalf, implying that the accident wouldn't have happened with union personnel on site.
That makes me wonder if it was sabotage.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#8 Post by Bob Juch » Fri Oct 22, 2021 3:42 pm

It seems likely it was sabotage:

https://www.insider.com/rust-camera-cre ... ng-2021-10

Camera crew members — who are members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) union — showed up for work Thursday at 6:30 a.m. as expected, according to the Los Angeles Times. As the group packed their gear to leave, non-union crew members arrived to replace them and a production manager ordered the union members to leave, a crew member told the Los Angeles Times.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#9 Post by Bob Juch » Fri Oct 22, 2021 9:01 pm

According to a police warrant from the ongoing police investigation, Alec didn’t know it was loaded with a live round as he was told by an assistant director who handed him the gun that it was safe.

The warrant also mentions that the assistant director didn’t know that the gun wasn’t safe to use. Investigators are working towards finding the person responsible and have taken all prop guns and ammo and Alec’s blood-stained shirt as evidence.

What might help investigators find the person responsible is the 911 tape recording, as the script supervisor is heard talking to someone saying that someone went to her desk and screamed at her and that “he’s supposed to check the guns he’s responsible for,” probably talking about the person in charge of gun safety on set.

The warrant also mentions that Halyna Hutchins was shot in the chest, and Joel Souza was shot in the clavicle as the bullet passed through her into him.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#10 Post by BackInTex » Sat Oct 23, 2021 6:39 am

Bob Juch wrote:
Fri Oct 22, 2021 9:01 pm
According to a police warrant from the ongoing police investigation, Alec didn’t know it was loaded with a live round as he was told by an assistant director who handed him the gun that it was safe.

The warrant also mentions that the assistant director didn’t know that the gun wasn’t safe to use. Investigators are working towards finding the person responsible and have taken all prop guns and ammo and Alec’s blood-stained shirt as evidence.

What might help investigators find the person responsible is the 911 tape recording, as the script supervisor is heard talking to someone saying that someone went to her desk and screamed at her and that “he’s supposed to check the guns he’s responsible for,” probably talking about the person in charge of gun safety on set.

The warrant also mentions that Halyna Hutchins was shot in the chest, and Joel Souza was shot in the clavicle as the bullet passed through her into him.
The person MOST responsible for a gun is the person holding it. Being told it is unloaded and safe is no excuse for what happened. If Baldwin wasn't such an arrogant anti-gun rights ass this likely wouldn't happened. He probably would have known the most basic things of gun safety: No gun is unloaded when handed to you.

I've been handed unloaded guns hundreds of times and every single time I open the breach and check the magazine myself. EVERY SINGLE TIME. By the way, not once have I been handed a gun, been told it was unloaded, and it had rounds in it. But I continue to personally verify myself, every time.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#11 Post by silverscreenselect » Sat Oct 23, 2021 10:09 am

More details on the shooting in the link. The assistant director gave Baldwin the gun and yelled "cold gun," which signifies that the gun doesn't have live rounds. This was a rehearsal, not an actual filming of a scene, so the gun shouldn't have had any rounds in it at all, live or otherwise. Two people are supposed to independently verify that the gun had no live rounds.

Another note in the article. There were two previous gun discharges during the filming, involving Baldwin's stunt double. The article is a bit unclear, but it appears that the same gun was accidentally fired twice rather than two guns being fired separately. No one was hurt in the earlier incidents a week before.

You would think that one such previous incident would result in a major investigation and overhaul of the on-set safety procedures.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/23/entertai ... index.html
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#12 Post by Ritterskoop » Sat Oct 23, 2021 12:09 pm

If this had happened to, say, Tom Hanks, we all would feel sorry for him as well as the people who were shot.

But Alec Baldwin has never banked much goodwill over the years, so some of us hesitated, and wondered if he was part of the chain of responsibility. I especially remember one time he was ticketed for riding his bicycle the wrong way on a major one-way street in NYC (7th or 8th Ave). if you or I were stopped by a cop for doing that, we would say to the officer, "I'm sorry," and we would have moved to the correct street going the correct way. But he mouthed off, and got a ticket. I don't disagree with him for punching that photographer who took pics of his little kids, though. Just because he is a public figure doesn't mean that extends to his family.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#13 Post by Ritterskoop » Sun Oct 24, 2021 1:51 pm

I did a ridiculous amount of reading on this last night, and it is very clear that Alec Baldwin is not at all responsible.

The 24-year-old armorer is going to be in appropriate deep shit, as well as the AD who handed him the gun and said it was "cold," meaning unloaded.

Plus other people who made the set unhealthy and dangerous.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#14 Post by Weyoun » Sun Oct 24, 2021 2:41 pm

In a very tenuous personal connection, the executive producer of this soon to be canceled movie went to my very small high school in south Georgia.

Indeed, the production company was called Thomasville Pictures.

I did not know the guy personally, but he obviously came from some family money and his grandfather was what passes for an untouchable entertainment figure in my hometown.

If you told me that he alienated the support staff, well that would be typical

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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#15 Post by jaybee » Sun Oct 24, 2021 3:16 pm

I've been handed unloaded guns hundreds of times and every single time I open the breach and check the magazine myself. EVERY SINGLE TIME. By the way, not once have I been handed a gun, been told it was unloaded, and it had rounds in it. But I continue to personally verify myself, every time.

That right there is the very essence of gun handling and gun safety. I was taught that by my Dad when I was about eight years old - years before I ever fired anything more potent than a BB gun. To this day, even if I see someone unload a gun and then hand it to me the first thing I do is safe the weapon and make sure it's unloaded. Overkill but that's a guarantee that an unloaded gun is exactly that.

In the case of a movie set, the 'professional' gun handler is the proxy for the actor. Sure, the actor could also check the weapon, but with multiple takes of scenes the transfer of the gun from handler to actor could happen dozens of times. That's why they hire someone who should be a gun pro maintaining the status of all weapons. Plus, many actors would be totally clueless as to how to check to make sure that a gun was empty. So it sure sounds like whoever the gun pro was is in some deep shit.

That said, I'm wondering: If this was not the only incident of a live fire on this movie set. And it was a movie set. What the hell was live ammuntion doing being anywhere on that site? It's a movie. They're not going to use those guns for anything other than shooting a scene with blanks. Why was real ammo even there?
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#16 Post by Bob Juch » Sun Oct 24, 2021 9:21 pm

jaybee wrote:
Sun Oct 24, 2021 3:16 pm
I've been handed unloaded guns hundreds of times and every single time I open the breach and check the magazine myself. EVERY SINGLE TIME. By the way, not once have I been handed a gun, been told it was unloaded, and it had rounds in it. But I continue to personally verify myself, every time.

That right there is the very essence of gun handling and gun safety. I was taught that by my Dad when I was about eight years old - years before I ever fired anything more potent than a BB gun. To this day, even if I see someone unload a gun and then hand it to me the first thing I do is safe the weapon and make sure it's unloaded. Overkill but that's a guarantee that an unloaded gun is exactly that.

In the case of a movie set, the 'professional' gun handler is the proxy for the actor. Sure, the actor could also check the weapon, but with multiple takes of scenes the transfer of the gun from handler to actor could happen dozens of times. That's why they hire someone who should be a gun pro maintaining the status of all weapons. Plus, many actors would be totally clueless as to how to check to make sure that a gun was empty. So it sure sounds like whoever the gun pro was is in some deep shit.

That said, I'm wondering: If this was not the only incident of a live fire on this movie set. And it was a movie set. What the hell was live ammuntion doing being anywhere on that site? It's a movie. They're not going to use those guns for anything other than shooting a scene with blanks. Why was real ammo even there?
The crew used that gun with live ammo for target shooting. Either some ammo was still in the gun, or someone intentionally put one there.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#17 Post by silverscreenselect » Mon Oct 25, 2021 10:03 am

Bob Juch wrote:
Sun Oct 24, 2021 9:21 pm
The crew used that gun with live ammo for target shooting. Either some ammo was still in the gun, or someone intentionally put one there.
Needless to say, a movie crew should not be using the guns for the production for target shooting. That invites just the sort of mishap that happened here.

That raises other questions. "Prop guns" are designed so that they can't fire real bullets, only blanks. A real gun can fire either bullets or blanks. I'm guessing that if this movie is a Western, Baldwin and the other actors would be carrying period revolvers and not modern-day revolvers. There's no reason for anyone to have a real gun on the set unless for some reason, the cost of having specially made prop guns was too prohibitive for the film's budget.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#18 Post by Bob Juch » Mon Oct 25, 2021 11:09 am

A further revelation. Alec Baldwin was sitting in a church pew practicing cross drawing when the shot was fired. (Cross drawing is when a person reaches across their body with a hand when the holster is on the other side. That's what I did back in the day.)

I suspect he pulled the trigger intentionally as he'd been told it was empty. He may even have pulled the trigger each time he drew until the revolver came to the round.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#19 Post by BackInTex » Mon Oct 25, 2021 11:27 am

Bob Juch wrote:
Mon Oct 25, 2021 11:09 am
A further revelation. Alec Baldwin was sitting in a church pew practicing cross drawing when the shot was fired. (Cross drawing is when a person reaches across their body with a hand when the holster is on the other side. That's what I did back in the day.)

I suspect he pulled the trigger intentionally as he'd been told it was empty. He may even have pulled the trigger each time he drew until the revolver came to the round.
After hearing it was a revolver I again thought "what the....?" A revolver is the easiest type of firearm to check to see if it has rounds in it. Obviously not a lot of respect for firearms on that set.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#20 Post by silverscreenselect » Mon Oct 25, 2021 12:08 pm

BackInTex wrote:
Mon Oct 25, 2021 11:27 am
Bob Juch wrote:
Mon Oct 25, 2021 11:09 am
A further revelation. Alec Baldwin was sitting in a church pew practicing cross drawing when the shot was fired. (Cross drawing is when a person reaches across their body with a hand when the holster is on the other side. That's what I did back in the day.)

I suspect he pulled the trigger intentionally as he'd been told it was empty. He may even have pulled the trigger each time he drew until the revolver came to the round.
After hearing it was a revolver I again thought "what the....?" A revolver is the easiest type of firearm to check to see if it has rounds in it. Obviously not a lot of respect for firearms on that set.
The movie is set in Kansas in the 1880s. The characters would be carrying period revolvers. (I suspect that the reason the crew took the gun to target practice was to see what it would be like to fire a "real six-shooter.") They also use prop bullets with revolvers in movies. That's something that looks like a bullet but has no explosive of any sort in it. It's designed so that the gun will appear to have bullets in it if a character draws or holds it.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#21 Post by Bob Juch » Wed Oct 27, 2021 6:13 pm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-ent ... t-updates/

Clipping relevant sections:
An affidavit filed by a sheriff’s office detective stated that assistant director Dave Halls handed Baldwin the weapon after mistakenly describing it as a “cold gun,” a term meaning it did not contain a live round.
Jeremy Goldstein, an Israeli military veteran and an armorer himself, said he was alarmed to learn that Halls, an assistant director, had handled the weapon.

“No crew member should be handling a weapon of any kind other than the armorer, designated prop person or actor. Full stop,” Goldstein wrote in an email. “The armorer must clear all firearms with the [first assistant director] when bringing them to set, and verify that they are unloaded. Then the armorer does the same with the actor, but the firearm does not leave the custody of the armorer or designated prop person.”
In a separate affidavit, a detective wrote that Gutierrez said she had “checked the ‘dummies’ and ensured they were not ‘hot’ rounds.” When the crew broke for lunch, Gutierrez kept the firearms locked in a safe but left the ammo unsecured on a cart. Two people referred to only as Sarah and Zachary retrieved the firearms from the safe after the break and gave them to Gutierrez.

The armorer told the detective that “no live ammo is ever kept on set.”

Halls also spoke to the detective, describing the gun safety protocol as follows: “I check the barrel for obstructions, most of the time there’s no live fire, she [Gutierrez] opens the hatch and spins the drum, and I say cold gun on set.” The assistant director could only recall seeing three rounds when Gutierrez showed him the revolver before Baldwin rehearsed the scene.
So the gun wasn't empty. There were supposedly dummy rounds in it. Apparently, one was live.
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#22 Post by silverscreenselect » Wed Oct 27, 2021 11:25 pm

Further details released today. BiT may know more about this particular gun. The fatal bullet was recovered from the shoulder of the film's director where it lodged after going through the cinematographer. The gun is a F.LLI Pietta Long Colt .45 revolver. Authorities have not yet confirmed the rumor that guns were used for target practice after hours by the crew. They have recovered 500 rounds of ammunition from the site, but aren't sure yet how many of them are live rounds.

Baldwin was supposedly pointing the gun at the camera when it went off. This would be done deliberately for dramatic effect. If that's the case, they would have used dummy bullets rather that blanks so that a close-up would make it look like a gun with real bullets. I'm not sure how Baldwin or anyone not trained in the field could tell the difference between a real bullet and a dummy bullet under these circumstances after being handed the gun.

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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#23 Post by Bob Juch » Thu Oct 28, 2021 8:13 am

silverscreenselect wrote:
Wed Oct 27, 2021 11:25 pm
Further details released today. BiT may know more about this particular gun. The fatal bullet was recovered from the shoulder of the film's director where it lodged after going through the cinematographer. The gun is a F.LLI Pietta Long Colt .45 revolver. Authorities have not yet confirmed the rumor that guns were used for target practice after hours by the crew. They have recovered 500 rounds of ammunition from the site, but aren't sure yet how many of them are live rounds.

Baldwin was supposedly pointing the gun at the camera when it went off. This would be done deliberately for dramatic effect. If that's the case, they would have used dummy bullets rather that blanks so that a close-up would make it look like a gun with real bullets. I'm not sure how Baldwin or anyone not trained in the field could tell the difference between a real bullet and a dummy bullet under these circumstances after being handed the gun.

https://variety.com/2021/film/news/sher ... 235098639/
The armorer, Hannah Gutierrez, should have been able to determine the difference. She has previous issues with her job:

Inexperienced ‘Rust’ Armorer Enraged Nicolas Cage on Previous Film: ‘You Just Blew My F–ing Eardrums Out!’
https://www.thewrap.com/rust-armorer-in ... cage-film/
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Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere.

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Bob Juch
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#24 Post by Bob Juch » Thu Oct 28, 2021 8:30 am

Pietta makes many replicas of antique revolvers. The Colt .45 was the most popular gun of its time. It was nicknamed "The Peacemaker."

https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/SearchD ... :&pageSize:&
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
- Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)

Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere.

Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home and, when he grows up, he'll never be able to drive in New Jersey.

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BackInTex
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Re: Alec Baldwin kills one with a prop gun, injures another

#25 Post by BackInTex » Thu Oct 28, 2021 9:50 am

I've only fired blanks during military training exercises using an M-16. Since they were automatic weapons (could be fully or semi automatic with the flip of a lever) we had to put a device on the end of the barrel to block the blast force of the cartridge when fired to force the recoil of the bolt. Otherwise the blank round would not provide enough force to recoil the bolt because there is nothing being pushed out of the barrel (no projectile and not enough equal and opposite force per the physics).

The blank rounds used were painted to easily indicate they were blanks (you didn't want a live round accidently discharge while the blocking device was in place, else your weapon would explode). Even without the paint you could differentiate blanks from live rounds as there was no projectile positioned at the end of the casing, just packing and a crimped tip.

I'm sure an experienced person can easily tell a blank form a live round. Not sure a novice could at first glance tell a round was live or a blank unless the two were side by side.
..what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms.
~~ Thomas Jefferson

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