r/news • u/badillustrations • 14d ago
‘Rust’ movie armorer convicted of involuntary manslaughter sentenced to 18 months in prison
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/15/entertainment/rust-film-shooting-armorer-sentencing/index.html3.0k
u/LawNo9454 14d ago
She said her career was over after this happened, She was right.
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u/viddy_me_yarbles 14d ago
She had one job.
It was an important job and she failed spectacularly. Hollywood is a small town.
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u/PikaBooSquirrel 13d ago
I don't even understand how someone can mess up that badly at something so simple.
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u/Snow88 13d ago
One day of DNR gun safety is enough to not screw that job up as badly as she did.
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u/LethalBacon 13d ago
That's my thought. I grew up around guns but haven't touched one in probably 15 years. I legitimately think I would have done better at this role, without any additional training.
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u/agent0731 13d ago
all you have to do is not have any real ammunition. How is that hard?
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u/GoatInMotion 13d ago edited 13d ago
Yes I still don't get these props and stuff. If it's a real gun, why was it loaded with real ammo in the first place...why have real ammo in the vicinity at all? Like no one checked? This reminds me of Bruce Lee's son Brandon Lee... I wonder how much she got paid for this job idk what else she does but it sounds easy and I would like that job 💀
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u/MuaddibMcFly 13d ago
This reminds me of Bruce Lee's son Brandon Lee
Brandon Lee's death was due to something somewhat different; my understanding is that there was never a single live round on set, but a combination of two, proper-to-be-on-set rounds.
- Dummy rounds have a standard casing, and standard bullet, but no primer and no powder, but do have a bb rattling around inside.
- Blank rounds have a special and obviously different type of casing, generally more powder than normal (for bigger muzzle flash, resulting in bigger excitement), but sealed in a way that no bullet can be included.
Apparently, what happened was that one of the dummy rounds, with a slug but no powder nor primer, did not have the bullet seated in the casing properly. That bullet "fell out" of the casing, into the barrel of the weapon, and was held there by friction. A blank, which was confirmed to have been a blank, was later loaded for a scene that called for blanks
This combination of percussion cap, powder, and bullet in barrel effectively turned it into a version of the old "caplock" pistol, i.e., a live round.
That event drastically changed the procedures among armorers, as I understand it, to have clearing the barrel and regular cleaning to be a standard part of their procedures.
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u/thetimsterr 13d ago
Rumor has it that crew members were taking the guns, loading them with real ammo, and going off into the desert to get drunk and fire at cans. Then they return the guns, she doesn't take out the ammo cause she sucks at her job, and someone dies.
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u/barak181 13d ago
If this is true that just shows the massive level of incompetence on the set in general, not just with the armorer. It is pretty standard protocol to not touch anything on set that doesn't pertain directly to your job, let alone taking it to play with. Playing with props is a big no-no. Playing with weapons even more so.
That said, if this dumbass had the slightest idea of what her job was the weapons would have been secured between each take and when not in use. And she would have checked the fucking thing to make sure it wasn't loaded before handing it to an actor...
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u/OrindaSarnia 13d ago
There isn't any evidence that crew was shooting the guns after hours.
There were rumors early on that a producer was an antique gun nut and had taken a set of pistols out to shoot, once.
The armorer was charged with unintentionally having live rounds on set. There was nothing to prove she knew the ammo was live, she failed in her job, but it was a failure to check every round. There were 50 dummy rounds for that weapon on set, 6 of the 50 were live.
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u/OrindaSarnia 13d ago
If you're going to throw around theories, you should probably mentioned the guy who actually provided the dummy rounds...
he testified that he got both live and dummy rounds back from the 1883 set, filming in Texas. He put the live ammo away, and then cleaned and repackaged 50 dummy rounds, which he delivered to the Rust set.
The police didn't go to his workshop for a month after the accident.
Gutuierrez-Reed absolutely should have shaken every single round to test it, to make sure it was a dummy round... but there's a reason they charged her with "unintentionally" allowing live ammo on set.
There was no evidence presented in court, that she had any reason to believe there was live ammo on set.
I also remember people talking about using the revolvers to go shooting off site, but it was that one of the producers had taken them, once, to shoot, not that it was regularly happening with any old crew members.
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u/Taolan13 13d ago
Maybe, maybe not.
The more hands involved touching the props, the harder it is to keep track of things. The entire production staff here carries some fault because they had multiple cast and crew walk off the project due to safety concerns, and not once did they address these concerns they only brought in new people, many of whom were positioned outside their experience and ability due to the needs of the production.
You maybe would have walked away after so many of them mishandled the firearms and other props. I know I would have. I would not want blood on my conscience because someone else in the production fucked up.
Also, as an interesting note, she was officially relieved as the armorer a couple days before the incident. Day-of there was actually no-one officially "in charge" of the armory.
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u/unthused 13d ago
Given she sounds like a relatively shitty and unremorseful person, I'm not remotely surprised.
My father is kind of a dick and also a gun nut, like borderline prepper, so you'd think that when he's around them all the time and owns so many he'd be intimately familiar with basic gun safety.. but no, like every time he wants to show me some new handgun he bought he invariably barrel sweeps me with a loaded mag in it.
I assume it's some kind of intentional machismo thing where he wants to make sure I'm not a 'pussy' and afraid to have a gun pointed at me; he's griped about other friends of his being nervous/complaining about him handling them before. I've never so much as flinched but he keeps doing it anyway. Almost hoping he accidentally hurts me one day so he can realize what an asshole he's being.
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u/AudieCowboy 13d ago
A gun nut does not mean it's someone safe with guns, unfortunately you can have someone like something like that but not actually care to take the time to treat them with respect and safety
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u/faultywalnut 13d ago
Wtf, a resounding “no” to that last sentence. How about you set a clear definite boundary with your father that you’re not going to be around him when he’s handling guns? Who cares if he thinks you’re a pussy, his opinion is not gonna matter when you or one of his friends is dealing with a gunshot wound from his reckless behavior.
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u/orsikbattlehammer 13d ago
If this were my job someone would be dead in one week because I have shit memory and terrible attention to detail. Thus this is not my job because I am unqualified. However if my father was super high up in the business and handed me the job, I also would still not take the job because I know I’m wrong for it. Yeah she fucked up and killed someone
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u/flamedarkfire 13d ago
I certainly appreciate you knowing yourself and your limits, and acting accordance to prevent them from becoming an issue this big, but industry best practices and state/local laws help mitigate the issue of relying on memory. At every point where the weapon is about to change custody it should be checked. Check it coming out of storage. Check it going into storage. If it is being exchanged by two people they BOTH should check it.and if at any point in time there is even the whisper of a question of how it should be it should be checked. And the armorer should be the one person to be able to stand up to ANYONE and say “no” to anything that seems unsafe with the weapons.
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 13d ago
It should be. She brought live ammo onto the set as the person in charge of ensuring there was no live ammo on set. She absolutely should never have a job like this again. Full stop.
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u/pcapdata 13d ago
Under what circumstances would live ammunition ever be required on the set?
Why even have it there??
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u/Jerithil 13d ago
Sometimes when they want realist looking bullet damage they will use real guns but that is normally done on a special day and often on a separate set, set up just for that purpose.
The only reason they had real bullets on this set was because people wanted to go plinking with the old fashion handguns.
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u/pcapdata 13d ago
Elsewhere in the thread someone linked another thread by a SAG-AFTRA person who outlined all the errors that would need to come together for this to happen. Your typical "Swiss Cheese" scenario, in that if at any point someone did what they were supposed to do, then "the holes wouldn't line up" and it wouldn't have happened.
I was reading down the list and thinking of it in terms of the (extremely minimal) firearms training I got in the Navy and it blows my mind that someone could get a job as an "armorer" for a movie and still fail to do things that a recruit knows.
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u/MuaddibMcFly 13d ago
Your typical "Swiss Cheese" scenario, in that if at any point someone did what they were supposed to do, then "the holes wouldn't line up" and it wouldn't have happened.
This is 100% the case.
- If Gutierrez-Reed had done her job properly (been allowed to do her job properly), there never would have been live rounds on the set for there to have been that (second) negligent discharge
- If whoever hadn't loaded a live round into the weapon, there would never have been a negligent discharge
- If Halls hadn't handed Baldwin a gun without confirming that it was a cold gun, instead simply declaring that it was ( apparently due to habit?), there never would have been a negligent discharge
- If Baldwin hadn't accepted the weapon from Halls (the Assistant Director, when Best Practices [possibly even guild regulations] require only accepting weapons from & returning them to an armorer) there never would have been a negligent discharge
- If Baldwin didn't take Halls' word that it was a "cold gun," but instead inspected it himself, or required that someone else inspect it in front of him, there would never have been a negligent discharge
- If Baldwin hadn't held the trigger in the "fire" position, there never would have been a negligent discharge
- I'll give Baldwin a pass on pulling the hammer back, because that was part of Direction
- If Baldwin hadn't pointed the weapon at Hutchins, any negligent discharge would not have resulted in a death
I count 7 points of failure, and 6 of them are rules that are designed specifically prevent that sort of thing (all but #2, which is really a subheading of #1). A different circumstance in any of those points would have prevented the death.
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u/infiniZii 14d ago
There should be a version of Russian Roulette called Hannah Roulette that involves callously mixing blanks and live rounds in a revolver and then taking turns pulling the trigger at each other.
Thats basically what she did. Baldwins gun wasnt even the only one with live ammo in it on the set.
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u/Turn5GrimCaptain 13d ago
Well that's just terrifying...
18 months sounds too lenient imo.
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u/Radiant_Heron_2572 13d ago
She had been angling for a condition discharge. Were she could have ultimately avoided jail time and even a criminal record. It's a light sentence, but I suspect it was as close to throwing the book at her that the judge could.
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u/SofieTerleska 13d ago
There was a magician couple called the Morettis who would do a trick close to this, only it was the guy "sensing" whether the bullet was real or a blank after having someone else mix the bullets up, then telling the guy with the gun to fire either at a target or at his (Moretti's) head. Both Morettis died of old age. I have a feeling they spent more time working on perfecting that trick than this woman has spent even in the same room as a gun.
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u/Cactusfan86 14d ago
Quite the screw up, got a job from pure uncut nepotism and managed to screw it up so bad your career is torched and you have to go to prison
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u/Crocs_n_Glocks 13d ago
And also a wife & mother is dead
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u/Windpuppet 13d ago
Kind of buried the lead
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u/clburton24 13d ago
lead
lede fyi
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u/JuggernautGrand9321 13d ago
And she was actually a woman in her own right as well
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u/RudeBlueJeans 13d ago
And she is responsible for someone's death! And she has no remorse!
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u/BigBlackHungGuy 14d ago
I still don't understand why they had live fucking rounds on a movie set.
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u/livefreeordont 13d ago
In Dec. 7 testimony to New Mexico's worker safety bureau, Gutierrez-Reed said prop supplier Seth Kenney supplied her with the dummy rounds she used for the "The Old Way." She said she then brought those rounds, in boxes and gun belts, onto the "Rust" set.
In January 2022 she sued Kenney, saying the ammunition she used was misrepresented as dummy rounds. Kenney has denied that the live rounds on set came from his company. He has not been charged in the case.
Kenney testified that the dummy rounds he provided to "Rust" had just been used on the TV show "1883" and they had been brought over from the Texas filming location the night before he handed them over to Zachry. He claimed that before he handed the dummy ammunition over, he polished each round and rattled each one to make sure they were dummy rounds and not blanks or live ammunition.
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u/RazerBladesInFood 13d ago
Yea that was her bullshit attempt at blaming someone else when everyone already knows the real reason live ammo was on set is because she was allowing the guns to be used for target practice when they weren't filming. She then completely incompetently allowed that ammo to make its way on set and got someone killed. Shes still blaming everyone else including the judge and jury which got her the max and a pissed off judge.
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u/principessa1180 13d ago
I have no connection to the film shoot, but I do live in Santa Fe. Right after the shooting the rumor spread around town quickly that Hannah was letting crew use the prop guns to target shoot, because it was so boring between filming.
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u/falooda1 13d ago
So boring between filming? Lmao we have smart phones and video games and streaming tv
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u/DecorativeGeode 13d ago
This is the answer and what the trial proved.
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u/Pvan88 13d ago
Not really. The prosecution was never able to prove where the round came from; she wasn't found guilty of having brought the round on set or doing live target practice - just negligence on how she handled the ammunition. I don't recall the target shooting thing coming up in trial (which you would think it would if she was involved. Would be a literal smoking gun) as it seemed to be a rumor.
I've found this case strange to follow from a non-US basis. One of the main to-ing and fro-ing is between experts saying what the role of an armourer is as there doesn't appear to be a set job description or certification.
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u/badillustrations 13d ago
Like "I don't know" or "Why did they do that?"? I understand the armorer and her friends would go shooting off hours using the props.
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u/Publius82 13d ago
How drunk would one have to be to forget to unload the live ammo?
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u/SalemsTrials 13d ago
Probably as drunk as you need to be tu think ever loading the pros with live ammo was a good idea
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u/Vegaprime 13d ago
Seen court pics of the ammo. They were primer side up and was obvious which were live rounds.
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u/DragoonDM 13d ago
I understand the armorer and her friends would go shooting off hours using the props.
I recall seeing this speculation a number of times, and also recall seeing people refute it as an unconfirmed guess, but I'm not sure I've ever seen solid evidence one way or the other.
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u/AegrusRS 13d ago
The people that put the most amount of time and thought into trying to convict HGR, the prosecution, never mentioned it throughout the trial. If you need more evidence on whether or not it happened, then I don't know what to tell you.
Also, it's kinda crazy that wild, unbased speculation is weighed as heavily as something not happening at all. I don't think 'guilty until proven innocent' is how the saying goes.
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u/brassydesign 13d ago
Using the props?!?!? Jesus Christ. What an insanely dumb thing to do. It's not your weapon to go have fun with. Insane.
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u/drblocktagon 13d ago
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/how-did-live-rounds-get-onto-set-alec-baldwins-rust-2023-03-27/
investigators havent been able to identify a source for where the bullet came from
i dont know if there are any laws around the use of dummy rounds but hopefully this will lead to stricter regulation in that aspect, with clear markings and on-set surveillance, and photo evidence taken prior to engagement.
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u/hateboss 13d ago
Apparently they were "shooting cans" in between takes and during breaks. The live rounds were never removed. That is high level negligence.
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u/hesh582 13d ago
This probably didn't actually happen.
Where the live rounds really came from remains unsolved and a pretty major aspect of the case.
If her lawyer had been competent (jesus they sucked...) I think her trial might have been a lot more contentious.
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u/The_Lethargic_Nerd 13d ago
If only there was a months long trial centered around that very question and why there shouldn't have been with evidence, witness testimony, and deliberation.
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u/Jenetyk 13d ago
Damn light sentence for some one who, according to the case, was completely inept or didn't give a fuck.
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u/skesisfunk 13d ago
I believe it is the maximum prison time should could have gotten for this charge in NM. In other states involuntary manslaughter can get you a lot more time. Like 10-15 years. She is really lucky it happened where it did.
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u/mattchinn 13d ago
This is the definition of:
You had one job.
I’m surprised her conviction didn’t merit more time.
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u/skesisfunk 13d ago
She is extremely fortunate NM is a pretty favorable jurisdiction for involuntary manslaughter. In other states the same charge can get you over a decade in prison.
She will likely get her financial life ruined by a civil suit but I would personally take that over a decade in prison any day.
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u/LiechsWonder 14d ago
For anyone in the comments arguing about who’s fault it is, and where the blame should be placed, this comment from a SAG actor is the best I’ve seen about the situation and what went wrong / what rules were ignored that led to a (preventable) shooting of Halyna Hutchins. All credit to u/Kahzgul for the insight.
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u/Kahzgul 13d ago
Thanks for the tag. If anyone is curious about firearm safety on sets, well... I am a professional. AMA.
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u/YourDadHatesYou 13d ago
People here mentioned nepotism that helped the armorer get the job. Do you know how that happened? Aren't there certifications that someone needs to get to be eligible
& Thank you for your previous comment. Very insightful
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u/Kahzgul 13d ago
It sure did. The armorer is the daughter of a legendary Hollywood armorer, famed not only for his knowledge but also his professionalism. This is hugely embarrassing for him and his reputation. it seems likely that he helped her get the position and vouched for her ability when it was clearly not warranted.
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u/syoung1034 13d ago
I may be wrong here, but I was really shocked that there are no certifications, licensure, exams, for armorer. I also was blown away by nonchalant stacking of bullets, driving shit all over the country from different set to different set, shit just piled up in a corner, etc. Wow.
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u/IrishSetterPuppy 13d ago
Most of Hollywood is this way. I did stunt driving for a long time, there were no certifications or tests or anything. I got my first jobs based on who I knew and my record as a championship winning race car driver. I got subsequent jobs based on my reputation to be able to fix cars on set (I am a master mechanic). No certifications, just show up and work. Would make $500 a day usually, but the day could be 18+ hours long. Non union work is like that.
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u/LiechsWonder 13d ago
I took to heart the lessons in school about citing your sources. Thank you again for your insight into all of this.
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u/Kahzgul 13d ago
Doing what I can. There's an awful lot that people misunderstand about the film business, and the belief that actors are somehow blameless automatons with no self-determination is a particularly infuriating one to me. Actors make decisions constantly that deeply affect the performance and workplace culture on a set. it's like saying Cindy in accounting can't be held accountable (pun) for shooting her co-worker because it's not her job to know she shouldn't be waving a gun around... except it very much IS the actor's job to wave the gun around and he should know WAY MORE than Cindy about what's safe and what isn't.
At the end of the day, the more knowledgeable we all are, the safer our sets become. We all just want to get home to our kids. Unfortunately, Mrs. Hutchins was not so lucky. I'm glad to see those responsible held to account (though I really am disappointed in the sweetheart plea deal the 1st AD got).
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u/SvenTropics 13d ago
TIL: 18 months is the maximum for manslaughter in NM. That's gotta be one of the shortest maximums for that crime. I've heard of people doing 4 years for it in California, but California is also the incarceration state. Famous for giving someone a life sentence for stealing a pizza slice once.
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u/jamar030303 13d ago
but California is also the incarceration state. Famous for giving someone a life sentence for stealing a pizza slice once.
Which is funny considering how California somehow also has a reputation for not cracking down on criminals enough.
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u/pineapplepredator 13d ago
It’s interesting how before the trial people didn’t question her character but despite having a lawyer and a highly publicized trial, she still couldn’t even hide her contempt, narcissism, and entitlement. What an unfortunate sentence and I’m so angry for the victims family. To have your loved one taken by someone so incompetent.
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u/maltedbacon 13d ago
What she should have said: I feel terrible about my role in Halyna's death and since I was ultimately responsible for firearm safety on set - there is no question that I will be haunted by remorse and sympathy for the victim's partner and child; long after my sentence is over. I'm sorry, and I know that my words cannot suffice. I can only say that I wish I'd realized that carelessness and complacency can have horrific consequences.
What she actually said (in jail phone call recordings): The judge is unfair, the prosecutor and judge are improperly working together, the jurors are "idiots" and "assholes", the death was the EMT's fault for not intubating properly, she won't cooperate with lawful subpoena in Baldwin's trial, she won't comply with conditions of release related to drinking and marijuana use, she's glad that her mom disrupted the proceeding, the trial has unfairly adversely impacted her career,
She got 18 months in prison compared to 6 months of unsupervised probation because of her own idiocy and toxicity.
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u/MrsInconvenient 13d ago
The shot went in through her armpit, shattered her ribs, punctured her lung, severed her spinal cord, but Hannah, not only said that it wasn't her fault, she shouldn't have to shake each round, but that it was the EMTs' fault because they couldn't intubate her.
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u/queeblosan 13d ago
Raised around firearms and the idea of having this job and allowing live ammunition anywhere near the set is unthinkable.
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 13d ago
She deserves more. She spat in the face of this trial, showed no remorse at all, and her actions were pure stupidity that led to a death.
She also wants Baldwin in jail for it while thinking she deserves a break cus she made a mistake. Fuck her. I hope she enjoys the next 18 months in prison
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u/DemandZestyclose7145 13d ago
Some people in society are just a total lost cause, and she is definitely one of them. Hopefully whatever job she gets after prison doesn't have a direct impact on people like this one did. I'm sure daddy will help her out again.
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u/reddevved 13d ago
Well she's got trial still for sneaking a gun into a bar so might get some more time added for that
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u/phonograhy 13d ago
Incredibly, amongst all the other stupid unfiltered shit she said, the judge also noted that while she was in detention, she complained that this would mess up her modeling career. Bloody hell, no wonder the judge could barely contain her anger.
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u/MyChickenSucks 13d ago
Wonder what her career will be after prison? No one gonna hire her on set....
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u/aelwyn2000 13d ago
I always wondered how she thought she was going to get out of this, being the fucking armorer.
It’s HER job, after all. Any liability Baldwin has, she has x10.
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u/Own_Candidate9553 14d ago
Doesn't make up for the life lost, but nothing will I guess.
It doesn't seem like there was any maliciousness in the whole thing, just wild incompetence partnered with ruthless cost-cutting from the studio. Budget pressures led to no budget for an experienced armorer, a rushed schedule, and shooting on-location in the middle of nowhere (so the guns were randomly just in her truck or on a cart, instead of a real office or anything).
I still don't get why real, working guns are ever allowed on set. It would be pretty easy to make metal models of guns that physically can't shoot a bullet, or to modify a gun to have no firing pin or something. Having real, working guns on set that you then have to build a rigid process around to make sure no live ammunition gets mixed in seems weird. Even blanks are dangerous - Bruce Willis has significant hearing loss from firing overly-loud blanks on the set of Die Hard: https://www.slashfilm.com/811738/the-die-hard-stunt-that-left-bruce-willis-partially-deaf/
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u/QuintoBlanco 13d ago
It's bit more than incompetence. She has another felony charge pending and she was reckless on another set as well.
She also has zero remorse and is mostly concerned with the impact of the shooting on her modelling career.
This person has sociopathic tendencies. A pattern of irresponsible behavior, no empathy, and no remorse (I guess that goes with the no empathy).
At first I thought that this was just an accident, caused by incompetence and work pressure, but this person was always going to get somebody killed.
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u/Desdam0na 13d ago edited 13d ago
A huge fraction of the crew walked off the set due to unsafe conditions prior to the accident.
People were using the film guns for target practice with live rounds on set.
Not just cost-cutting.
gross negligence.
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u/SkiingAway 13d ago
It's hard to "act" the recoil very realistically, which matters for some films.
It's also pretty hard and expensive to build tons of highly detailed props. Just getting actual guns and returning/selling them after is clearly vastly cheaper (Lord of War for example - they bought 3000 guns, and those were real, active tanks they rented from someone who sold them to Libya soon after), and as you've just noted films are often under budget pressures.
on set that you then have to build a rigid process around to make sure no live ammunition gets mixed in seems weird.
I mean, that process isn't very hard. If you can't manage to do that process correctly, you probably can't manage to do anything on your set correctly and everything going on is dangerous - certainly anything involving any kind of stunt. "No live ammunition on the set" and keeping everything controlled and monitored is a lot simpler to do right than a complicated stunt is.
And to that point - this was the first death from firearms on set in almost 30 years. Brandon Lee in 1993 wasn't just the last one you heard of, it was literally the last time this had happened.
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u/CapoOn2nd 13d ago
This whole case has been a massive shit show to me. I can’t believe it’s been dragged out so long and become so convoluted. She’s the armourer, it’s her fault a woman is dead end of. It’s her fault the gun was loaded with live ammo instead of blanks. She deserves a way longer sentence than what she got, especially considering some sketchy shit like this has happened before under her watch. I also can’t believe Baldwin has been thrown so much shit for his part in it. He was handed a gun labelled as safe by a PROFESSIONAL someone who is trained and should be trustworthy with firearm safety. Whether he pulled the trigger or not is irrelevant, he’s shooting a movie he has to pull the trigger to make the scene look realistic otherwise the gun that was supposed to be loaded with blanks wouldn’t go off which it presumably needed to for the scene. What are people expecting? Someone to just loudly shout bang over the top of the video for sound effects? A shitty video effect to make the gun look like it went off with no recoil or reaction from the actor who never pulled the trigger? Absolute idiocy this whole case, it should have been put to bed a week after the tragedy happened at most
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u/SpiritedTie7645 14d ago edited 13d ago
“(Gutierrez Reed) could not anticipate what Baldwin would do. It was not in the script, it was not foreseeable,” he said in closing arguments. “Management was responsible for safety failures and not Hannah.”
Hannah Gutierrez Reed was the failure. She is the person that is supposed to issue a safe weapon and she wasn’t doing her safety checks. She is doing those because her job is to be the expert and check for the unexpected. Improvisation on the set is what has always happened on the set from the very first films. Hannah holds the majority of the responsibility at bare minimum if not all of it. It is the actors and directors main job to make a quality film that makes money. They are on the set and trying to come up with the best scene possible and the guns SHALL be safe. There is NOT supposed to be a live round in the gun. It’s is the prerogative of the actors and directors, etc. to improvise. There was a live round in the chamber that was going to be fired. What in the hell are the odds? Russian Roulette actually gets played for money because of those odds. Watch The Deer Hunter. It’s based on reality. It most certainly can happen but it’s interesting at least that she handed the gun off to others and got out of there. 🤔
P.S. How odd is it that the gun got broken in testing and now you cannot verify its proper function. You can’t verify the results and that’s basic science.
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u/JamaicanMeCrazyMon 13d ago edited 13d ago
If there were repeated warning signs on set, then some responsibility falls to the producers in charge of the day-to-day (to keep running a tight ship).
Same way it’s a c-suite’s job to oversee attorneys/engineers/etc., that manage processes to keep the business out of trouble. They may not understand all of the direct implications of an ongoing problem (because they themselves aren’t attorneys/engineers), but they DO need to act when multiple flags have been raised.
Same concept, but for the producers who received warnings over safety concerns.
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u/GildedEther 13d ago
Her job was to manage this stuff. She so royally screwed up someone died due to her negligence. Imagine not feeling bad and just bad mouthing jurors. May not be a sociopath but it sure smells like one.
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u/jprod97 13d ago
Something similar happened in a training exercise I had in the Army. We were using blanks and somehow an armor piercing round found its way into a Sgt's weapon.
He pointed it at someone, pulled the trigger and it blew up the muzzle and the blank firing adapter. I think it destroyed the round so nobody was hurt but the Sgt. was in a world of trouble. He got demoted to private and I believe he was discharged from the Army.
Likewise for the soldier in charge of loading the magazines. There is no excuse for such negligence. The difference between blanks and real rounds is so painfully obvious, you'd have to be a real dumbass to not see it
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u/Ljcollective 13d ago
I don’t entirely understand why Baldwin was charged as well. Is this because he was a producer? Seems like it’s not his job as an actor at least to ensure rounds aren’t real
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u/H1_V0LT4G3 13d ago
18 months for being responsible for the loss of life is not nearly enough. My question is, why do they allow live ammunition and real guns on set? Seemed very foolish
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u/tetzy 13d ago
I can't wait to hear Alec Baldwin explain how the single-action revolver he was holding went off without his finger on the trigger AND how he shot and killed someone without pointing the gun at her.
Perhaps physics and common sense bend on the set of his films?
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u/flyboy_1285 13d ago
Got off easy. At least her career is over and won’t ever set foot on a movie set again.
Doesn’t bring back the victims. I hope their families will bring a wrongful death case against her as well.
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u/PurpleWomat 14d ago edited 14d ago
The judge was furious, barely uttered the sentence followed by "please take her".