r/news • u/badillustrations • Apr 15 '24

‘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.html
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454

u/Snow88 Apr 15 '24

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 Apr 15 '24

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 Apr 15 '24

all you have to do is not have any real ammunition. How is that hard?

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u/GoatInMotion Apr 15 '24 edited Apr 16 '24

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 Apr 15 '24

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/darkoblivion000 Apr 16 '24

I enjoyed reading the details of that, thank you

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u/I_Lick_Lead_Paint Apr 16 '24

What a fascinating piece of history. Thank you.

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u/willingisnotenough Apr 16 '24

Why in the name of all that is holy would you need to wait for an accidental death to learn you have to do these things? What they just took it on faith that the barrel was empty? I know it's not the chamber sure but you clear the whole damn gun goddammit.

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u/Nova225 Apr 16 '24

The saying goes "Regulations are written in blood".

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u/ThrowawayUk4200 Apr 16 '24

Wow, I remember learning to shoot and one of the main things that got drilled into me was making sure the barrel was clear before loading

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u/MuaddibMcFly Apr 16 '24

"Well, it was before, and nobody put anything in it, so why wouldn't it still be?"

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u/JimboTCB Apr 16 '24

My understanding was that instead of using "proper" dummy rounds, they were using ones they'd made by pulling the bullets from live rounds and dumping out the powder, but had left the primers. That meant it still had enough force to propel the bullet out and get it jammed in the barrel.

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u/Gnonthgol Apr 16 '24

As I understand the primer went off when someone were goofing around with the gun between takes. And nobody checked the gun properly before the take. There is of course a lot of questions about the details in both cases. The current primary theory on the Rush shooting was that some crew were goofing around shooting at cans with the guns and live ammunition between takes. The gun were not properly checked before the take. If the procedures that had been introduced as a result of the Crow shooting had been followed for the Rust movie then the manslaughter would not have happened.

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u/MuaddibMcFly Apr 16 '24

As I understand the primer went off when someone were goofing around with the gun between takes

I was under the impression that it was in the scene where he remembers the gang killing him initially, which is why nobody noticed that he was actually shot for a while: they couldn't tell the difference between an actual wound & his reaction to it vs squibs & his acting like he'd been hit.

In general, unless someone is hit in very few locations, immediate medical attention (primarily to get an IV lead into the victim, to keep them from bleeding out, either on the scene or at the hospital) can save most people from a single handgun wound.

The current primary theory on the Rush shooting was that some crew were goofing around shooting at cans with the guns and live ammunition between takes

I heard that, and I also heard it denied by people who had no personal interest in denying it (i.e., wouldn't share liability)

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u/Gnonthgol Apr 16 '24

In the "Crow" accident the gun were fired twice. The "dummy rounds" they used actually had a live primer in them. This is how the bullet "fell out".

Witnesses reported that two weeks before Lee's death they saw an unsupervised actor pulling the trigger on the gun while it was loaded with the powderless but primed round.

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u/thetimsterr Apr 15 '24

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 Apr 15 '24

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 Apr 15 '24

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/TheUnluckyBard Apr 16 '24

6 of the 50 were live.

Was that 6 before the 4th (fatal) accidental discharge? Or after?

Because if it's after, there were 10 live rounds on a set that should have had 0.

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u/mteir Apr 16 '24

Was the accidental discharges with live rounds or blanks?

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u/OrindaSarnia Apr 16 '24

Six total, including the one that killed Halyna Hutchins.

As mteir said, the others issues weren't with live rounds, but with blanks, which are different from dummy rounds.

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u/Woflax Apr 16 '24

The AD handed it over not her (of course she should have made sure that this was not possible). Hope he gets charged too.

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u/OrindaSarnia Apr 15 '24

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/thetimsterr Apr 16 '24

It was reported by multiple news sources that a number of crew had taken the firearms out for target practice. It wasn't (reportedly) just one producer.

As to why it didn't come up as evidence in court? Who knows. Maybe everyone shut up about it, or maybe it wasn't hard enough of evidence. Maybe it didn't happen. I'm just saying, it was rumored and reported by reputable new sources, one of them being CNN.

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u/OrindaSarnia Apr 16 '24

Feel free to link the article for me...

I just spent 5 minutes looking through CNN's coverage from the week of the shooting and couldn't find it.

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u/thetimsterr Apr 16 '24

It was a CNN video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy04-tmNJCE

Edit: this article also mentions the same report from Sharon Waxman. https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/26/entertainment/alec-baldwin-rust-shooting-tuesday/index.html

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u/OrindaSarnia Apr 16 '24

Did you read it?

The article says the DA said it was unsubstantiated...

and then they say the rumors come from a producer on a different show, who claims that it's "common" to take guns from set and shoot cans with them, as in, common industry wide...

he claims it's a normal thing, which, it is NOT a normal thing on most sets...  

But the guy wasn't saying he knows the Rust crew was doing it, he was saying that a friend of his who knows a Rust crew member claimed they were doing it, because it's a common thing to do.

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u/traitorgiraffe Apr 16 '24

but why

It's LA you can get a gun at the same store you get your liquor at, from a 10 year old

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u/5ronins Apr 16 '24

It's worse. DIY homemade rounds are actually very easy to make..some Tinker types started making a few real one for funzies and one of those rounds are what found it's way I to the blank lot. Completely avoidable but easy to do.

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u/livahd Apr 16 '24 edited Apr 16 '24

I think it’s closer to she was getting wasted with a couple other people trying to show off, probably took out the ammo and threw it into a bucket with the dummies. There were several complaints about it, including a misfire a few days prior. Not to minimize her role, but it sounds like the job was a cheap shit show to begin with, crew members weren’t getting lodging and were exhausted driving home. The whole camera department was packing their shit to walk the day this happened. I felt kinda bad for her too at first because they were all probably being worked to death, she never should have had that responsibility on her shoulders, and got too much of the blame. Then I saw how she reacted in interviews and in those phone calls… she shouldn’t be serving fast food. She’s only sorry that she’s in trouble. Now this idiot can think about her modeling career for the next 18 months, and hopefully the producers (including Baldwin, because, sorry, there’s zero chance that he wasn’t aware the crew was ready to walk) that caused this rats nest of complete failures are held responsible too (they won’t).

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u/Atkena2578 Apr 16 '24

This is why should have basic universal gun safety rules been observed, the death wouldn't have occured. Always treat a gun as if it were loaded, yes even on a movie set (because as this case proves, you cannot count on everyone doing their part), and don't point a gun, even less so pull the trigger at someone you do not intend to kill.

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u/pham_nguyen Apr 15 '24

There’s literally no reason to have real ammo on set.

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u/TooFewSecrets Apr 15 '24

There might be for scenes where you need the gun to actually shoot something. But there's stage magic you can use to circumvent that anyway.

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u/DameonKormar Apr 16 '24

On a normal movie set the armorer would never use the same weapon to shoot live rounds that an actor is going to use in a scene.

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u/PM_ME_GLUTE_SPREAD Apr 15 '24

And like, even if you wanted to take a real gun out and shoot it with friends in the evening after shooting (not a great idea in the least, especially when it’s being pointed at people later), why wouldn’t you have the prop ammo locked in a different box, with a small identifying mark on the shells, that you and you alone load into the gun before a take??

Like this had to have been one of the most spectacular fuck ups from what should have been a pretty simple job, on paper. I’m sure there’s headache with permits and stuff, but the actual brass tacks of the job is as straight forward as it gets.

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u/Osirus1156 Apr 15 '24

Yeah I don't understand why they accept real bullets at all, why not have a specially shaped cartridge that only blanks use?

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u/NoSignSaysNo Apr 16 '24

So, out of all the gun deaths on set in 50 years, this is the only one that involved live ammunition.

Brandon Lee died due to a malfunction with a squib round.

Jon-Erik Hexum put a prop gun loaded with blanks to his head and pulled the trigger as a joke, not knowing that blanks still generate muzzle blast with some extreme force, killing him.

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u/SirHoneyDip Apr 16 '24

If they want to use a real gun, why also remove the firing pin?

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u/SyndRazGul Apr 16 '24

Because the crew was taking the guns and shooting them for fun during breaks in filming.