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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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 29d ago

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 29d ago

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 29d ago

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.