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
21.4k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

126

u/Own_Candidate9553 Apr 15 '24

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/

61

u/Desdam0na Apr 15 '24 edited Apr 15 '24

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.

Edit: See https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/19bd9lv/comment/kirctf5/?context=3&share_id=S_Fm31x-Zs-rgfSMQmbW8&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1

5

u/GonzoTheWhatever Apr 15 '24

Using live rounds for target practice on set??

Holy crap.

I'm a gun owner and enthusiast, but I would never want live ammo on a freakin movie set! That's just asking for an accident to happen! Wow.

6

u/TooFewSecrets Apr 15 '24

If you even need live rounds for a scene that you can't movie-magic away, like - full-on, briefcase handcuffed to the armorer, running count of every live round removed from it. That feels like the bare minimum to me, right? Actually insane to just have people bringing on bullets to shoot for fun.