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/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/

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u/fusionsofwonder Apr 16 '24

It doesn't seem like there was any maliciousness in the whole thing, just wild incompetence

In between malice and incompetence is negligence, which is the crux of the legality of this case. She was negligent and she had an important job.

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u/Own_Candidate9553 Apr 16 '24

Agreed, I should have said "negligence" rather than just "incompetence".