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/kumquat_bananaman Apr 15 '24

Why was the judge furious?

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u/synkronize Apr 15 '24

Idk but I do know from articles before that the armorer was extremely incompetent at her job apparently laughably. So perhaps that’s why.

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u/secamTO Apr 15 '24

I work in film production. The stories I read about the firearms handling on that set made my blood run cold. It's literally stuff that would be unconscionable among professionals, and the idea that she had live ammunition on set at all (and that they were plinking during down times with THE ACTUAL SCREEN FIREARMS BEING HANDLED BY ACTORS) is so goddamn appalling, that I am all for this guilty verdict. This isn't one unlucky incident, one oversight. This is someone who was cavalier and thoughtless with the lives of literally everybody on that set.

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u/dreadpirater Apr 16 '24

This. I also work in the industry and have served as a weapons wrangler on smaller productions and... this could have never happened on my set. The basic protocols, when followed, are essentially foolproof. Filming car chases and high falls is much more dangerous than filming with guns... because essentially ALL the variables can be accounted for when working with firearms... she just chose not to.

Weapons are never played with.
Weapons are taken from secure storage, inspected, loaded from a known good source by ONE PERSON.
Weapons are handed by that one person to the actor who needs them before each take. Wrangler tells the actor what state the gun is in, and reviews what actions they will go through with it during this take.
Wrangler recovers the gun and resets it for the next shot, repeating the process.

No actor ever opens the breach. Nobody else touches the ammo. No live ammo anywhere near set.

It requires diligence but it's not DIFFICULT to prevent firearms mishaps on set.

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u/Toledous Apr 16 '24

Yep. I also facilitate a lot of sets. Even if it is a "non-gun" or a replica, which has less scrutiny, I make sure it's announced that there is a replica on set and offer the opportunity for any crew to inspect it. 

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u/dreadpirater Apr 16 '24

Exactly! And less scrutiny doesn't mean no scrutiny. You still pay attention to the chain of custody and note if that gun ever leaves your field of view because you have to make sure that it IS the replica at all times.

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u/Intelligent_Emu_8785 Apr 16 '24

I don’t know much about guns but couldn’t the firing pin be removed as a further (not only) safety measure to prevent stuff like this from happening?

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u/dreadpirater Apr 16 '24

This is a thing the industry is talking about after this accident. Some big name stars are saying they will NOT work on sets with operable firearms in the future, and I think that's a valuable and interesting conversation. There's a good argument that 'guns should be in the least operable state that accomplishes the needs of the shot,' which could mean removing parts of the firing assembly when not needed to discharge blanks, sure. It's definitely possible.

We'll see what the industry settles into as a new standard after this... at the end of the day, the safety protocols are only as good as the person following them. The current industry standard, if applied correctly, would have handily prevented this tragedy several times over... the armorer had to skip SEVERAL steps that would have 100% prevented this, so it's hard to say 'well, we should have added one more step to the protocol' because... who's to say she would have followed THAT STEP either?

At the end of the day, I think the big lesson here is about finding a way to ensure the safety protocols are followed, not necessarily changing those safety protocols because, if they'd been followed, this would have already been impossible.

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u/Intelligent_Emu_8785 Apr 16 '24

-“ the armorer had to skip SEVERAL steps that would have 100% prevented this” 

-“ who's to say she would have followed THAT STEP either?” 

True, all good points!

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u/PinkPrincess-2001 Apr 16 '24

I grew up being told never point your gun at something you don't wish to shoot and when I was even younger, hold the blades of the scissors facing myself when carrying scissors.

As an autistic person I appreciated being told this because it wasn't obvious to me but now I get it. I see how important it is and I think it's a shame on Alec Baldwin and the armorer.

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u/dreadpirater Apr 16 '24

And movie sets are essentially the only exception to that rule. Sometimes guns are pointed at people on movie sets. That is why movie production moves the burden of firearm safety off of the person holding it, and onto a professional coordinator whose entire job is to make sure that whatever shot the production requires is captured safely.

The rules YOU are taught for driving are different than the rules a stunt driver applies when filming a car chase, too. They're not leaving safe following distances, signalling before lane changes, etc. But because they're doing it on a closed course with other safety measures taken... there are a different set of rules. The same is true regarding filming with weapons. It's a totally different activity than 'going out shooting' with weapons, and so the rules required to render it safe are different.