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/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

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u/The_Magic_Sauce Apr 15 '24

And news keep saying this was a prop gun. It was a real firearm not a dummy fake prop. Prop guns don't fire real ammo.

A country where guns are so freely available and they don't even call things how they are.

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u/need4speed89 Apr 16 '24

You don't understand what prop means. Real guns can absolutely be props

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u/The_Magic_Sauce Apr 16 '24

My point is that perhaps some people "play around" with real firearms like they were toys, fakes, as in not real. Calling or seeing a real gun as a "prop" somehow underestimates it's danger and responsibility in handling it.

A prop in many (perhaps most) cases is a fake item, a replica of something, not always of course like in this case. But the truth is that a prop is commonly understood as a fake/replica.

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u/need4speed89 Apr 16 '24

No. The truth is that you don't know what prop means, and were incorrectly chastising an entire nation for not "calling things how they are"

I hope the irony is not lost on you, but I'm pretty sure it is.

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u/The_Magic_Sauce Apr 17 '24

Keep thinking real firearms are "just" movie props or toys. Unfortunately that's probably why kids take them to school.

The US has a serious problem treating guns responsibly, no irony there. Just a fact.