Posted on 10/27/2021 11:21:37 AM PDT by Avalon Memories
SANTA FE, N.M., Oct 27 (Reuters) - Actor Alec Baldwin fired a 45 caliber Colt pistol loaded with a live lead bullet in last week's accidental fatal shooting on the New Mexico set of his movie "Rust" where filmmakers showed "complacency" toward safety, authorities said on Wednesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
He did not check the gun either, and I am not sure he is even supposed to handle any firearms on the set.
I don’t think he was supposed to be handling it... wasn’t the armorer outside? She was supposed to be the last person to handle it before giving it to an actor.
For the others on this thread, I’m cross-posting this link from the other thread that I replied to you on, regarding how this all works on a movie set (I know you probably saw it):
*This is how it works - posted on David Gold’s FB page by the cousin of a long-time (33 years) electrical best boy on numerous films, Thomas “Moose” Enright:
https://www.facebook.com/debbie.obar/posts/10158897930159209
The procedures are *not* the same as in our real lives.
There was also a media story saying her parents are still in the Ukraine, now divorced, that people had trouble finding them, and they are trying to figure out how to get documents to come to the U.S.
I know the Brandon Lee incident involved a dummy round where the primer was left on it. It got propelled into the barrel when shooting that scene. Then the gun was filled with blanks and the barrel wasn’t checked, causing the firing of a blank in the next scene to fire the dummy round out of the gun.
Is it possible the deadly round in this case was intended to be a dummy round, but was improperly made or prepared?
Assuming that the gun was used recreationally with real rounds by a random crew member in between scenes, and they left one real round in the weapon, how easy (or hard) is it for the armorer to make the mistake of filling the other 5 chambers with dummies but neglecting to take out the one live round? Assuming that she walks up to the gun with the assumption that it’s empty.
Of course, I understand that’s why it was said to lay out your 6 rounds on the table beforehand. If you’re pulling them out of a box, it’s certainly easier to forget how many you just put in.
For camera close-ups, the gun was possibly filled with dummy rounds, that may not be distinguishable from live rounds with an external inspection.
To remove and inspect dummy rounds and distinguish them from real rounds is not a task that an actor on a set would be trusted to do, or be trained to do.
As someone else said, those could've been tested by attempting to fire each round into the ground. Nothing should've happened if they were dummy rounds. I'm also guessing that is not common practice though. If the actor wants to inspect a firearm, it sounds like the protocol is to have the armorer come to him to respond to his inquiries and demonstrate that the gun is safe.
By his description, it sounds like a case where the multiple layers of people being responsible for checking had the opposite of their intended effect. Each person in the chain assumed the previous person had performed the proper check, and skipped doing it themselves. This post says the armorer should be the one who hands out weapons, but I have heard elsewhere that the armorer is supposed to hand them to the AD, who is supposed to perform his own double check. But having one person solely responsible for checking and handing out the weapons would avoid this mistake of someone thinking someone else already did the work.
This post thinks the armorer was playing with the guns on break, left them on a cart still loaded, walked away, and then the AD grabbed them, thinking they were loaded with blanks. That seems to be contradicted by reporting elsewhere in this thread though, which says the gun was inspected after the shooting and was found to have dummy rounds in it.
It is a case for Columbo.
Somebody wanted her dead.
We’re told now it was a Pietta 45, probably a long Colt.
Pietta makes 2 basic types of 45lc period revolvers, a percussion-conversion type and a single action army type. Both are gate loaded.
One difference is how the cylinders are removed. Neither is a swing-out cylinder, which I’d guess is a little easier to inspect. The SAA cylinder is removed by pressing a cross bolt in front of the cylinder, and pulling out the cylinder pin. Unless a part is stuck, it’s easy to do. The conversion is a little more complicated, a cross wedge is removed, and the front of the gun, including the barrel is pulled off. The the cylinder can then be removed.
I’d think the most thorough way to check the gun would be to pull the cylinder, which could be visually inspected in its entirety. Since that is cumbersome, these guns are usually cleared by ejecting all the shells and cartridges, setting at half cock, and turning the cylinder a full turn, looking through the open gate, and seeing daylight to through each chamber.
At that point the gun can be loaded with any type of round desired. That procedure would prevent an errant round from being left in the gun from before.
Next, the claim is the gun was loaded with 5 dummy rounds. The rounds have been described as 4 with holes on the sides, and one missing a primer, descriptions of legitimate types of dummy rounds.
The holes in the sides of the rounds could not be observed in the chambers. Therefore, to check the gun it would have to be cleared again, the rounds inspected and reloaded. Anyone handling the gun would have to do that if they were to certify the gun was safe.
Of course, another method would be to dry- fire the gun on each cylinder while pointing the gun in a safe direction. That should be done while the actor observes.
Had that been done, the live round would have been discovered.
I think he was just killing time while the director and cinematographer were setting up the camera for the scene.
The earliest reports were that there was no film of the incident because the crews were still setting up the cameras for the angles required for the scene.
Baldwin may have been fidgety due to the delay, and started practicing his draw movements while the crew were still moving about. They may have even needed him to be in position for proper blocking of the scene in the camera's viewport. While he was standing there, the propmaster should have kept possession of the gun, only handing it to Baldwin when the director was ready for action.
-PJ
Per Twitter her next assignment was a documentary on Hollywood pedophilia.
Wow.
“Simpsons did it!”
Dang! Thanks for the reply.
He probably never actually pulled the trigger.
-PJ
Well under the circumstances, that was a pretty accurate shot then.
I agree with your assessment of the accident chain ... I don’t know enough about this to compare the various accounts of the procedures on set, but it does seem clear that the safety checks we do with our firearms, or a friend’s, is not the same procedure on set.
It’s obvious that several links in the safety chain were ignored and/or outright broken.
isn’t the chain of custody in a sense broken between the armorer and the AD?
to me, that illustrates (1) lax procedures or lax enforcement of good procedures, (2) a theoretical possibility that someone unknown (ie, a saboteur) could have loaded the gun with a live round while the gun was on the tray, and (3) there might not be much chance of pinning either civil or criminal blame on the armorer (even if she is “guilty” of being a ditz and allowing a live round to sneak in among dummy rounds).
it also sounds possible that no one present knew how to unload and load this particular gun, which does not have the more familiar swing out cylinder, and the people present did not want to be embarrassed in front of the crew, and stop the rehearsal to fetch the armorer.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.