Posted on 11/04/2021 9:51:54 AM PDT by conservative98
(AP) — The woman in charge of weapons on the movie set where actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins said Wednesday night that she had inspected the gun Baldwin shot but doesn’t know how a live bullet ended up inside.
“Who put those in there and why is the central question,” Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer for the movie “Rust” said in a statement issued by one of her lawyers, Jason Bowles of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
“Hannah kept guns locked up, including throughout lunch on the day in question (Oct. 21), and she instructed her department to watch the cart containing the guns when she was pulled away for her other duties or on a lunch break.”
The statement goes on to say that “Hannah did everything in her power to ensure a safe set. She inspected the rounds that she loaded into the firearms that day. She always inspected the rounds.”
The statement adds that she inspected the rounds before handing the firearm to assistant director David Halls “by spinning the cylinder and showing him all of the rounds and then handing him the firearm.”
“No one could have anticipated or thought that someone would introduce live rounds into this set,” Gutierrez Reed’s statement said.
The statement also noted that “she did firearms training for the actors as well as Mr. Baldwin, she fought for more training days and she regularly emphasized to never point a firearm at a person.”
On Oct. 29, attorneys for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed said she doesn’t know where the live rounds found there came from and blamed producers for unsafe working conditions.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
BB’s? in .45 cartridge
didn’t think you could spin a single action pistol
Yes, it is one of several telltales used in dummy cartridges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC6pjIC-yBQ
We were a gun household. Children don’t differentiate
Water balloons still a good weapon of choice
“I don’t think we can’t really expect an actor to do that..”
Actually the movie industry does expect just that.
So does the law. You don’t point guns at people and pull the trigger.
Period.
L
Lots of fun but the puppet sex was disturbing
Joe Swanson—whose company, Motion Picture Blanks, in Kingman, Ariz., has manufactured movie ammunition for about 35 years—says he supplied the “Rust” production with blanks as well as dummy rounds. Dummy rounds contain no explosive ingredients and are used as stand-ins for real bullets on camera.While blanks typically have a crimped tip that distinguishes them from live ammunition, dummy rounds have a nearly identical look and heft of real bullets.
As a safety measure, Mr. Swanson says he inserts a pellet inside each dummy round so that it will rattle. “You can’t really tell the difference unless you shake it,” he says, adding that it’s typically the job of the on-set firearms safety coordinator and assistant director to do such safety checks.
I don’t think we can’t really expect an actor to do that and unfortunately, that exonerates Baldwin the actor, as well as the assistant director who handed him the firearm.
It doesn't exonerate Alec Baldwin nor the Assistant Director. Since Alec Baldwin killed Halyna Hutchins, multiple armorers, actors, and actresses have described firearms on set where the armorer had to show each weapon being loaded before they handed it to the actor and how the armorer normally aimed the revolver at the ground and pulled the trigger at least 6 times to ensure it had no live rounds.
Multiple staff who've worked for decades on set describe how the gun is never pointed at a human being and ballistic shields are used. Alec Baldwin not only violated Col. Cooper's firearms safety rules, he violated published firearm handling rules on movie sets.
I have read a comment asking, "If Alec Baldwin were asked to point the gun at his own head and pull the trigger, what checks would Alec have done?"
If you were the actor, what checks would you have done?
Here's what I would have done. I would have had the armorer bring the unloaded weapon and the ammo to be used to the actor. She would then show the actor how to run a rod or a line through the barrel to prove that it wasn't obstructed. Then she would hand each dummy round or blank to the actor and he would put it through the loading gate.
We know absolutely that the process Baldwin used was terribly flawed.
I have no experience with people loading firearms for me, and I am not likely to trust anyone else loading them, unless I am firing something exotic for the first time. For instance, I doubt I could properly load the drum of a Lewis gun or fit the drum on a weapon...
My point is, if the actor didn’t load the firearm himself, it is hard to tell what type of ammo, live, blank, or dummy, is loaded.
If there is no headstamp on the ammo, or no dented or absent primer, then the cartridge, live or dummy, looks the same when viewed through the loading gate. The difference between the two would be a hole bored in the side of the casing of the dummy round and the round would have to be ejected to observe that.
The process you are describing is absolutely perfect in terms of safety but sounds very time consuming. Given the cost per hour of the set, I suspect that they’re not going to accept something like that. Either that, or they’ll need an armorer for every character using a firearm.
I think the best solution for dummy rounds would be to use dummy rounds with dented primers. That way anyone looking at the chamber knows that the primer is already spent and the round can’t fire. This would make it easy to distinguish dummy rounds from the rear as well as the side.
But sometimes camera shots require dummy rounds that look pristine. That complicates things. Those should be locked up like they were live rounds.
Blanks should be easy to distinguish from live ammo as there is no bullet in the cartridge. Likewise, checking for an obstructed barrel with a cleaning rod should be quick, too.
Live rounds, if there are any, should be locked up until they are needed and firearms with live rounds should have flags plugged in the barrel that are not removed until it is time to film.
But the whole situation on Baldwin’s set, though, was a catastrophe and that is Baldwin’s fault.
Baldwin the producer and Baldwin the a*****e are absolutely both responsible for Hutchins’ death. Baldwin the producer is responsible because he is responsible for his people and the safety of the set, and Baldwin the a*****e is responsible because he pointed the firearm where it should not have been pointed and pulled the trigger when it should not have been pulled.
I’ve introduced several people to AR rifles. One idiosyncrasy I always point out is the behavior of the floating firing pin. When you chamber a round the firing pin flies forward with enough force to dent the primer without firing the round.
This is just one more way to drive home the rule that you keep the rifle pointed in a safe direction at all times.
Didn’t know that. I like old guns. Before that dreadful boat accident, my ‘militia weapon’ was an M-1 Carbine.
Personally, I don’t think that is a good thing that the primer is being dented when a round is chambered.
I don’t care for it either.
I think you can buy aftermarket solutions but I would be concerned about the possibility of introducing new problems.
“I found the supplier for the blanks and dummy rounds on the set of rust. They have only a pellet as a telltale. You have to unload the gun and shake each round to verify it’s a dummy.”
According to reports Halls said the gun contained four rounds with holes in the casing and one round with no holes.
Sounds like there are either more than one type of dummy on scene, the armorer drilled holes to make them easier to see, or most likely, Joe Swanson was “dumbing down” his description, and his dummies actually have holes in the side as well as a pellet.
” the armorer drilled holes to make them easier to see,
‘
Many suppliers of dummy rounds use holes.
Let’s not speak ill of the dead and believe she would want to sleep with Alec Baldwin.
Or they had dummies from more than one source.
Or the report of what Halls said is incorrect.
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