Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
the armorer and Baldwin are both guilty of negligent homicide. Never take someone's word a weapon is unloaded, always check it yourself. If you're incapable of that, have the armorer check it in front of you.
A blank round uses a metal cartridge just as a live round does. It needs to withstand explosive pressure of firing that produces the flash and noise just like a live round does. It just doesn't release the same projectile. A detector probably wouldn't distinguish between blank rounds and live. Someone actually handling the rounds (such as loading them into a gun) could distinguish the difference between live and blank visually, unless someone went to a whole lot of trouble to disguise the two.
Don't you imagine workers on film productions wear or carry metal items that can set off a metal detector? Someone working on the production set up/sabotaged the armorer? That's quite a conspiracy theory! Reads like some sort of cheesy TV crime drama.
My point was and is they don't wear all that metal and have guns on themselves when they report for work so that makes it no different than going through any metal detector in any airport, government job. I don't care that it was outside they still should have been checked before showing up to the set even if outside. I'm not at all talking about using a metal detector for/on the guns. I never said anything about scanning the guns. I said scanning the staff that might have a bullet on them that is real. If you think a live real bullet would not show on a metal detector then the whole idea of using them in any situation is not going to do any good be it in schools, airports, government jobs, anywhere.
Of course I realize the workers on the film productions wear metal items ie, belts and some shoes have metal in them. Well so does everyone in the entire country unless they are wearing sweats and sneakers and literally nothing metal which is very unlikely. I don't care that they have metal on them let the damn thing set off it is the persons coming in being scanned not the guns. Plus anytime anyone on the set is using a real gun as Baldwin was at that time should never be leaving the set or wandering off anywhere when their part of the scene is done. They should be returning it immediately to the armorer to lock up the gun. I didn't say the armorer was set up but I did say If Baldwin wanted to use a live bullet I don't put it past him and think let the armorer take the blame. That does not mean someone set out to frame or sabotage the armorer. Whomever put that live bullet in the gun had to know it would be very difficult to place blame on themselves because no one would know where the bullet came from especially when no live bullets were found in the boxes they use.
I put nothing past Baldwin. They should have had those metal detectors where they have to go into and through one spot first not just wander in from all angles when there are real guns out in the open on a table.
Last edited by staystill; 03-05-2024 at 02:30 PM..
Reason: If the armorer really did know the gun was cold then he had to put that bullet inside the gun. We just don't know.
I feel bad for her. I don't blame her. This was her first job. She was hired for a job that IMO she wasn't experienced enough for, with no mentor or supervision, because Baldwin wanted the cheapest people possible. And she will pay a steep price for that, in addition to the victim. I don't see any reason to need to shame her.
I don't know what sort of weapons handler training she had. If she was just a gal off the street, typically those people are not nearly savvy enough to handle tools designed to kill.
OTOH Baldwin should have known better. If I were an actor on a movie set I'd make very very sure the firearms I was handling were disabled and not capable of firing a live round. And I would make sure there were no live rounds anywhere near the action. That there were, is pure negligence and insanity.
I heard that members of the cast used some of these guns for target practice during off hours. That means there were functioning firearms and live ammo on the set. That's not just a no-no, it's a NONONONONONO!
And this is what we get. One innocent dead person, several lives on hold or in fear of prison.
As the old saying goes, you don't hire a boy to do a man's job. Nor do you hire a girl to do woman's job. Armorer is not a good place to get unsupervised OJT.
Tragic in so many ways.
Last edited by Dwatted Wabbit; 03-05-2024 at 06:46 PM..
Believe me when I say I am no fan of Baldwin...however I don't believe its up to actors to check that guns are loaded correctly with blanks! Testimony today even stated that you can't tell a dummy from a live round by sight..the bullets need to be shaken to tell in most cases. It's the job of the armorer...apparently what happened here is considered unthinkable to actors and directors of other sets that use guns...and considering other than the Brandon Lee tragedy you never here about this happening ...this set was an aberration!
Believe when I say I am no fan of Baldwin...however I don't believe its up to actors to check that guns are loaded correctly with blanks! Testimony today even stated that you can't tell a dummy from a live round by sight..the bullets need to be shaken to tell in most cases. It's the job of the armorer...apparently what happened here is considered unthinkable to actors and directors of other sets that use guns...and considering other than the Brandon Lee tragedy you never here about this happening this set was an aberration!
In a rehearsal, the gun shouldn't have even contained blanks. Surely he'd be able to tell that. And even if he thought they were blanks, he had no business aiming the gun at her and pulling the trigger.
Last edited by Metlakatla; 03-05-2024 at 07:56 PM..
One single live bullet was all it took to kill Halyna. That bullet had to have been brought in by someone. The cases of bullets were looked into by the police and they found no mix up of live bullets and boxes of blanks.
Believe me when I say I am no fan of Baldwin...however I don't believe its up to actors to check that guns are loaded correctly with blanks! Testimony today even stated that you can't tell a dummy from a live round by sight..the bullets need to be shaken to tell in most cases. It's the job of the armorer...apparently what happened here is considered unthinkable to actors and directors of other sets that use guns...and considering other than the Brandon Lee tragedy you never here about this happening ...this set was an aberration!
The problem for Baldwin is that he is far more than an actor on "Rust". He is an executive producer who hired the armorer. He is in a supervisory role. Worse still, he is on film bullying the armorer "hurry up, hurry up."
It is patently obvious that the low-paid, inexperienced armorer was being completely ordered around by Baldwin. So it is a bit different than your garden variety movie where the actor is a litte bit lower on the food chain than with "Rust".
Meanwhile, SOMEBODY mixed live ammo with the blanks, and the armorer -- who's primary job on the set is firearms safety -- was negligent in letting them slip through. She is in big trouble, but Baldwin is very culpable in his role as producer AND as the man who squeezed off the shot. He could have aimed ever so slightly off camera. He didn't have aim smack dab at people. That is just an accident waiting to happen, AND IT DID.
Add to that, there was no "industry standard" ballistic shield between the camera and the actor's gun. That is either the producers responsibility or the Directs. Safety on the set was abysmal. Somebody has to account for that besides the armorer.
Animosity was running with the crew, but with (3) preceding misfires... Were they 'subversively' planted?
There were reports of 'target practice' on the backlot of the set.
With live rounds.
Someone had to provide the arms and the ammunition for that escapade.
Then there is the task of keeping all that contraband hidden, and straight / and away from the intentional blanks used for the set!
What firearms do you suppose we're used for the target play?
Where were they kept?
Who checked they out, .... And cleared them back into security?
They just sound exceedingly sloppy and careless.
For sabatoge, the sabateur would have to know exactly who would receive the first shot out of the gun, in what scene. That is a stretch.
I have heard there were 6 live rounds found various places on set, such as bandoliers and gun belts, but there was only 1 live round in Baldwin's gun.
That becomes a game of Russian Roulette, as no sabateur could control where the live round is in the cylinder once they handed the gun off to Baldwin. The actor could rotate the cylinder around an the sabateur would have no control over who gets shot. The actor could have aimed the gun at them for goodness sakes.
I think extreme carelessness is plenty explanation for the negligent homicide on the set.
I can't see how a sabateur would leave so much to chance. In fact, any sabateur should have expected that the armorer would have checked the weapon for live rounds, found and removed them, necessitating a very serious safety meeting on set.
"Cold gun" doesn't mean that the weapon has blanks — it means that it has no ammunition, live or blanks. Blanks shouldn't have been part of the picture during a rehearsal anyway.
There had been continuous safety violations on the set involving firearms, and for that reason alone, Baldwin should have added a final layer of protection. After all, this was a set where camera operators literally walked off in protest because of working conditions and safety violations, which included accidental misfiring of supposed "cold guns" prior to the fatal accident.
Thanks for this, I was unaware of all the safety concerns and that there had been 2 previous accidental discharges. This changes everything for me, I said Baldwin was culpable because he chose to point a gun at people and pull the trigger. But if the entire set was unsafe and the people who protested were replaced by scabs well throw the book at him.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
A blank round uses a metal cartridge just as a live round does. It needs to withstand explosive pressure of firing that produces the flash and noise just like a live round does. It just doesn't release the same projectile. A detector probably wouldn't distinguish between blank rounds and live. Someone actually handling the rounds (such as loading them into a gun) could distinguish the difference between live and blank visually, unless someone went to a whole lot of trouble to disguise the two. 
