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For Baldwin to have had a gun handed to him, telling him it's "safe", and at that point he's willing to point it at a person, pull the hammer back and let it go...even if he never did pull the trigger.....tells's me a lot about him. Run away ego, too important to take the time to double check, time is money...whatever his thought process was...it wasn't the right one, ever.....under the circumstance of having a real gun in your hand.
I know without a doubt, I could never do that...period! Even if it was my job as an actor....I'd be personally checking, or checking along with a knowledgeable (not a 24 year old newbie) armorer on set to double confirm it was safely loaded with the proper blank before proceeding. When a real gun in involved...there should be no assuming by the person actually using the weapon. That's just flat out stupid!
The fact that he can point a weapon at a person he said he loved...and pull the hammer back, play acting or not, it fires a bullet and kills her, and he said he feels no guilt....feels no responsibility for what happened? He also said in his ABC interview, that he would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger. Pulling the hammer back and letting it go is pretty risky too...obviously. So many things come to mind with the previous statements he made.
He shot a woman, not willfully, but by accident....all while pointing real gun at her, pulling the hammer back, and somehow it actually fired a real bullet, killing her.....all that and he feels NO guilt...none at all? Wow, just wow.....more than a bit callous, at the very least.
What she didn't show is that if you pull the hammer half-way back and release it, it catches a detent at that first partial-pulled point. The specific model of gun used on the Rust set has three detents that would have to all be broken or worn for the hammer to fall without the trigger being pulled.
What she also didn't show is that if the trigger is pulled while the hammer is being pulled back, then releasing the hammer while the trigger is pulled will fire the gun.
My suspicion is that Baldwin had his finger on the trigger as he was doing his practice quick-draw and was inadvertently giving it some pressure (it doesn't need much) while he pulled back the hammer. This is a common mistake for someone who hasn't been specifically training proper trigger control. Almost anyone will do it until taught differently.
I'm not absolving Baldwin here. I understand that there are also rules that a gun is never supposed to be pointed directly at anyone on the set (they'll use trick camera angles to make it look as though it is). And all the rules for controlling the ammunition and guns on the set had been broken in several different ways...and keeping a tight set is the job of the producer. They also had not hired a full-time armorer...which is also the job of the producer.
Last edited by Ralph_Kirk; 12-04-2021 at 07:41 PM..
He doesn't feel guilty for the gun having alive ammunition in itl But I wonder if he feels remorse for not checking the gun chamber himself and not knowing that an expert should be on the set. To bad for him he didn't know to do what George Clooney does. His tears on the TV interview looked real to me when it seemed to hit him that her little boy is without a Mom now. Maybe the other poster on this thread is right that he should feel some guilt. I think he is in some denial about having his finger on the trigger too.
Not to excuse Baldwin, but in this case, it would not have mattered if he'd done what Clooney does. The live ammo and the dummy ammo were identical.
His big mistake in that last minute was taking a gun from someone other than the armorer (breaking a rule), having someone other than the armorer declaring the gun cold (breaking a rule), having the guns on a table not under the continuous control of the armorer (breaking another rule), the armorer being away from the set attending to other tasks (breaking another rule).
I thought she told him to aim it to her but now that you brought that up I am thinking twice about this. He may have let go of the hammer before aiming the gun down which would mean he let go to soon and it went off. I'm guessing here I don't know. The previous video showed it's unlikely to go off and shoot if he only moved it back a little but if he cocked it well that would do it.
No. Without the trigger being pulled, the hammer would be caught on one or more intermediary detents (depending on the actual model). Gun makers were not stupid even 100 years ago.
When you don't take things seriously, bad things happen. A half dozen camera crew walked off the set prior to the shooting due to working conditions, some labeled 'unsafe'.
“Corners were being cut — and they brought in nonunion people so they could continue to shooting,” the knowledgeable person said.
There were two misfires on the prop gun and one the previous week, the person said, adding “there was a serious lack of safety meetings on this set.”
Having had previous problems with this prop gun, that it was not thoroughly checked out or replaced as a condition of further use points the finger at anyone who later handled it, including a member of the production team that was holding it when it discharged killing a woman.
"No time for safety" is a bad companion.
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I thought she told him to aim it to her but now that you brought that up I am thinking twice about this. He may have let go of the hammer before aiming the gun down which would mean he let go to soon and it went off. I'm guessing here I don't know. The previous video showed it's unlikely to go off and shoot if he only moved it back a little but if he cocked it well that would do it.