Alec Baldwin shoots and kills a woman, injures a man.

[Scarpozzi]

I know very little about handguns but thought blanks came in a distinctive box? I think red.

If there was a live round doesn't that make it highly suspicious?

I don't know what's suspicious for a movie set. I could imagine them using live rounds if they were shooting targets and recording, rather than using special effects. You really don't know what they were doing.

...but any time you have lots of people in an area and firearms that are going off, you should keep people a solid 20' away from them when they're being discharged and never in the direction they're being fired. You should know not to have your finger on the trigger unless you're prepared to shoot OR unless you've cleared the weapon and know it's not loaded. They teach stuff like that in the military for a reason.

I truly believe Baldwin to be a good guy and get a kick out of the characters he plays....the delivery of his jokes. His reaction makes me feel terrible for him as well as to the young lady who lost her life.

 

[Iron Woode]

Why on earth was there a live round in a prop gun? This is beyond stupid.

All guns, including prop guns, need to be treated with respect and as if they are always loaded. Never point any gun at anyone unless you plan to shoot them. They are not toys.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

You can kill with a blank as well as a projectile. But you would need to be basically point blank range to do it.

https://gizmodo.com/why-a-gun-loaded-with-blanks-can-still-kill-you-5972313

Here’s How a Prop Gun Using Blanks Can Still Fire a Fatal Shot

Long story short, guns are very, very dangerous, regardless of the ammo

www.thewrap.com

Fatal accidents
Actors in particular are at serious risk of injury from blank cartridges used on movie sets. Several actors have been killed in such mishaps:

• Brandon Lee was killed while filming a scene for the 1994 film The Crow when a .44-caliber S&W Model 629 revolver used as prop that contained a squib load — a bullet accidentally stuck in the gun barrel — was fired with a blank cartridge, which propelled the lodged bullet down the barrel. As reported in the investigation and court records, the dummy round used during an earlier shoot were handloaded by someone other than a firearms expert, who removed the propellant powder but unknowingly left a live primer in place, resulting in a bullet being separated from the casing without enough energy behind it to exit the barrel. The gun was not properly checked for the retained bullet prior to the incident, and squib load was then blown out of the barrel by the blast energy of the blank, fatally injuring Lee.[5]
• Jon-Erik Hexum was killed when he placed a blank-loaded .44 Magnum revolver to his right temple and pulled the trigger — the powerful shockwave from the blank cartridge caused a depression fracture to the skull, sending bone fragments deep into his brain and causing severe intracranial hemorrhage. He died a few days after the accident.[6]
• Johann Ofner, a professional stunt double, was killed in 2017 while filming a scene for Bliss n Eso music video Dopamine in the Brooklyn Standard bar in Brisbane.[7][8]
• A 17-year old was playing with a gun used in a St. George, Utah high school theatre program to be used in a production of Oklahoma!, and accidentally killed himself, thinking that "blank" cartridges were harmless.[9]
• Halyna Hutchins, a cinematographer on the set of an upcoming independent film Rust, was killed when actor Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun while filming a scene in New Mexico. Director Joel Souza was also injured. No arrests or charges have yet been made.[10]

THIS and thank you for posting. Has everyone forgot about The Crow?

 

[BoomerD]

So...being the suspicious bastard I am...the prop workers union saying the gun contained a live round, makes me wonder...who put the live round in the pistol? As a nearly life-long union member, and business agent for a short time, (worst job I ever had) unions almost always do everything possible to protect their members...why would they say there was a live round? Doesn't that place the blame on the prop crew who handled the gun?

 

[Leeea]

If it was a prop gun for a movie why was he shooting at a cinematographer and his director?

Can you not see how this line of thought just shows everyone else in the room what rotten piece of shit you are?


You can do better. Just think about alternative possibilities before jumping to full conspiracy mode.

 

[dphantom]

Doesn't that place the blame on the prop crew who handled the gun?

Possibly but only partially if that is what happened. Regardless, when handed a firearm, prop or otherwise, it is the responsibility of the person handling the weapon to ensure its safe use. You never, ever point a gun at anything unless and until you are ready to shoot whatever it is you are pointing the gun at.

Basic firearm safety. All guns are loaded until the handler verifies clear. Never point a gun at anything you do not intend to shoot. There are no unloaded guns.

 

[Jaskalas]

Possibly but only partially if that is what happened. Regardless, when handed a firearm, prop or otherwise, it is the responsibility of the person handling the weapon to ensure its safe use. You never, ever point a gun at anything unless and until you are ready to shoot whatever it is you are pointing the gun at.

Basic firearm safety. All guns are loaded until the handler verifies clear. Never point a gun at anything you do not intend to shoot. There are no unloaded guns.

Who handed Baldwin the gun?
I imagine for screenplay, the actors aren't expected to do that final check each and every time.
But it should have been someone's job to do that. To clear the weapon before handing it off to be played with.

 

[Homerboy]

Who handed Baldwin the gun?
I imagine for screenplay, the actors aren't expected to do that final check each and every time.
But it should have been someone's job to do that. To clear the weapon before handing it off to be played with.

I can't imagine this is Baldwin's fault in ANY shape way or form.

 

[dank69]

Possibly but only partially if that is what happened. Regardless, when handed a firearm, prop or otherwise, it is the responsibility of the person handling the weapon to ensure its safe use. You never, ever point a gun at anything unless and until you are ready to shoot whatever it is you are pointing the gun at.

Basic firearm safety. All guns are loaded until the handler verifies clear. Never point a gun at anything you do not intend to shoot. There are no unloaded guns.

I suspect he was directed to shoot in the general direction of the camera on purpose. That was probably the intended angle they wanted to capture on film. The problem isn't the direction he was pointing the gun, the problem is that it was loaded when it was not supposed to be loaded. I'm not sure why any gun would be loaded on any set, but maybe they were also filming people shooting live rounds in a safe direction and either the guns or the rounds got mixed up?

 

[kage69]

Why on earth was there a live round in a prop gun? This is beyond stupid.

All guns, including prop guns, need to be treated with respect and as if they are always loaded. Never point any gun at anyone unless you plan to shoot them. They are not toys.

This movie takes place before the advent of semi autos. To make a revolver look convincingly loaded they use inert blank loads to occupy the cylinder chambers, which are visible from the targets perspective. Usually blanks end in crimped brass or a flat wad rather than a bullet protruding, easy to tell the difference. Here they probably used blanks that look just like real brass, with fake non metal hollow bullet protruding out, which could have contributed to a real round being used on accident.

This is not Baldwin's fault, though I doubt that comforts him.

 

[Paratus]

It was a prop gun. I would be interested to know how it was designed, etc....

2 people were injured in the malfunction. It's not like only one person was "shot"... The report this morning sounded like the gun exploded possibly.

I used to own a .22 starter pistol. It actually had a baffle in the barrel that would keep a round from going through the gun. The blanks were like 5mm long...just long enough for the powder required to make it go "pop". The baffle directed the sound and muzzle flash out. I'm wondering if this was a similar kind of gun with a round that wasn't packed to the correct specifications.


That's a different situation altogether. Someone loaded that gun with REAL bullets.

From what I recall of the Crow situation they had someone lacking training in use of blanks and props making the blanks.

The first issue was a “blank” that still had a bullet and the primer. Apparently that’s a bad idea. It was fired in one scene and pushed the bullet into the barrel.

The next time they used the gun with a regular blank the bullet was still in the barrel. The blank fired the lodged bullet at Lee killing him.

They didn’t check the barrel nor were they using appropriate blanks.

Possibly but only partially if that is what happened. Regardless, when handed a firearm, prop or otherwise, it is the responsibility of the person handling the weapon to ensure its safe use. You never, ever point a gun at anything unless and until you are ready to shoot whatever it is you are pointing the gun at.

Basic firearm safety. All guns are loaded until the handler verifies clear. Never point a gun at anything you do not intend to shoot. There are no unloaded guns.

That’s nice that you understand gun safety.

However you may not be aware but actors are hired specifically to fire guns at other actors and at cameras which have folks standing behind and beside them with the express purpose of not shooting them.

If you were filming a movie would you leave it to the actor (the handler of the gun) to verify it was safe to fire? Or would that be the responsibility of the props/arms master that you hired to make sure the guns were safe?

Actors who handle guns would be advised to learn appropriate gun safety but unless more information becomes available the failure here was by the props master and the process they had for preparing the weapons.

 

[K1052]

If you were filming a movie would you leave it to the actor (the handler of the gun) to verify it was safe to fire? Or would that be the responsibility of the props/arms master that you hired to make sure the guns were safe?

Actors are, generally speaking, regular people who usually don't have a ton of experience with firearms and if you've ever seen regular people at a range handling firearms the answer to this is very apparent.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Keep in mind that in this day and age, there is no reason for anyone to be standing near, behind or beside the camera.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

It's Alec, you bumbling twatwaffle. I hope an "Alex Baldwin" sees this and kicks his ass for slander.

 

[pmv]

Very surprised at how dangerous working on a movie can be.

‘No one should be killed on set’: tragic history of fatalities during filming

On-set deaths like Halyna Hutchins’ remain thankfully rare – but only one film director has been convicted in the US for such incidents

www.theguardian.com

Hutchins is the fourth cinematographer known to have died during a film’s production.

Around 350 deaths have been caused by accidents sustained on film and TV sets.

 

[balloonshark]

Think about how much driving a person does. It's not a matter of if you're going to get in a car wreck, it's a matter of when. Even if they wreck isn't your fault.

Now think about how many movies and shows contain guns. Several are being filmed on a daily basis. It's not a matter of if someone gets injured or killed, it's just a matter of when. When you frequently do dangerous things eventually something bad will happen whether it's your fault or not.

 

[manly]

The L.A. Times reports that the producers had basically told the unionized camera crew to leave, and had replaced them with nonunion workers. It's being reported as a "low budget" film, and apparently many corners had been cut.

There were two misfires on the prop gun on Saturday and one the previous week, the person said, adding "there was a serious lack of safety meetings on this set.

A source close to the [prop masters] union said Local 44 does not know what projectile was in the gun and clarified that "live" is an industry term that refers to a gun being loaded with some material such as a blank ready for filming.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1451645781484576769

 

[Hans Gruber]

It's been almost 30 years since a fatal on set gun incident resulted in a death. Being a stuntman is more dangerous. My question is why did Alec Baldwin have a prop gun pointed at the cinematographer? Even if she was used as a stand-in for a scene, why would he pull the trigger? Obviously cameras were most likely rolling so the obvious questions will be answered.

 

[kage69]

Doing dangerous things on the cheap, and 3 separate misfires? Wow. This sounds like a string of bad calls mixed with high hopes, and now 3 families are forever changed for the worse over it.

That set needed a whistleblower, Hutchins shouldn't have died. I'm curious as to the difference in cost between the union and nonunion prop workers.

 

[woolfe9998]

Why was there even a projectile in the prop gun? People keep talking about how prop guns are supposedly inherently dangerous, but they can only be dangerous if there is a projectile in them. So what really happened here?

 

[pmv]

Why was there even a projectile in the prop gun? People keep talking about how prop guns are supposedly inherently dangerous, but they can only be dangerous if there is a projectile in them. So what really happened here?

Probably not relevant to this event, but it's already been pointed-out in the thread that they can be dangerous even without a projectile.

 

[woolfe9998]

Probably not relevant to this event, but it's already been pointed-out in the thread that they can be dangerous even without a projectile.

Yes but in this case there was a projectile. I'd like to know how it got there.

 

[manly]

Yeah, that's kind of our thing. If it wasn't guns it'd be whatever the current weapon of the era was.

I'm actually surprised they don't just cgi the gunfire at this point and use something else to signal the event for the actors.

Prop guns: What they are and how they can kill | CNN

The goal of movies and TV series is to make scenes look realistic. When it comes to prop guns, they don't just look dangerous.

www.cnn.com

CGI isn't realistic enough, as it doesn't allow for tragic accidents.

 

[VRAMdemon]

Allegedly - 4 members of the Camera Department quit this show that night.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainme..._4nbpIGeIuEEmvwqcC8HV1-htErtbgoJOJ4l-Cxl8lTBU

As the camera crew — members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees — spent about an hour assembling their gear at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, several nonunion crew members showed up to replace them, the knowledgeable person said.
A member of the producer staff then ordered the union members to leave the set. She said if they didn’t leave, the producers would call security to remove them.

“Corners were being cut — and they brought in nonunion people so they could continue 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.”

If the allegations in that article are true – including that there were already previous incidents of the prop gun misfiring – anyone in a position of authority over the shoot is in trouble I would think. Potentially including Baldwin as a producer.

 

[sandorski]

It's like the premise to a Murder She Wrote episode.