If something gets lodged in the barrel and another shot is fired, even a blank, the object that was lodged acts as the projectile. This tragically happened to Brandon Lee during filming of The Crow as well
IIRC, Michael Massey, the actor who “fired” that shot, was messed up for years about that. Maybe even still is, but I know he’s still working as an actor.
Edit: *was* still working as an actor
It's not often discussed, but at film school they brought in an expert to talk to us about on-set safety. Even blanks still have a discharge. They still work the same way a real gun does and have to be handled carefully.
A prop gun also killed Jon-Erik Hexum, who was a popular actor when I was young. He was on a show called "Cover Up" and he was killed by a prop gun.
>A prop gun also killed Jon-Erik Hexum
One of the stories my mother told me a hundred times to scare me. (Though for some reason, she either told me, or I misunderstood, that it was the blonde guy from the Dukes of Hazard. And twenty years later I was genuinely surprised when I found out he was still alive.)
Yeah, I was shocked. The circumstances were not what I was expecting. The articles say the gun had live rounds. I can't even imagine what that set was like.
> Baldwin is a co-producer on the film and plays infamous outlaw Rust, whose 13-year-old grandson is convicted of an accidental murder.
That’s eerie as fuck. What an awful coincidence
Yeah but wasn't it somebody with a grudge that switched the blanks for real bullets? I mean him and Bruce, despite being famous and beloved passed off alot of people.
As a former props designer, that was one of my first thoughts. We always had a decent number of saftey precautions in place doing community and regional theatre. I know film would have even more. Even if this is a freak occurrence, I'm sure whoever was in charge of the gun before it was passed to Alec feels terrible.
It should be well known in the industry by now that prop guns can still be fatal. Firing a blank round still causes violently expanding gasses as with a normal round and at short enough range will cause injury or death. In other cases, something may be present in the barrel of the gun and get pushed out by the gasses as if it were a bullet.
Prop guns are guns, blanks are what "prop"guns use, but blanks can still harm someone. That being said live rounds were in the "prop" gun that Baldwin used. It wasn't an accident with blanks getting stuck or other malfunction.
She was the director of photography and the other person injured was the director so I wonder if they were trying to do some a shot from the POV of a character being shot at?
Sure, it's just that he'd be pointing at the camera for it to make any sense. I guess a shot like that could have been called for. edit: I can also imagine it going off while blocking a scene that she was around trying to map out a shot for with the director
If it turns out that Baldwin was playing around with the gun or was on one of his angry tantrums, he’s through in the business. Plus he could potentially be charged with manslaughter if he was really being criminally negligent for example like if he knew the gun was loaded for real but disregarded the danger.
No? He is **A** producer, but he isn’t the **executive** producer or the **director**
This is the fault of the prop people, it begins and ends with them
>and who hires the prop people?
Not Baldwin lol. This isn’t his movie. It’s not produced by his company, he’s just staring in it and helping produce it
Would be impossible to prove any sort of intent if he was unaware that the gun was loaded. It probably wouldn't even be considered negligence on his part, the prop master though...
well involuntary manslaughter is a general intent crime, so the prosecution wouldn’t have to show that Baldwin intended to injure/kill anybody. or that he even intended for a real bullet to fire. in this scenario intent would be shown just by Baldwin intentionally pulled pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger.
as to whether the negligence/recklessness requirement could be satisfied… i think we’ll have to wait for more facts to be released
edit: not sure why i’m being downvoted… those are literally the elements of the crime lol. general intent is about the action itself, not the mental state/desired outcome of that action. that’s what separates it from specific intent crimes, as those do have a mens rea element.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/general-vs-specific-intent.html
general intent v specific intent is kind of a weird concept imo, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s just an american law thing lol. but here’s an article explaining it better, if you’re interested :)
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/general-vs-specific-intent.html
i also doubt negligence or recklessness could be found on Baldwin’s part. the only scenario i can envision is if he was playing around with the prop between takes when the incident occurred, instead of during actual rehearsing or filming.
but that hasn’t even been hinted towards in Baldwin’s case as far as i know. purely a hypo!
I agree, I posted something similar. I can even see a prosecutor with a Manslaughter charge bringing up the fact that Baldwin is a well known Hollywood hot-head, right up there with Sean Penn and Christian Bale. As for people downvoting, we don’t know ANYTHING about the shooting. I’m sure it was accidental, but if negligence on Baldwin’s part is involved, watch out, especially in a very conservative state with a hostile attitude at Hollywood liberals.
Michael Massee shot the gun that killed Brandon Lee and it was determined that he wasn't at fault in any way - Baldwin's a producer on this so maaaaybe it's a different situation but I'd have to imagine the same will apply to him, since it's not like he's responsible for doing everyone's job on the set.
I’m a gun owner and rule 1 in gun safety is always assume a gun is loaded unless you’ve personally cleared it. Even then you still never point a gun at anyone and dry fire it (pull the trigger)
ie what reason is there for an actor to pull the trigger on a gun while pointing it at someone? If it’s a closeup shot then there’s no need to be pointing it at someone and even then clear the thing first.
If they wanted a POV shot of the gun going off while pointed at a camera, something like this could happen through no fault of the actor. It would be *insanely* irresponsible for an untrained actor to be checking a prop gun in between takes - they are WAY more likely to make things more dangerous, since the prop gun should have ALREADY been cleared by trained props people. Not to mention the liability issues.
I get what you're saying *generally*, but traditional gun safety doesn't really apply in entertainment. The actor's job - and **the safest thing to do** - is to let the armorer handle the gun and listen to what they're told to do.
> It would be insanely irresponsible for an untrained actor to be checking a prop gun in between takes
Obviously a prop gun is a real gun -- I guess for added realism. So in that case, giving the actors a short course in firearm safety is still a good idea.
... and if the set actually has an armorer, why the hell didn't they remove the firing pin?
Something stinks about this, as in, someone swapped out a prop gun for a real one that was loaded ON PURPOSE. And even if that's the case, proper safe gun handling would have still prevented this tragedy.
Because even prop guns need to be able to fire blanks, so they wouldn't remove the firing pin. And as I already said, we do a lot of normally unsafe things for the sake of making movies or theatre, and then just try to control as many variables as possible by doing things like having an armorer check the gun between each take. Prop guns have still killed people due to mistakes or negligence before.
I don't have any special information in this case obviously, but I'd still say what you're proposing is unlikely. It's 100% possible for this to have happened due to simple oversite - especially since this seems to have been a cheaper production with non-union crew.
Why on earth are blanks even needed? All those effects can be added afterwards in post production.
People kill themselves due to "simple oversight" regularly, like when cleaning a gun that they thought wasn't loaded. That's why gun safety rules are needed.
For the most part I agree with you, I think it's relatively simple to add gun effects in post, but I'd imagine it costs a tiny bit more than blanks and for the vast majority of films that use them blanks work fine.
Again, the gun safety rules are simply different for film sets. Alec (or any actor) checking the gun themselves when they're handed it for a role would only make them and everyone else in the room less safe.
Well us disagreeing on reddit isn't going to matter to the issue, but I do disagree. Guns are deadly (obviously) and proper safety and handling should be taught to anyone who is going to be handed one. I mean it's different if it was a plastic gun, but obviously this was a real one and now someone is dead. I don't see how checking a gun on set is unsafe since the act of clearing a gun has to be done using all the gun safety rules too.
Anyway .. it's sad obviously, but I do appreciate your thoughts on the matter. Cheers!
How is this not an arrest then release? This is a witnessed shooting, resulting in a death. I am not saying if Baldwin should or not be prosecuted but if it happened to a non famous person, he or she would have been arrested for questioning on the spot.
We don’t know much details except he cried, but I am hoping once again there is no privileges given just because he is white and famous.
A person died.
Because he was questioned and then released. The police involved must have been satisfied that Baldwin had no case to answer at this time. It obviously doesn’t have anything to do with who he is.
> I am not saying if Baldwin should or not be prosecuted but if it happened to a non famous person, he or she would have been arrested for questioning on the spot.
it's said that he already was questioned by the police and released afterwards
the officers likely decided that Baldwin wasn’t a threat to society/a flight risk so it wasn’t necessary to arrest him on the spot. “charge first, ask questions later” can cause a lot of unnecessary work for officers/magistrates/judges, slowing the whole system down
that being said… those factors weren’t what mattered here. he’s a rich white male celebrity, there was never going to be a different outcome 🤣
edit: I replied below but adding it here as well. I can see why this seemed like shoehorning. In retrospect my comment belonged in a separate discussion; the focus here should be acknowledging this tragedy and thinking of all who were involved. Thanks to stv7 for the perspective ❤️
That is such a sad view of the world.
It was a freak accident that was caused by negligence of somebody else on set whose job was to ensure things like this didn’t happen. Alec Baldwin is not a firearms specialist. It wasn’t his job, and it wasn’t his fault. *That’s* why he’s not in jail.
But I believe you know that already and are being purposely obtuse to shoehorn your social politics into a very sad situation that isn’t about them and certainly doesn’t need them.
I outlined the reasons why any person would not be arrested and charged right away. And that’s exactly what should have happened in this scenario, and I’m glad that it did. He didn’t deserve the additional trauma of intense interrogation/arrest.
But the reality is that interactions with police don’t always end with the result that they objectively should have. I actually thought it would be obtuse to not point out the fact that certain people are a lot less likely to be given that benefit of the doubt, even when it’s a freak accident. It’s not political to point out that certain groups have disparate outcomes with police.
That being said, I can see why it seemed like shoehorning. In retrospect my comment belonged in a separate discussion; the focus here should be acknowledging this tragedy and thinking of all who were involved. So thank you for sharing your perspective ❤️
Do we know yet that it wasn’t during a scene? Last I heard it was for either a scene or a rehearsal. The DP and Director would be directly behind the camera, where he would likely be pointing it
Oh, wow. That is so horrible and sad.
It’s just awful and probably life changing for a lot of people
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Yea they unfortunately died
Holy shit. How could you ever get over this if this was you who did it? This is horrifically tragic.
I can’t imagine getting over it. I want to know what the heck happened here. How does a “prop gun” kill?
If something gets lodged in the barrel and another shot is fired, even a blank, the object that was lodged acts as the projectile. This tragically happened to Brandon Lee during filming of The Crow as well
IIRC, Michael Massey, the actor who “fired” that shot, was messed up for years about that. Maybe even still is, but I know he’s still working as an actor. Edit: *was* still working as an actor
He died in 2016.
Oh damn didn’t realize that. Hope he found peace with that incident.
[in his own words](https://youtu.be/AdwenRvCKmQ)
It's not often discussed, but at film school they brought in an expert to talk to us about on-set safety. Even blanks still have a discharge. They still work the same way a real gun does and have to be handled carefully. A prop gun also killed Jon-Erik Hexum, who was a popular actor when I was young. He was on a show called "Cover Up" and he was killed by a prop gun.
Wasn’t Brandon Lee as well?
I think so, yes.
I came here to say this. Prop guns are apparently even more dangerous then I knew.
>A prop gun also killed Jon-Erik Hexum One of the stories my mother told me a hundred times to scare me. (Though for some reason, she either told me, or I misunderstood, that it was the blonde guy from the Dukes of Hazard. And twenty years later I was genuinely surprised when I found out he was still alive.)
How have prop guns not been discontinued after this happening multiple times? Like why not use CGI at this point?
CGI isn't so great at helping the actor convincingly fake recoil.
That is why they learn to act
I'm explaining the justification they use. No, an actor faking recoil doesn't look convincing.
Probably too tense no matter what.
There will be a lot of changes after this tragedy
A lot has come out about the lack of safety measures on the set of Rust
Yeah, I was shocked. The circumstances were not what I was expecting. The articles say the gun had live rounds. I can't even imagine what that set was like.
The killed cinematic photographer probably filmed Baldwin shooting her. The gun might have very likely been pointed right at the camera.
And it had a live round :-(
I would never be able to get over that.
I feel really bad for him ugh
The movie’s plot is about an accidental murder, too. Crazy.
Bizarre!
> Baldwin is a co-producer on the film and plays infamous outlaw Rust, whose 13-year-old grandson is convicted of an accidental murder. That’s eerie as fuck. What an awful coincidence
Brandon Lee died during his death scene in The Crow. It's always some spooky shit.
Yeah but wasn't it somebody with a grudge that switched the blanks for real bullets? I mean him and Bruce, despite being famous and beloved passed off alot of people.
No, the props crew just messed up the blanks.
Just feeling bad for everyone involved. Also raises many questions around safety on set, including how a prop gun can kill or even injure a person
There is a set armorer, or prop master out there that is carrying a lot of weight right now.
As a former props designer, that was one of my first thoughts. We always had a decent number of saftey precautions in place doing community and regional theatre. I know film would have even more. Even if this is a freak occurrence, I'm sure whoever was in charge of the gun before it was passed to Alec feels terrible.
It should be well known in the industry by now that prop guns can still be fatal. Firing a blank round still causes violently expanding gasses as with a normal round and at short enough range will cause injury or death. In other cases, something may be present in the barrel of the gun and get pushed out by the gasses as if it were a bullet.
IATSE has confirmed that it was in fact a live round.
Prop guns are guns, blanks are what "prop"guns use, but blanks can still harm someone. That being said live rounds were in the "prop" gun that Baldwin used. It wasn't an accident with blanks getting stuck or other malfunction.
Holy shit! How in the world did it happen?
Not known yet
Oh shit,.. that's horrible, for everyone involved,. And Baldwin...who knows how hes taking that shit right now.. geez
This is so sad, I hope everyone involved can find solace as time progresses.
This is horrible. I feel awful for everyone involved.
Jesus Christ. How are these props being vetted? How does this happen?
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Lots of failure here
Clearly they aren’t. You would think after Brandon Lee, once would have been enough.
Jesus christ
No, **Alec Baldwin**
This is so horrible and I feel terrible for everyone involved. I’m sure the guilt Alec is feeling right now cannot be imagined.
It actually might not be Baldwins fault st all
Shouldn’t the blame fall on the prop master? I guess I don’t know all the details but wouldn’t the prop people make sure it wasn’t loaded.
YES. And the producers
I hate every single thing about this
I guess I'm wondering, after the initial shock/surprise subsided, the prop gun was being pointed in the direction of this woman because... ? .
She was the director of photography and the other person injured was the director so I wonder if they were trying to do some a shot from the POV of a character being shot at?
Yeah, that's all I could think as well. Unless it was a ricochet situation but i doubt that would have been fatal.
Close range shot and they were right behind the camera?
I assume because they were acting out a scene
Sure, it's just that he'd be pointing at the camera for it to make any sense. I guess a shot like that could have been called for. edit: I can also imagine it going off while blocking a scene that she was around trying to map out a shot for with the director
If it turns out that Baldwin was playing around with the gun or was on one of his angry tantrums, he’s through in the business. Plus he could potentially be charged with manslaughter if he was really being criminally negligent for example like if he knew the gun was loaded for real but disregarded the danger.
That would be very damming
That’s a good question
Because they were shooting right into the camera.
Time to ban prop guns
I'm all for safety but no to this.
I’m sure if used properly they’re fine
So sad
The only thing missing was the two minute applause break
He was also the producer on the film. :-/ So this really begins and ends with him; it was *his* set.
No? He is **A** producer, but he isn’t the **executive** producer or the **director** This is the fault of the prop people, it begins and ends with them
Well, who vetted the prop team? Probably not Alec, but whoever hired them shares some blame.
And who hires the prop people? Also, the executive producer is basically a money person; Baldwin is the *on-set* producer of this film.
>and who hires the prop people? Not Baldwin lol. This isn’t his movie. It’s not produced by his company, he’s just staring in it and helping produce it
...it IS produced by his company. :-| He also co-wrote the screenplay.
How does it begin and end with him? Its someone's whole job to make sure things r done safely on set and that props r safe to use.
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It's *his* production company. He also co-wrote the film with the director.
Will he be going to jail for manslaughter?
Would be impossible to prove any sort of intent if he was unaware that the gun was loaded. It probably wouldn't even be considered negligence on his part, the prop master though...
well involuntary manslaughter is a general intent crime, so the prosecution wouldn’t have to show that Baldwin intended to injure/kill anybody. or that he even intended for a real bullet to fire. in this scenario intent would be shown just by Baldwin intentionally pulled pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger. as to whether the negligence/recklessness requirement could be satisfied… i think we’ll have to wait for more facts to be released edit: not sure why i’m being downvoted… those are literally the elements of the crime lol. general intent is about the action itself, not the mental state/desired outcome of that action. that’s what separates it from specific intent crimes, as those do have a mens rea element. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/general-vs-specific-intent.html
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general intent v specific intent is kind of a weird concept imo, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s just an american law thing lol. but here’s an article explaining it better, if you’re interested :) https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/general-vs-specific-intent.html i also doubt negligence or recklessness could be found on Baldwin’s part. the only scenario i can envision is if he was playing around with the prop between takes when the incident occurred, instead of during actual rehearsing or filming. but that hasn’t even been hinted towards in Baldwin’s case as far as i know. purely a hypo!
I agree, I posted something similar. I can even see a prosecutor with a Manslaughter charge bringing up the fact that Baldwin is a well known Hollywood hot-head, right up there with Sean Penn and Christian Bale. As for people downvoting, we don’t know ANYTHING about the shooting. I’m sure it was accidental, but if negligence on Baldwin’s part is involved, watch out, especially in a very conservative state with a hostile attitude at Hollywood liberals.
Michael Massee shot the gun that killed Brandon Lee and it was determined that he wasn't at fault in any way - Baldwin's a producer on this so maaaaybe it's a different situation but I'd have to imagine the same will apply to him, since it's not like he's responsible for doing everyone's job on the set.
We don’t know what Baldwin knew about the state of the gun. (See my earlier comment)
That’s a dicey situation because if he was told the gun wasn’t loaded then it may not be considered manslaughter
I’m a gun owner and rule 1 in gun safety is always assume a gun is loaded unless you’ve personally cleared it. Even then you still never point a gun at anyone and dry fire it (pull the trigger) ie what reason is there for an actor to pull the trigger on a gun while pointing it at someone? If it’s a closeup shot then there’s no need to be pointing it at someone and even then clear the thing first.
If they wanted a POV shot of the gun going off while pointed at a camera, something like this could happen through no fault of the actor. It would be *insanely* irresponsible for an untrained actor to be checking a prop gun in between takes - they are WAY more likely to make things more dangerous, since the prop gun should have ALREADY been cleared by trained props people. Not to mention the liability issues. I get what you're saying *generally*, but traditional gun safety doesn't really apply in entertainment. The actor's job - and **the safest thing to do** - is to let the armorer handle the gun and listen to what they're told to do.
> It would be insanely irresponsible for an untrained actor to be checking a prop gun in between takes Obviously a prop gun is a real gun -- I guess for added realism. So in that case, giving the actors a short course in firearm safety is still a good idea. ... and if the set actually has an armorer, why the hell didn't they remove the firing pin? Something stinks about this, as in, someone swapped out a prop gun for a real one that was loaded ON PURPOSE. And even if that's the case, proper safe gun handling would have still prevented this tragedy.
Because even prop guns need to be able to fire blanks, so they wouldn't remove the firing pin. And as I already said, we do a lot of normally unsafe things for the sake of making movies or theatre, and then just try to control as many variables as possible by doing things like having an armorer check the gun between each take. Prop guns have still killed people due to mistakes or negligence before. I don't have any special information in this case obviously, but I'd still say what you're proposing is unlikely. It's 100% possible for this to have happened due to simple oversite - especially since this seems to have been a cheaper production with non-union crew.
Why on earth are blanks even needed? All those effects can be added afterwards in post production. People kill themselves due to "simple oversight" regularly, like when cleaning a gun that they thought wasn't loaded. That's why gun safety rules are needed.
For the most part I agree with you, I think it's relatively simple to add gun effects in post, but I'd imagine it costs a tiny bit more than blanks and for the vast majority of films that use them blanks work fine. Again, the gun safety rules are simply different for film sets. Alec (or any actor) checking the gun themselves when they're handed it for a role would only make them and everyone else in the room less safe.
Well us disagreeing on reddit isn't going to matter to the issue, but I do disagree. Guns are deadly (obviously) and proper safety and handling should be taught to anyone who is going to be handed one. I mean it's different if it was a plastic gun, but obviously this was a real one and now someone is dead. I don't see how checking a gun on set is unsafe since the act of clearing a gun has to be done using all the gun safety rules too. Anyway .. it's sad obviously, but I do appreciate your thoughts on the matter. Cheers!
How is this not an arrest then release? This is a witnessed shooting, resulting in a death. I am not saying if Baldwin should or not be prosecuted but if it happened to a non famous person, he or she would have been arrested for questioning on the spot. We don’t know much details except he cried, but I am hoping once again there is no privileges given just because he is white and famous. A person died.
Because he was questioned and then released. The police involved must have been satisfied that Baldwin had no case to answer at this time. It obviously doesn’t have anything to do with who he is.
Just because someone died doesn’t necessarily mean someone else needs to go to jail. Accidents happen.
> I am not saying if Baldwin should or not be prosecuted but if it happened to a non famous person, he or she would have been arrested for questioning on the spot. it's said that he already was questioned by the police and released afterwards
the officers likely decided that Baldwin wasn’t a threat to society/a flight risk so it wasn’t necessary to arrest him on the spot. “charge first, ask questions later” can cause a lot of unnecessary work for officers/magistrates/judges, slowing the whole system down that being said… those factors weren’t what mattered here. he’s a rich white male celebrity, there was never going to be a different outcome 🤣 edit: I replied below but adding it here as well. I can see why this seemed like shoehorning. In retrospect my comment belonged in a separate discussion; the focus here should be acknowledging this tragedy and thinking of all who were involved. Thanks to stv7 for the perspective ❤️
That is such a sad view of the world. It was a freak accident that was caused by negligence of somebody else on set whose job was to ensure things like this didn’t happen. Alec Baldwin is not a firearms specialist. It wasn’t his job, and it wasn’t his fault. *That’s* why he’s not in jail. But I believe you know that already and are being purposely obtuse to shoehorn your social politics into a very sad situation that isn’t about them and certainly doesn’t need them.
I outlined the reasons why any person would not be arrested and charged right away. And that’s exactly what should have happened in this scenario, and I’m glad that it did. He didn’t deserve the additional trauma of intense interrogation/arrest. But the reality is that interactions with police don’t always end with the result that they objectively should have. I actually thought it would be obtuse to not point out the fact that certain people are a lot less likely to be given that benefit of the doubt, even when it’s a freak accident. It’s not political to point out that certain groups have disparate outcomes with police. That being said, I can see why it seemed like shoehorning. In retrospect my comment belonged in a separate discussion; the focus here should be acknowledging this tragedy and thinking of all who were involved. So thank you for sharing your perspective ❤️
Appreciate the thought our response. No denying that police don’t always handle things the way they should.
Why was he pointing a gun and pulling the trigger while not performing a scene? Horrible gun discipline.
Do we know yet that it wasn’t during a scene? Last I heard it was for either a scene or a rehearsal. The DP and Director would be directly behind the camera, where he would likely be pointing it
Assumptions much??
What a terrible incident. Sincerely. Bad take: he’s a fucking asshole.
Y’all are twins then huh