Alec Baldwin fired prop gun, killing 1 on movie set, Oct 2021 #3

[10ofRods]

Cold gun doesn't mean not loaded at all. If loaded with dummies, it's also a cold gun. If loaded with blanks or live ammo, it's a hot gun.
Dummies are inert, they don't make noise, and don't fire a projectile.
So gun loaded with dummies is also considered a cold gun. Basically dummies are fake ammunition that resemble live ammo but are harmless (don't fire, don't make nose, can't injure anyone). The problem is that they look similar to live ammo, so if person loading the gun isn't careful, and dummies and live ammo are mixed together, a tragedy can take place.

You and I can agree to disagree - but I'm going to go with the expertise of my friends who shoot both guns and movies, as well as the expert opinion given in several articles on the internet.

The reason a gun loaded with blanks is a hot gun is that such guns have killed and injured people.

There is no situation on a set in which LIVE ROUNDS are used - so using "hot gun" to mean "live rounds" is a nonsensical thing to say. IMO. There are NO circumstances in which actors should be firing live rounds, so the term "cold gun" means "not loaded whatsoever."

Heck, rubber bullets can kill people.

Guns loaded with dummies are still treated as "hot." They can jam in the barrel and kill someone with the next (blank) round.

That's why ALL guns that are loaded are treated as HOT. It doesn't matter if they're only loaded with paper wads -they are still HOT.

 

[10ofRods]

She still has to defend the bullets that were in the gun when she passed it to Hall though right?

She did not pass it to Hall. She put it on the prop table, and there were three weapons from which Hall could choose - he chose a hot one and called it a cold one.

Armourer was not, to anyone's knowledge, there in the church nor did she "pass" a particular gun to anyone.

 

[Luna20]

If she wasn't given the proper amount of time to make sure the weapons were safe, she should not have handed any of them out. It's that simple. JMO.

Good point. It’s up to her to make that professional call.

 

[Luna20]

She did not pass it to Hall. She put it on the prop table, and there were three weapons from which Hall could choose - he chose a hot one and called it a cold one.

Armourer was not, to anyone's knowledge, there in the church nor did she "pass" a particular gun to anyone.

I haven’t seen any reports that he picked it up from the tray.


“That Thursday, the crew began preparing for the scene before Baldwin had returned from his lunch break. Gutierrez Reed entered the church with the firearms, performing a safety check with the Colt .45 in front of Halls. He thought he saw three rounds inside the gun, but he did not check them before taking the weapon in his hand.

He told investigators that “he should have checked all of them, but didn’t, and couldn’t recall if she spun the drum,” according to the affidavit.

The armorer left the church”

 

[Chelly]

Alec Baldwin returns to Twitter with political jab after 'Rust' shooting incident

If AB wants to do political jabs, perhaps return to SNL?

 

[Deleted member 39678]

I haven’t seen any reports that he picked it up from the tray.


“That Thursday, the crew began preparing for the scene before Baldwin had returned from his lunch break. Gutierrez Reed entered the church with the firearms, performing a safety check with the Colt .45 in front of Halls. He thought he saw three rounds inside the gun, but he did not check them before taking the weapon in his hand.

He told investigators that “he should have checked all of them, but didn’t, and couldn’t recall if she spun the drum,” according to the affidavit.

The armorer left the church”

I'm not sure what kind of safety check HGR did with the gun while inside of the church but it was a poor one. Shortly thereafter that same gun was used to fired a live round. JMO.

 

[jjenny]

You and I can agree to disagree - but I'm going to go with the expertise of my friends who shoot both guns and movies, as well as the expert opinion given in several articles on the internet.

The reason a gun loaded with blanks is a hot gun is that such guns have killed and injured people.

There is no situation on a set in which LIVE ROUNDS are used - so using "hot gun" to mean "live rounds" is a nonsensical thing to say. IMO. There are NO circumstances in which actors should be firing live rounds, so the term "cold gun" means "not loaded whatsoever."

Heck, rubber bullets can kill people.

Guns loaded with dummies are still treated as "hot." They can jam in the barrel and kill someone with the next (blank) round.

That's why ALL guns that are loaded are treated as HOT. It doesn't matter if they're only loaded with paper wads -they are still HOT.

Dummies and blanks are not the same thing. Dummies are fake ammo that can't harm anyone. Blanks are ammo that have a bullet removed, but they can hurt someone at close distance, and still make noise. On a movie set, gun loaded with dummies is cold. Gun loaded with blanks (or live ammo) is hot. Those are the terms being used.

 

[jjenny]

I've not seen the other ammo (in the 500 collected) definitely identified as live rounds, so right now we know there was one live round on the set. Someone brought it there. It was already known both Hall and HGR had prior mistakes made, so maybe it was just a waiting game for whoever. JMO

I am pretty sure police know one when they see one. They send the ammo to the lab for analysis, but I tend to believe when they say there was suspected live ammo it was live ammo.

 

[Deleted member 158085]

I expect it's like everything else in Hollywood: competition for viewers.

I don't know who watches Westerns or what they're looking for, but I imagine the old style ambience of a western set, western costumes and especially western guns are what they're looking for (and many scenes of actors using those guns to shoot each other). So that's what film makers give them.

Everyone is using real guns, no one is making fake guns that look real, so who wants to be the one to make the movie that viewers heap scorn on because the guns are obvious fakes. Unfortunately, as film quality has become higher and higher, particularly at home with massive screens, those details are obvious.

JMO

My brothers and I are western fans. None of us is looking closely at the guns. (This was a movie with a story line that I was looking forward to seeing.)

 

[Deleted member 158085]

If she wasn't given the proper amount of time to make sure the weapons were safe, she should not have handed any of them out. It's that simple. JMO.

This is something I whole-heartedly agree with you on.

 

[Deleted member 158085]

She did not pass it to Hall. She put it on the prop table, and there were three weapons from which Hall could choose - he chose a hot one and called it a cold one.

Armourer was not, to anyone's knowledge, there in the church nor did she "pass" a particular gun to anyone.

This seems to suggest otherwise.

The day Alec Baldwin shot Halyna Hutchins and Joel Souza

That Thursday, the crew began preparing for the scene before Baldwin had returned from his lunch break. Gutierrez Reed entered the church with the firearms, performing a safety check with the Colt .45 in front of Halls. He thought he saw three rounds inside the gun, but he did not check them before taking the weapon in his hand.

 

[jjenny]

Also, in his interview with the police Halls clearly says he got the gun from HGR.

 

[MikeF]

I am pretty sure police know one when they see one. They send the ammo to the lab for analysis, but I tend to believe when they say there was suspected live ammo it was live ammo.

I would agree they should know it when they see it, but no number has been put out. It's alarming to know live ammo was on a set in the first place, but I'd find it more alarming to find out 200 out of 500 was live over say, 10 out of 500. In the long run (as far as negligence ) it won't make a difference, but the bigger the number the less chance HGR never noticed. IMO

 

[Luna20]

I would agree they should know it when they see it, but no number has been put out. It's alarming to know live ammo was on a set in the first place, but I'd find it more alarming to find out 200 out of 500 was live over say, 10 out of 500. In the long run (as far as negligence ) it won't make a difference, but the bigger the number the less chance HGR never noticed. IMO

A large amount would be hard to miss. I’m wondering if it was scattered throughout or if it was in a safe.

 

[Thora_Jay]

That's why, usually, an armourer is a full time hire. Not a part time hire, as in this case (she had two jobs - one of which was being propmaster, which is usually done by 2 people).

This was a very low budget production and it's in several MSM reports that the more experienced armourer they tried to hire said no, that he would need two full time assistants to do it properly and that it couldn't be done with a half-time person.

I think it's the same guy who said that even dummies and blanks should be stored in a safe and handled only by the armourer.

Another puzzling piece of this, if it's true that it was a vintage or vintage style Colt, is that the gun had to be cocked for it to fire. If it was cocked, then whoever cocked it is extremely negligent for not first checking that *all* rounds were removed from the cylinder (which is done by ejecting them, one by one...with the gun n the half-cocked position - as someone upthread detailed carefully, and which I have now read three times and shared with some gun owners I know - it's a very specific procedure).

I'd really like to know if either HGR or the AD knew exactly how this gun worked and how much time they'd put in shooting blanks from it to make sure it was properly operational - and of course, then, unloaded and the barrel clear of all possible debris.

BBM
Where is your link stating that Hannah Reed had the tile of “propmaster”? All reports have stated that Sarah Zachry was the propmaster and Hannah Reed being the “assistant propmaster”.

 

[jjenny]

BBM
Where is your link stating that Hannah Reed had the tile of “propmaster”? All reports have stated that Sarah Zachry was the propmaster and Hannah Reed being the “assistant propmaster”.

Yep, HGR was assistant to the propmaster and an armorer.

 

[Deleted member 39678]

My brothers and I are western fans. None of us is looking closely at the guns. (This was a movie with a story line that I was looking forward to seeing.)

I pay attention to the guns in westerns because I find it interesting.

Sometimes I see where they use a model of gun that isn't period correct like using a Winchester Model of 1892 in a movie set in 1880 12 years before it was first produced. I really liked the firearms chosen for the Clint Eastwood movie "Unforgiven" because it has a variety of period correct firearms beyond the usual Colt Peacemaker and Winchester lever actions.

Here's a link to "Unforgiven's " IMFDB page that shows some of the guns of the old west that you don't see in a typical western like the Spencer rifle and the S&W Schofield.

Unforgiven (1992) - Internet Movie Firearms Database - Guns in Movies, TV and Video Games

 

[Deleted member 158085]

I pay attention to the guns in westerns because I find it interesting.

Sometimes I see where they use a model of gun that isn't period correct like using a Winchester Model of 1892 in a movie set in 1880 12 years before it was first produced. I really liked the firearms chosen for the Clint Eastwood movie "Unforgiven" because it has a variety of period correct firearms beyond the usual Colt Peacemaker and Winchester lever actions.

Here's a link to "Unforgiven's " IMFDB page that shows some of the guns of the old west that you don't see in a typical western like the Spencer rifle and the S&W Schofield.

Unforgiven (1992) - Internet Movie Firearms Database - Guns in Movies, TV and Video Games

But wouldn't you watch anyway? I would. And I really, really think they can dub gunfire in without using blanks.

 

[mickey2942]

If Halls visually saw three rounds in the cylinder, that would be a "hot" gun. He specifically stated that the gun was "cold", meaning an empty gun.

There is a problem there.

 

[Deleted member 39678]

But wouldn't you watch anyway? I would. And I really, really think they can dub gunfire in without using blanks.

Watching a movie and really liking a movie are two different things. Accuracy is important to me. But that's just me.

Can they reproduce the kind of authentic look with post production effects? Probably if they spend the money to do it. Will a film with the budget of "Rust" be able to afford these effects? Probably not. JMO.