Prop Gun Shooting. One crewmember dead New Mexico filmset

[Rockwolf66]

"Rumor" has it that the firearm used somehow had a live round in it.

Also rumor that Baldwin was fucking around with said firearm right before they shot two people.

Among some of my friends this is a major subject as we all love firearms and films.

[funkychinaman]

From CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/22/enter...ent/index.html

"A search warrant issued by the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office and obtained by CNN affiliate KOAT revealed that Baldwin was handed one of three prop guns by assistant director David Halls that were set up in a cart by an armorer.
Halls handed the gun to Baldwin and yelled "cold gun," meaning the gun did not have live rounds, the affidavit states.
The gun fired by Baldwin hit Hutchins in the chest and wounded Souza, who was behind her while rehearsing a scene, in the shoulder. She was pronounced dead at a hospital after being transported by helicopter.
The investigator says in the affidavit that the assistant director did not know the gun had live rounds when he handed the gun to Baldwin."

Why would there ever be live rounds on set at all?

[commando552]

I'm not 100% sure that when they say "live rounds" there they actually mean rounds with a bullet in them. It sort of seems like they may be using the term "live" to mean loaded, be it with blanks or something else. This part, "Halls handed the gun to Baldwin and yelled "cold gun," meaning the gun did not have live rounds, the affidavit states" would suggest that a blank loaded gun would also be a "cold gun" which would not be the case, so in this context "live rounds" seems to be any rounds other than dummies or unloaded.

My guess woud be that the gun was a revolver so it needed dummy cartridges in it to appear loaded, and somehow one of the dummy rounds was actually a live round. That situation requires the one fuck up, of the wrong kind of round getting in the pile of dummy rounds. Any other situation would need multiple fuckups, so the former seems the most likely to me.

[funkychinaman]

Multiple eff-ups appears to be the case:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/23/enter...day/index.html

"Three crew members who were on the set last weekend told the Times there were two accidental prop gun discharges before Thursday.

The rounds were accidentally fired October 16 by Baldwin's stunt double after he was told the gun was "cold," two of the crew members, who witnessed the discharges, told the newspaper."

[MoviePropMaster2008]

Originally Posted by funkychinaman

Multiple eff-ups appears to be the case:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/23/enter...day/index.html

"Three crew members who were on the set last weekend told the Times there were two accidental prop gun discharges before Thursday.

The rounds were accidentally fired October 16 by Baldwin's stunt double after he was told the gun was "cold," two of the crew members, who witnessed the discharges, told the newspaper."

Yep. Those are 'negligent discharges'. WTF. I hate how the media calls them 'misfires', which actually means FAILURE to fire. What they were witnessing were Accidental discharges or Negligent Discharges. Also who is telling the actors that their guns are cold "aka not loaded with blanks". A 'hot gun' on set means it's loaded with blanks. No one ever expects LIVE aka real lethal ammunition on a set since they're BANNED from even being on site. I've had security kick out people who brought live ammo to a set and I personally inspected ALL blanks being loaded into weapons on the set.

Being a western It's most likely a single action revolver. I wonder if that particular gun, when the hammer was cocked, had a 'hair trigger'. Either way, to fire the gun meant that the DOUCHBAG STUNT DOUBLE or the DOUCHBAG BALDWIN were still DRY FIRING a supposedly unloaded gun. Something they're not supposed to do, even with a 'cold gun'.

[Jcordell]

Based on my experience I had a feeling many interesting details would emerge. What a giant goat-rope.

[commando552]

Originally Posted by MoviePropMaster2008

Yep. Those are 'negligent discharges'. WTF. I hate how the media calls them 'misfires', which actually means FAILURE to fire. What they were witnessing were Accidental discharges or Negligent Discharges. Also who is telling the actors that their guns are cold "aka not loaded with blanks". A 'hot gun' on set means it's loaded with blanks. No one ever expects LIVE aka real lethal ammunition on a set since they're BANNED from even being on site. I've had security kick out people who brought live ammo to a set and I personally inspected ALL blanks being loaded into weapons on the set.

Being a western It's most likely a single action revolver. I wonder if that particular gun, when the hammer was cocked, had a 'hair trigger'. Either way, to fire the gun meant that the DOUCHBAG STUNT DOUBLE or the DOUCHBAG BALDWIN were still DRY FIRING a supposedly unloaded gun. Something they're not supposed to do, even with a 'cold gun'.

Baldwin was not intentionally dry firing from what I have read. Apparently they were rehearsing a scene where he was drawing the revolver and pointing it at the camera. He did it once, reholstered, and the 2nd time he ND'd on the draw.

As for where the live rounds came from, supposedly crew members were taking the movie guns out into the desert on their down time to do target practice with live rounds. That sounds so ridiculously and obviously risky that it makes me wonder if it is true, but based on the past conduct and comments of the armourer I think I can believe it.

Just to add, the thing about here being scared of blanks is not being correctly reported by a lot of places which make it seems like she was scared of blanks themselves. The full context is that she described it as "scary" when she first had to load a blank into a revolver with dummy rounds in the other chambers and make it so that the blank was the round that fired on the first trigger pull. I think the thing that makes it "scary" for her is that she admits that she looks down the front of the cylinder to check that the blank is next to the barrel. To me this is worse than her just being scared of blanks, as it shows her fundamental lack of understanding for the mehanics and safe handling procedures.

Quote from the podcast whe was on: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FCdB5cQX...jpg&name=large

[funkychinaman]

So apparently the AD had some safety issues in the past:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/24/enter...nts/index.html

As for the armorer, according to an earlier article, she's a second generation armorer, so I'd be odd if she was afraid of blanks.