# Alec Baldwin \[accidentally\] Kills Crew Member with Prop Gun {2021-10-21} **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** breaking-news\ **Created:** [October 22, 2021, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960 "2021-10-22T02:38:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 71
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1409 "2021-11-05T16:56:21Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Certainly early western costumes were not authentic but it seems like some kind of need to redefine what is real. Most of what we think authentic western wear was is colored by viewing of old sepia tone photos. That soft brown tint is the result of a chemical process that took place in the darkroom. Its purpose was to prevent fading and prolong a photograph’s life and archival value. But it disguised the actual colors they wore. I’ve read several accounts that claim cowboys tended to wear garish colors. But, of course, to modern movie viewers that wouldn’t seem “authentic”. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1410 "2021-11-05T17:00:36Z")
Not unlike the impression people have that Greek/Roman statuary was all white, when we know now that a lot of it was painted, and rather vividly at that. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1411 "2021-11-05T17:33:16Z")
And something like a quarter of American cowboys were Black, but if you portrayed that realistically, the usual suspects would scream about woke activism invading their beloved mythology. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1412 "2021-11-05T17:34:14Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > Most of what we think authentic western wear was is colored by viewing of old sepia tone photos. That soft brown tint is the result of a chemical process that took place in the darkroom. Its purpose was to prevent fading and prolong a photograph’s life and archival value. But it disguised the actual colors they wore. I’ve read several accounts that claim cowboys tended to wear garish colors Same holds true for Victorian clothes. Aniline dyes came into use in the 19th century, and were widely used for women’s clothing. Men wore black, grey and brown, but women’s dresses were often brightly colored, in shades we’d now think of as clashing. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1413 "2021-11-05T17:35:51Z")
And bowlers rather than Stetsons ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1414 "2021-11-05T18:50:58Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I wonder if the reason so many post-WWII productions had unrealistic shooting (such as no blood) was because so many people of that era had actual experience of war and had had more than enough of the real thing. They wanted the story without the gore. Movies made pre-WWII also had little gore, and for two reasons: the limitations of cinematic technology of the time and [The Hays Code](http://www.umsl.edu/~gradyf/theory/1930code.pdf), which explicitly stated > Brutal killings are not to be presented in detail. and > The use of firearms should be restricted to the essentials. > [@Broomstick](#): > > Wonder if the yen for realism, in some, is connected with not having had actual experience? You’d have to establish that veterans of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc. who were alive after The Hays Code was lifted and as special effects tech improved, have avoided movies with graphic violence (and not just war movies). EMT’s and others who deal with the gruesome consequences of violence would also have to demonstrate an aversion to such films. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1415 "2021-11-05T18:54:53Z")
Hollywood in general in its move towards “realism” seems to universally show “historical people” in very muted neutral colors most of the time, unless it’s some specific type of culture that is well established in the zeitgest as being known for elaborate dress (i.e. like the nobility in Downton Abbey or in period pieces set in the 18th century nobility etc etc.) But oddly enough a lot of shows like _Vikings_ and _The Last Kingdom_ which show all the Viking elite and Saxon elite dressed in dun colored cloth and leather (which by the way, the huge % of people just wearing leather jerkins everywhere as daily clothing is also not right) is way off the mark. Both the Saxons and the Vikings prized vibrant colors and fine clothing, now absolutely if your TV show is about actual peasants of the time, they didn’t have easy access to vibrant colors and the expensive dyes that go into them. But the Viking warrior elite for example, absolutely did, and were very proud of being able to display their accumulated wealth, and figures like King Alfred the Great dressing little better than a common stable hand is also highly unlikely. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1416 "2021-11-05T20:24:59Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > It obviously didn’t look anything like real blood. But i wasn’t expecting it, and it was obvious what was being portrayed. It was completely effective from a narrative perspective. > > So yeah, you can tell a gripping story without realistic weapons. Were you not expecting real blood or the red scarves as substitutes? When audiences see a high school play or community theatre production, they note that the gunfire is a sound effect and that there’s no resulting gore, but it doesn’t throw them because their expectation is that they’ll need to suspend a lot more disbelief than they would otherwise. I’m very sensitive to gore and generally avoid movies with a lot of graphic violence. I made myself watch _Saving Private Ryan_, though, because I knew it was important to see Normandy invasion as the guys storming the beachhead saw it, and I’d read that when Spielberg screened it for D-Day vets, some had to walk out because it was so close to what they’d experienced. It took real fortitude not to close my eyes, but if I had, or if I’d merely watched _The Longest Day_, I wouldn’t have realized how shocking and grisly their experience was. War movies in particular should never make carnage look palatable and wounds seem tidy. Doing so romanticizes and idealizes war, and while viewers may understand some of the loneliness and loss, they’re left with only vague impressions of the horrors. Maybe if more people saw war as graphically as it is in real life, they’d better understand why veterans can’t just put the war behind them and why PTSD is so prevalent. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1417 "2021-11-05T20:46:35Z")
That is why my cop buddies like Barney Miller. Realistic- and funny. Bad coffee, nasty bathrooms, yep. Snide office humor? Well, not quite as good as the show, but yeah. I don’t think we ever saw a gun fired during the show? iirc They took them for some issues, iirc. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1418 "2021-11-05T20:54:20Z")
Nope. Well, yes, no Stetsons as that company hadn’t come around yet, but cowboys wore wide brimmed felt or straw hats, not bowlers. They wore bowlers for staged photos. Teddy mention in a period book that they saw some guy wearing a bowler and harassed him off the streets. Period in the field photos show those hats. That article was poor research. She did find out that Stetson company, which made those wide-brimmed felt hats stylish, did not come around until the ending years of the cowboy period. True. She saw all those posed photographs of the cowboys, like the infamous Butch & Sundance with their gang- they jumped to a bad decision. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1419 "2021-11-05T21:53:22Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > Were you not expecting real blood or the red scarves as substitutes? I meant i wasn’t expecting scarves, but i suppose i wasn’t expecting actual blood, either. It was a live production. My point was that the symbolic “spurting blood” worked surprisingly well. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1420 "2021-11-05T22:05:42Z")
Back to the original topic: Gutierrez=Reed’s attorneys [are claiming](https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/03/entertainment/rust-set-safety/index.html): > “There was a box of dummy rounds and the box is labeled dummy. Hannah did take from that box which she by all accounts should have been able to rely on, that contains only dummy rounds,” said Gutierrez Reed’s lawyer Jason Bowles. “She loaded rounds from that box into the handgun only to later find out – and she had no idea – she inspected the rounds, that there was a live round. Now we don’t know, however, whether that live round came from that box. We’re assuming it did. We’re assuming somebody put the live round in that box, which if you think about that, the person who put the live round in the box of dummy rounds had to have the purpose of sabotaging this set. There’s no other reason you would do that.” So Gutierrez-Reed couldn’t tell the difference between dummy rounds and live rounds when she loaded the gun, which she then left unattended for 2 hours. According to the article, she thought the scene was going to be filmed outside, even though they’d been setting up inside the church. She also thought an armorer wasn’t needed during technical preparations. She spun the barrel to show Halls it contained six dummy rounds, didn’t recognize the one live round, and handed the gun to him. Is it just me, or are her attorneys as inept as she apparently is? How does this add up to “not her fault”? ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1421 "2021-11-05T22:10:59Z")
> should have been able to rely on Nope. Her job was to check, not to assume. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1422 "2021-11-05T22:13:45Z")
Yeah, that seems to be flat out admitting that she didn’t check the cartridges when she loaded them and just assumed the box labeled dummies contained all dummies. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1423 "2021-11-05T22:17:28Z")
Didn’t she supply the box of blanks? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1424 "2021-11-05T22:24:01Z")
Or - maybe in those two hours someone loaded a live round in their for some stupid reason? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1425 "2021-11-05T22:24:24Z")
No matter the procedence of the rounds being put in the chambers, the nature of each one had to be verified. Every time. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1426 "2021-11-05T22:24:25Z")
They’ve already backtracked on the 2 hours and are saying it was 5-10 minutes. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1427 "2021-11-05T22:32:39Z")
Maybe – having paid attention during the Trump administration – her lawyers are settling on the Gish Gallop strategy. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2021, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960/1428 "2021-11-05T22:36:47Z")
For the sake of his client, that lawyer should really stfu. There’s no reason for any statement beyond “My client has no comment on this matter while it is under investigation.” There is zero possible legal advantage to spouting off in public, and plenty of of potential disadvantage. Now obviously if the negligence in this case primarily lies with Gutierrez-Reed I have no issue with her taking the rap. But she doesn’t deserve to have her own lawyer sabotage her case. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960.md?page=70) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alec-baldwin-accidentally-kills-crew-member-with-prop-gun-2021-10-21/952960.md?page=72)