I am not an expert, but I suspect you need an armorer to verify that the prop gun is a prop gun, the starter gun is a starter gun, the bullets are blanks, etc., etc. I say they should be licensed and maybe have a requirement that they be over 25. Judging from this thread, the armorer needs presence and authority when the assistant producer is a flake or a jerk.
Mutatis mutandis, maybe functional weapons should require special paperwork and approval from the Armory Brigade, or some private semi-independent semi-regulatory organization. Who make spot inspections and have authority to shut down filming. Nah, Hollywood wouldn’t like that. The idea is to put pressure on low budget productions, not high budget ones. Ok, then require special paperwork and supervision from licensed super-ultra-armorers - who have 10 years experience? So that regular armorers get their training with shoots that only use prop guns and starter guns??
My take is that any reform needs Hollywood on board. Furthermore, Hollywood gun fatalities are rare, relative to other fatalities suffered on set (and hell, off set). There are occupations where the standard is mitigated risk, not minimized risk. ISTM that this is one of them. Hollywood filming is a great US economic success story: due attention should be paid to the figurative Chamber of Commerce.
Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the armorer of the film “Rust” who was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter last month for the 2021 on-set fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, was sentenced by a New Mexico judge to 18 months in prison Monday, the maximum possible punishment.
“I did not hear you take accountability in your allocution. You said you were sorry, but not (that) you were sorry for what you did,” Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said in announcing the sentence.
“You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon,” the judge said. “But for you, Ms. Hutchins would be alive, a husband would have his partner, and a little boy would have his mother.”
“You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon,” the judge said. “But for you, Ms. Hutchins would be alive, a husband would have his partner, and a little boy would have his mother.”
I assume that statement doesn’t carry any legal weight. If ‘you alone’ made the weapon lethal and if she would still be alive “but for you”, ISTM Baldwin has a lot less culpability here.
Baldwin did not in any sense turn a safe weapon into a lethal one. So she alone did indeed do that, with no help from Baldwin or anyone else.
“But for,” however, is less strong. It’s technically correct (again, the best kind of correct) that, but for Ms. Hutchins’ willful and knowing decision to step out the door of her residence or whatever hotel she was staying in that morning, she would be alive.
But of course that kind of independent act by the victim does not cut off the actor’s liability.
Whether Gutierrez-Reed’s own gross incompetence is enough to cut off Baldwin’s criminal liability is, I suppose, TBD (but then again, maybe not—maybe it’s just a question of breach of duty).
It’s the difference between what the law calls cause-in-fact (which includes mundane acts like stepping out your door in the morning and showing up to work i time to get shot through no fault of your own) and proximate cause (where the event is sufficiently related to the injury as so expose the actor to liability).
Her attorney should have sternly warned Hannah that anything she says (on the jail phone) can be used in court.
I understand her blaming the medics. I remember reports that it took over an hour for the med flight to get there. That’s an eternity for a gunshot victim.
That doesn’t change Hannah’s negligence that caused the accidental shooting.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed blasted the jurors who convicted her of manslaughter charges in recorded jail phone conversations as “idiots” and “a–holes” and complained that they took only two hours to deliberate
Can it though? She wouldn’t have been under oath at that time.
Is it normal for prosecutors, or anyone for that matter, to have access to an incarcerated defendant’s phone calls? Complaining about a guilty verdict and using insulting names for the jurors doesn’t seem unreasonable for someone that’s facing 18 months in jail and venting*. Especially when she’s talking on the phone with someone, as opposed to blasting the judge/jury/lawyers etc on social media to millions of followers.
*Even if you believe she deserves every minute of those 18 months, I think most people would still understand why she’d be angry about it.
I don’t know what right to privacy she’s entitled in that scenario, but AIUI, those statements, as well as some others, were presented to the judge, after the verdict, as evidence of a lack of remorse or acceptance of responsibility.
It’s interesting they don’t mention a film clip where Baldwin tells a crew person they are too close. IIRC he even explains the wadding could strike them.
I can’t find it now. But I remember Baldwin being pretty stern when he warned the guy.
They’ll have to prove Baldwin was aiming directly at anyone when he fired inappropriately. I think his defense will say he was pointing off to the side. That’s how actors are trained. The camera angle makes it look like they’re pointing directly at another actor.
It was very unprofessional to fire a gun unexpectedly on set. Even if the person was a safe distance away.
As of right now, I’m not seeing this anywhere other than TMZ.
Hannah’s attorney, Jason Bowles, claims prosecutors buried a report showing the gun had “unexplained” alterations to the trigger that were unlikely the result of the FBI’s trigger testing, and did not appear to be original manufacturing marks.
I assume they meant “likely” not “unlikely”.
the report her legal team is talking about was brought up as part of Alec’s pretrial proceedings.
First, no, I don’t think the prosecution will have to prove he was “aiming directly at anyone.” Second, I’m pretty sure the prosecution would respond “Then how do you suppose the bullet ended up in the victims?” He clearly pointed the gun at someone. Whether he was consciously aiming for them is another matter, but I think also largely irrelevant when intent is it required to satisfy the elements of the offense charged.
Even if true, I’m not sure how that evidence would even be relevant to her case, let alone exculpatory.