Also, if the same gun was used on set to fire blanks, it’s still going to smell of gunpowder.
On the news, I keep hearing that this was a major breach of protocol, this is never done etc etc. But I suspect this is done all the time in reality, and I’m even beginning to wonder if following the proper protocols might actually be the exception on a set.
Yeah, that’s what makes excavating_mind’s points seem so odd to me: it seems totally plausible that the guns weren’t always cleaned to the point of odorlessness, so a non-expert might not be able to tell from the odor of a gun fired the previous evening that anything was amiss.
How smelly are used guns? Can you smell them when you hold them normally, or would you have to put the gun up to your nose to smell the used gunpowder? If you had to the barrel up to your nose, I would think that should not be done from a safety perspective.
I think I saw Yosemite Sam do that once.
It seemed like you were suggesting that movie prop guns must be routinely cleaned after every use or that an uncleaned gun would be some kind of red flag.
And you suspect this why? 
If it was just fired it would be pretty smelly. I’m talking minutes before. This is based on my experience with firing a pistol.
If it was fired some time earlier when people took it off set before returning it, it probably wouldn’t be noticeable at all.
I admit this is a weird tangent. I will say that I don’t think it’s relevant. This isn’t the case where a literal smoking gun is a figurative smoking gun.
Not dummy rounds per se, but some kind of training round that provides for the mechanism to cycle the slide and eject the casing. It had some three letter acronym, and had I but known that at the very time I was being shown this someone was dying in a workplace accident involving firearms I might have paid more attention, but I don’t even remember what the acronym was, much less what it stands for.
One thing leaps out at me from that affidavit:
The cart is a gray in color rolling table with two layers and was left outside of the structure due to COVID19 restrictions.
(Bolding mine)
…the incident occurred inside.
This implies that possibly the guns were not closely attended, or at the very least out of view of the AD and many others. Or perhaps the armourer was manning the cart away from the set, which makes sense has it had other guns on it. It would explain why the AD handed the gun to Baldwin rather than than the armourer. Either way it feels like the COVID restrictions may have interacted with the gun safety processes here.
I’m also curious why COVID regulations would require props to be left outside - especially potentially deadly props.
Other things I want to add:
Re: the cleaning of the weapon. Perhaps the gun was supposed to look like it’s been fired. Doesn’t seem unlikely considering it is supposed to belong to the main character in a Western movie.
Re: expecting Baldwin to be shown the state of the weapon, as it was handed to him. By all accounts this involved an old western style gun which @Sam_Stone gave an excellent explanation of which seems highly pertinent because it suggests it is not a simple process to show the actor that the gun is safe. And so Baldwin might not have expected to be shown it was safe as he would do in the case of a modern firearm. I am not a gun person so I do not know. However, in considering the actors liability this might be a factor. Some have said that Baldwin had experience with firearms - but you can bet his lawyer will be asking him about his experience with old-worldy firearms like this one.
Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the armorer on the set of “Rust” where the cinematographer was just accidentally shot and killed, may need to look for a new home.
The “Rust” armorer’s landlady revealed on Tuesday she’s kicking out the 24-year-old because she “doesn’t want her living there anymore.”
The tabloids are having a field day with this.
The gun that Rust actor Alec Baldwin used to accidentally kill cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was reportedly used by crew members hours before the incident to shoot at beer cans, an insider with knowledge of the set has revealed.
Gutierrez Reed was the last person to handle the gun, leaving it along with the two other revolvers unattended on the cart in the early hours of October 21.
It is at this point, the insider reveals, that a group of crew members took the weapons without the director and first director’s knowledge, and forgot to unload the firearm in question.
This implies a level of negligence on the set that’s just mind-blowing.
But I’m wondering how accurate this story is.
What time was the cart set out? Crew were there from 6:30 am, and the incident happened after lunch.
Are they saying that during the morning while the walkout, etc. was happening, shooting at beer cans was going on during the downtime… and nobody noticed?
Or was the cart set out at 5am or something, and left unattended, and the shooting happened before work?
Or were they shooting at beer cans during the lunch break?
How could that happen without senior crew members being aware of it, even if the cart was left unattended? If there’s any truth in this story, then what the everlasting f- was happening on that movie set?
Makes me think her legendary armorer father didn’t even teach her the basics. Too many people are asking how to keep this from happening. The solutions are already there. And they are simple and easy to implement. They were just ignored.
ETA: I’ll still be cautious believing anything that the Daily Mail is saying. A recent article on the subject was still pushing the narrative that the armorer said she was scared to load blanks into guns when anyone listening to that podcast who knows guns understands she was talking about making blank cartridges out of their component parts. And she was talking about herself in the past and not now.
Oh man, that Daily Mail story is repugnant. All those cheesy “look at sexy me!” photos, presumably downloaded from her social media accounts, do nothing but feed voyeurism.
I mean, okay - I personally think those photos make her look self-centered and immature, but that’s only because I’m old and stodgy. For a 24 year old in 2021, I’m sure that’s totally normal behavior. (If I wanted to get all feminist about it, I could even come up with some argument about “owning the narrative” and how it’s good she’s not ashamed of her body etc. etc.)
Anyway, bottom line is that random Instagram photos of her in a sexy pose have nothing to do with her culpability in this case or any assumptions/judgments we might be tempted to form based on actual evidence. Yuck.
I agree. The Daily Mail is well known for its lurid coverage. That’s why I said they were ‘stalking’ her.
It does seem to suggest a certain level of unprofessionalism though. She doesn’t come across as a person you’d want to rely on to do a highly responsible job, in charge of the safety of others.
Yes. It’s like when someone wants to paint a politician as being a buffoon they take a screen capture from a video where they have their mouth open while talking to make them look like a slack-jawed idiot. Or they take a photo of someone who is accused of a crime where they are looking angry or just looking up at the camera with their face tilted down so they appear sinister. You’re crafting a narrative by cherry-picking photos of a person. That’s not journalism, it’s sensationalism.
Well said. This case feels extra disturbing to me because of the possible sexism - those photos encourage viewers to dismiss her as a brainless slut. It seems less likely to me that a male in her position would have the same vulnerabilities.
“Early hours” usually means way before 5 am, to me. Like, 1 am is “early hours.” Obviously we need to wait for more details, but based on this account, it’s possible that Reed left the cart at like 1 am, and some assholes who were drinking grabbed a gun at 2 am and went shooting for half an hour, then brought it back and put it on the cart before 3 am.
Yeah I’m going to believe Guiterrez-Reed is highly at fault, or solely at fault, and not argue that. But it is super dismaying that at a time when we’re all pushing to get Hollywood to take chances on female leaders and crewmembers (along with non-white), people will start latching on to the fact that perhaps “taking a chance” on a young woman in film went horribly wrong. Argh.
Really? You think “woman” will be the focus of fault? You think that’ll realistically be a widespread thing?