Alec Baldwin [accidentally] Kills Crew Member with Prop Gun {2021-10-21}

Cafe Society
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Yeah, there aren’t enough details to say.

It’s been relatively well covered already in this thread, but there are a number of different firearm scenarios on sets and how those specific firearms/prop firearms are used varies and it’s difficult without any further information to know what happened.

IN the famous Jon-Erik Hexum case, he had a close-up scene with a real .44 Magnum hand gun, loaded with a blank round. A blank round has gunpowder in it, it will produce recoil, muzzle flash, and a sound similar to a real firearm. It does not have a lead round so if you aim it at someone 30’ away, the projectile in normal operation cannot hurt them. But it may have wadding or etc in the round that will be expelled, at close range the force from the detonation of the gunpowder itself can still make that wadding dangerous. Hexum emptied the gun of all but one round and was “playing” Russian Roulette with it, when it fired the one round he still had, the contents of the cartridge slammed into his skull with such force it fractured and pressed parts of his skull into his brain, he suffered brain death and a number of his organs were donated to people who needed donor organs.

Brandon Lee’s situation was much worse because unlike Hexum Lee was not doing something stupid on set. In Brandon Lee’s case a .44 Magnum revolver was involved in a scene with him that ultimately culminates in him getting shot. An earlier scene, the revolve was loaded with what are called “dummy rounds”–these are supposed to be entirely inert rounds, but LOOK 100% real. These are used in situations where the appearance of the round is important, but there is no need to fire the round or make it look like it’s a real round when fired. However in Brandon’s case the primer was left on the dummy round, which was enough, when the gun was accidentally fired, to propel the dummy round forward into the barrel, where it was lodged.

Now…the dummy round is supposed to look real but be inert (i.e. have no gunpowder), that means the dummy round may basically be a real round i.e. it has a lead projectile in it etc.

For the next scene involving this gun, blank rounds were needed for actually “firing” the gun, again, the blank round essentially has no projectile (or it has paper/wood wadding that does not travel very far), but it does have real gunpowder–a blank round when fired will cause recoil, muzzle flash, and it is propelled violently out of the barrel, just with no bullet in the cartridge, so aerodynamic effects will render it harmless in a relatively short distance. When the actor pulled the trigger to fire the blank, the real gunpowder was ignited and expelled the contents of the blank cartridge out the barrel–they slammed into the previously stuck dummy round, which functionally is a “real bullet” at this point, and projected it out of the barrel with a force maybe not quite the same as a properly loaded and functioning real round, but damn near it. It ripped into Brandon’s body just like an actual “normal” cartridge with a lead bullet in it would, and killed him.

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https://twitter.com/alecbaldwln____/status/911425278123048960

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I am willing to make the judgement right now that somebody on the set screwed up in a major way. There should never have been a situation in which it was possible for somebody to be killed by a firearm on a movie set. But it happened so somebody did something stupid or failed to do something that they should have done.

That said, we don’t know at this point what was done wrong and who did it. It may have been Alec Baldwin or it may have been somebody else.

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Blank rounds are made in a variety of ways, some blank rounds have what is called “wadding” in them, or a bullet shaped but plug made of a soft material that won’t be able to travel very far or very powerfully due to aerodynamics. The purpose of the wadding is to hold the propellent in place–a normal cartridge has the case–the metal cylinder you see, the projectile–the lead “bullet” you will see peeking out of the tip of the cartridge, the propellent (at the base of the cartridge–in normal operation you won’t visually see the propellent), the rim a small lip at the base of the cartridge cylinder that allows the gun’s mechanism to eject it from the firearm easily, and the primer which is at the very base of the cartridge cylinder and is a small amount of explosive material. When the primer is struck by the firing pin it ignites, which ignites the propellent, which violently expels the bullet down the barrel.

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That helps me understand. Thanks!

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I always think of In Bruges.

“I was trying to rob him. And he took my gun from me. And the gun was full of blanks. And he shot a blank into my eye. And now I cannot see from this eye ever again, the doctors say.”

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Prop guns are chambered differently and real ammo won’t fit.

There shouldn’t be any danger of an accident. Somebody screwed up really bad. Whoever brought that gun on set is responsible.

The news is saying that a prop gun misfired. How that could happen requires an investigation.

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Or you could also not speculate and wait for the facts.

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And Keanu is one actor that has a reputation for actually being quite skilled at real gun-handling. Baldwin, I could imagine just assuming everything had been taken care of.

As mentioned many times before, as of this hour we Just Don’t Know the details beyond that the devastating outcome clearly shows there was a chain of major fuckups.

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Then here is my question. Under the rules, if the armorer gave Baldwin a gun, is Baldwin even allowed to check it to make sure it is safe (assuming he’s even knowledgeable enough to do so).

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If he has a concern, the correct action is to ask the armorer to check it again. Presumably he can insist on being present for this.

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Do we even know enough at this point about the gun in question to know what “check it to make sure it is safe” would mean?

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This is the correct answer.

He can also request that the stunt coordinator or other qualified officer supervise. This would be an indication that trust is breaking down, though.

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Also, to get ahead of it before anyone overreacts: there was an unconfirmed report that the weapon was being managed by a non-union propmaster and held a live round. This has not been corroborated by anyone official in any way, and appears to have originated with the local union. It may be intended to feed into the increasingly contentious contract negotiations with the industry (“see, you hire scabs, and people die”). Take the report with a massive grain of salt (not least because a gun capable of holding an actual live round would very much not be a normal prop firearm, and therefore a huge breach in professional protocol).

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Bravo for a sensitive, detailed response.

This Board really needs a “Like” button!

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With video assist is there any reason why anybody on set should ever have a gun pointed at them? (I assume the director and cinematographer who where shot were behind the camera accessing the angle). An actor’s response to being shot is almost always a different take. It seems to me that a general rule should be that no one should ever have a loaded gun (even with blanks) pointed at them on a movie set.

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I’m assuming someone took the artistic (or financial) decision that the shot would look better with a real blank round was used rather than something done in post (though as this was rehearsal its less obvious why that would be, I guess its about the actors reaction to it ? If they only used props in rehearsal but blank rounds when filming the reaction would be different?)

If that is what happened (big if, as lots of people have pointed out, very little actual information about what happened) and a real round was mistakenly used instead (or an object was in the barrel) then that might the last time someone is able to make that call in a Hollywood movie, whoever is judged to be responsible.

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The NY Post is running pics of him in a bloodied costume on set which is NOT real blood just so people are aware, which is disgusting. Here’s a short bio of the young woman, who was clearly headed for great things. Halyna Hutchins - Wikipedia

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Magnum, pi, Double Jeopardy, Season 2. Very clever episode, dealing with a lot of the behind the scenes gun handling procedures mentioned in this thread.

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Pardon me for not reading the whole thread. This may have been posted already.

We modified a Beretta 92FS for use in a movie. It made the gun unusable, since a plug (with a small hole in it) needed to be inserted into the barrel so that there would be back-pressure to cycle the action.

With revolvers, you don’t need to do that because they don’t have an automatic action. They are fully functional guns. You can see the bullets in a revolver, so non-live prop rounds are made for the visual. Prop rounds use a case and a bullet, but no powder or primer. If a live primer is used, it can force the bullet into the barrel and a blank round will fire the bullet out the barrel just like a live round.

Another possibility is that a live round was mistaken for a prop round. Not having any more information than anyone else, but having read Cervaise’s post, there’s no reason to use a blank in a rehearsal. It’s possible a live round was mistakenly inserted instead of a prop round (though why there would be any live rounds on a set is beyond me) and the loud noise was completely unexpected. As Cervaise pointed out, this is almost entirely on the Armourer.