. I know it sounds harsh to assign some
Doh
I know it sounds harsh to assign some of the blame to an actor but they’re the 3rd layer of safety while being the 1st in harms way.
It’s hard to get people to sign off on to safety protocols because it doesn’t always lead to something bad. You can slide quite a bit until crap happens and then they get it.
I don’t understand why people keep suggesting it. Plenty of reasons why it is far fetched, but one I haven’t seen mentioned yet is the problem of the ammunition. What are the odds that someone had just the right kind of ammunition for this gun? Really truly? Because before someone can intentionally insert a lethal round, they have to have the right kind of ammunition. And if they have the right kind of ammunition on set already, then we don’t even need the foul play aspect to explain how this happened to begin with: you’re already granting that there were live rounds on set when they shouldn’t have been, which makes the “mistaken for a dummy round” hypothesis much easier to accept, and thereby undermines the need for an added assumption that someone acted maliciously when mere stupidity would do.
Or are we to believe that an overworked and exhausted cameraperson went out–perhaps stopped along their one hour drive home between 13 hour film shoots–and picked up just the right kind of ammunition for this gun after much deliberation?
Point is, unless there are already lethal rounds on set (in which case we’re already halfway to negligence causing death), this would have taken a whole lot more time and effort than just a spur of the moment thing where a disgruntled worker stumbles upon a live round that they just happen to have and just happens to be right for the gun, and inserts it into the gun or ammo box which just happens to be negligently stored and which the rookie armorer just happens to be negligent about checking.
We already have a string of negligence by known actors: there is no need to presume an added element of intent by an unknown actor.
This is what I still don’t understand: If the whole point of having armorers is to have someone who’s a firearms expert ensure the safe use of guns on set, why does the armorer need to be double- and triple-checked by amateurs (AD’s and actors)? Yes, the stakes are very high, but having people who are NOT gun experts double-check the work of someone who IS a gun expert seems backwards.
You may argue that there may not be another firearms expert on set. Then I would argue there should be. Tight budget? If a low-budget film can afford to hire a “mentor armorer,” as Rust producers apparently did, it can afford an assistant armorer.
I know from personal experience at least one weapons manufacturer that told me they were horrified by the cavalier, who-cares-about-safety attitude of police customers, versus the relative professionalism and maturity of military clients. They didn’t even want to do business with cops anymore.
The reason for layers of safety is human error.
Have you ever driven through a red light? have you been the passenger in a car and yelled RED LIGHT to the driver? Humans get distracted all the and make obvious mistakes.
You missed my main point. Of COURSE human error is a huge and justifiable concern.
Untrained amateurs should not be the ones double-checking the work of a professional.
A professional should be double-checking the work of a professional.
Yeah. Your average police officer gets shockingly little gun training. And then your average cop never even draws their weapon in the line of duty, so they have very little handling experience. I think a lot of police-involved shootings come down to officer panic and poor gun discipline in stressful and rare situations.
The number one police reform we need is better tqctical training and drilling so they don’t panic and shoot when confronted, and don’t accidentally shoot themselves or others.
In the meantime, let’s not have them run the safety on movie sets.
Your statement makes total sense. Here’s the thing, the word “professional” tends to bring with it a sense of disproportionate infallibility. Human error transcends that. The AD assumed the professional Armorer loaded it correctly. The Actor and crew assumed the AD double checked it.
Gun safety is all about being from Missouri (the show me state). It’s using common sense. Ultimately it’s the person holding the gun who is the last link in the safety chain.
As an example, pilots are taught to inspect the plane they’re going to fly. They’re not trained as mechanics but by thoroughly inspecting the plane they can spot deficiencies. things to look for are signs of fluid leaks, burned wiring, free moving control surfaces, marker lights, etc…
I’m not an aviation mechanic but I’ve found mechanical issues on planes that just came back from annual inspections. The list of maintenance items I’ve found over time is long and boring but the point is I was the last person in a chain of safety inspections and the least qualified mechanically. I was also the person most affected by the next flight.
Thanks. The plane analogy is a good one. I have no doubt that having two armorers check a gun before it’s handed to the actor would not be foolproof. It still seems like it’d be safer than having an amateur double-checking the gun. Asking people who know nothing about guns is akin to having a passenger todo the pre-flight walk-around.
I think the idea is that one armorer should be sufficient, but that everyone else who has to handle the gun might as well also check. The actor is shown that the gun is safe so that they can feel safe using it for the scene. Nothing should depend on them knowing what they’re doing: the armorer just needs to convince them that the gun is not loaded in a way that would be obvious to anyone.
Pilots are expected to have a certain level of expertise regarding planes. Many or even most actors are utterly ignorant of guns, with zero experience or expertise. Those are the actors that shouldn’t be double-checking the work of trained experts. And because there are so many gun-ignorant actors, actors in general should not be the last line of defense ensuring gun safety. They shouldn’t be part of the process at all.
Think of it this way: 100% of citizen gun owners have experience with guns. Namely, they’ve held their own gun that they own. The vast majority have probably been taught something about guns by someone before buying it.
There is a non-trivial percentage of actors who have never held the gun in their hand in their entire lives until the first time an armorer hands them a gun on a set, or in pre-production or whatever.
Is that hypothetical actor really supposed to double check the work of the armorer? I say absolutely not.
EDIT: Actually, after thinking about it, a gun-ignorant actor should be trained by the armorer at the beginning of the shoot, similar to whatever training a responsible gun owner would get before buying a gun. Then they would have the basic competency I was saying many wouldn’t have, undermining my point.
And that is what really should be the objective: not to task the actors but to empower them. If the whole thing is running like a well oiled machine that would be minimally distuptive. And BTW, add to that, that if there’s going to be any gun-handling or blank-firing this shooting day, first thing in the morning is a review of the handling and shooting procedures and a rundown to make sure everyone remembers what they’re supposed to do and what is supposed to happen. Which should be indifferent to who is the actor or what is their prior experience, because an actor may be familiar with some guns but not others. The idea is that the actor and for that matter anyone on set should be able to notice, and bring up, such things as “hey where’s the armorer?”, “hey, wait, the AD just said the gun’s safe, he did not show it is”; “hey, wait, weren’t we supposed to have a safety review” – and quite simply if something feels/sounds/looks “off”.
Yes, better stated than I have done so far. It’s not that the actor is specifically checking the armorer’s work, It’s more of the armorer showing the actor it is properly completed and how to use it.
I have a healthy respect if not fear of guns. I know enough about them to say that guns differ enough in design that each model comes with it’s own safety issues. I have friends who like to collect them and when they show me their newest acquisition I make them strip it empty in front of me. I know enough about guns to recognize it was been done properly even though I don’t know the specifics of the gun. I’ve stopped people when they bypass the rules in front of me whether it’s on the range or at someone’s home. I mention this to point out a person of lesser knowledge of guns than the people who own them can recognize when rules are broken.
I’ll give you a simple example. I was at an outdoor firing range where you affixed your own target at the end of the range. It means you have to walk out into the line of fire to do it. The rules are simple Everybody on the range has to stop and unload their gun. A semi-automatic has 2 steps to it. Remove the magazine and they cycle the chambered round so nothing is in the breech. It’s easy to reverse that process and cycle the round first and then remove the magazine. But by doing that you’re just loading another round into the breech and then pulling the remaining rounds in the magazine out. The gun is still loaded. To avoid this you should lock the slide back so it’s open to inspect the breech.
That’s what I would like to see on movie sets. Enough training of an actor to recognize it’s empty, proof of the type of bullets being put into them and the loading of the weapon with just those bullets (no other in sight).
The actor AND crew don’t have to be experts on guns but they should have sufficient training on the use of them in the movie.
It’s certainly far-fetched for a large number of reasons, but a little more plausible than the idea that a malefactor wanted someone dead and choose a method that was so unlikely to cause death.
Most on set accidents are never prosecuted. The director of Midnight Rider was prosecuted for filming on a active railroad track.
Who will the court award the movie rights to?
I have some sympathy but it’s a problematic errot because both the Director and the Assistant Director have very large but very different roles in the events of the day. Two different posters, bordelond and broomstick even agreed with Macgiver, probably without realizing he was mistaken.
You may as well have accidentally blamed the Cinematographer.
Hey, we all make errots from time to time.
We all know who we’re referring to ( Dave Hall) but thanks.
Meanwhile, George Clooney weighed in and basically said what gun owners have been saying all along.
The 60-year-old actor, who has worked with weapons multiple times over the course of his career, including on the film “Three Kings,” talked about his own safety practices on set.
“”I open it. I show it to the person I’m point it to. I show it to the crew. Everybody knows.