One of multiple live bullets found on the set of “Rust” by investigators of the 2021 fatal shooting was discovered in the bandolier of actor Jensen Ackles, according to crime scene technician Marissa Poppell.
Poppell disclosed the detail while on the stand during the second day of testimony in the involuntary manslaughter trial of actor Alec Baldwin, nearly three years after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot on the New Mexico set of the Western film.
Asked about the live rounds of ammunition that were discovered on set, Poppell said investigators found some on a prop cart, in a box of ammo and also in two prop gun holsters — the one worn by Alec Baldwin and another worn by co-star Ackles.
This case has been going on for a while. Offhand, I can think of at least three toddlers who killed themselves or someone else using a gun that the owner knew was loaded.
None of those adults has been arrested. But the guy who was told his gun had blanks is responsible?
I think it’s bc he is also a producer. The case hinges on him being responsible for safety of the crew and being repeatedly negligent.
This one is his negligence trial, in the trial about him as a producer it came out that he was also messing around with the gun on set and had fired blanks at the crew between takes among other unsafe behaviors.
One of ten producers. And the one who was mostly in charge fundraising.
The people who were actually in charge of safety and the guns told Baldwin it was safe.
This is omitting the detail that members of the crew had brought up safety concerns about the firearms handlers and production went on.
They had an inexperienced armorer on set raising all sorts of red flags, production was made aware, show went on.
Baldwin is on set when many producers probably weren’t. He’s got his fair shame of blame in this, and the armorer as well.
you sign papers saying your responsible for things as a producer. to be a parent you just have sex.
So it’s not exactly about the shooting itself but creating the negligent conditions that allowed it to happen. From what I understand, as a producer he had his crew cut as many safety corners as possible to reduce costs. His direction to cut corners led to oversights in safety, which led to the prop masters making safety mistakes and accidentslly loading a live round into a firearm designated as a prop, which led to a person dying because of an on set accident. If he didn’t direct his crew to cut corners, the chances of somebody dying is dramatically reduced and makes this line of work incredibly safe despite the potentially dangerous implements used.
So the case is about “did the executive decisions Baldwin make to cut corners on safety contribute to the death of someone on set?”
Again, I point out that parents of children who killed/died aren’t being held to the same level of responsibility.
They should be. Is that your point? That they should be, because I think any sane person would agree.
If you’re arguing that the responsible parties in this incident shouldn’t be prosecuted because another person is getting away with manslaughter… well that’s a bit silly isn’t it?
I can’t tell what your intentions are, because nuance is hard via text
Yes they should be, now leave the non sequitur discussion derailing nonsense at the door and stay on topic. Parents being irresponsible dumbasses has nothing to do with a film exec directing his crew to cut safety corners to save a quick buck.
It sounds like you are saying that unless we prosecute EVERY OTHER case on this issue, we should just forget about it?
If a worker dies in a factory line while following instructions, we would all agree that owners of the factory should be held responsible. I don’t see why that concept is so difficult to grasp here and so many people are trying to defend Alec Balwdin. The filming set is a workplace and someone died through no fault of their own, but rather by the conditions set by the owners of this production. There were complaints on set about the safety conditions before this incident happened and it seems that nothing was done to mitigate it. Everyone is trying to throw the armorer under the bus, but she was hired and vetted by management, and even after complaints nothing was changed.
Plus goofing around with a gun is not ok, even if you think there are no live rounds
I thought he was working on a scene and not “goofing around” when the incident occurred. Was he actually just playing with the “prop” gun?
I think it’s relevant whether he observed unsafe practices on set. It sounds like the whole thing was kind of a shit show. Plus the investigation concluded that the gun could not have fired without him pulling the trigger. Pointing a gun at someone and firing when you have reason to believe that proper safety precautions haven’t been followed is exactly the sort of thing that might end up with an involuntary manslaughter charge. I dunno if he gets convicted but I don’t think the charges are crazy.
If you want logic from American gun culture, you better get comfortable waiting.
Baldwin made fun of Trump a bunch of times on SNL. It had already been ruled involuntary manslaughter, but maga court had a bone to pick.
Additionally - a *half truth from chat frickin GPT:
"In a tense political climate, Alec Baldwin’s satirical portrayal of President Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live” had garnered significant attention and polarized opinions. His impersonations were both celebrated and criticized, drawing ire from Trump supporters who saw his performances as disrespectful and damaging.
On the set of the film “Rust,” an unfortunate and tragic accident occurred, leading to the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. As investigations began, initial findings suggested that the incident was a result of a series of safety lapses and negligence on the part of the production team, including Baldwin, who was both an actor and a producer on the film.
Enter District Attorney Thomas Harlan, a staunch supporter of President Trump, appointed during Trump’s tenure. Harlan had previously expressed disdain for Baldwin’s portrayals of Trump, believing them to be part of a broader media conspiracy against conservative values.
Seizing the opportunity presented by the “Rust” incident, Harlan decided to press charges against Baldwin with unusual fervor. He argued that Baldwin’s role as a producer made him directly responsible for the safety lapses on set, thus filing charges of involuntary manslaughter against him. Critics claimed that the intensity and speed of the charges were disproportionate compared to similar cases in the industry, suggesting political motivations behind Harlan’s actions.
Supporters of Baldwin and various legal analysts argued that the charges were a clear case of political retribution. They pointed out that other individuals with similar roles in previous on-set accidents had not faced such severe charges. Furthermore, they highlighted Harlan’s public statements and connections to pro-Trump groups as evidence of his bias.
The media frenzy intensified, with pundits on both sides debating whether Baldwin was being unfairly targeted due to his political satire. This scenario underscores the complexities of mixing legal actions with political motivations, ultimately raising questions about the impartiality of justice in a highly polarized environment."
You seriously think so? “A bone to pick” because Alex Baldwin made fun of Trump. What are they, 3rd graders?
Are you seriously asking? Did you ever see the things Trump used to tweet during those SNL performances? Have you seen any right wing commentary? Hell no they’re not third graders, when my kids were in third grade they were thoughtful, empathetic people who could follow basic logic, compromise, and lose gracefully.
- What is live ammo doing on the set period
- What is the prop master doing? (Was there even one?)
The arms master has already been charged. No one really knows why live ammo was on set besides it was mixed into the blanks they bought and the arms master didn’t check properly.
You might be getting confused with the circumstances around Brandon Lee’s death on the set of the Crow, which makes sense since that has been a hot topic when discussing the situation on Rust’s set. As I understand it, in the case of Lee’s death, they had taken live rounds and “converted” them to dummy rounds by removing the bullets, dumping out the gunpowder from the cartridge, and then reinstalling the bullets. However, they did not remove the primer from the cartridges, because they wanted the bottom of the cases to look pristine for shots where the revolver was loaded.
At some point, one of these “dummy” (but still very much not inert, thanks to the primer) rounds was accidentally fired. Because they had removed the propellent, only the primer detonated. This provided enough force to dislodge the bullet from the case, but not enough to expel it out the barrel. No one checked the barrel before a blank was loaded into weapon for the scene where Lee’s character was shot. Blank detonated, dummy bullet is dislodged, Lee is killed.
So, while both productions are staggering examples of safety protocol failures on film sets, the circumstances are differ in the details.
Why can’t they use specially made guns for Hollywood. Like, you won’t be able to fit real ammo in these weapons to begin with. Let me guess, money. They don’t want to spend the money.
I just saw where Guy Ritchie exclusively used air soft guns on The Covenant because it was right after this.
That would’ve changed Bullet Tooth Tony’s speech a bit I guess. “And the fact that you’ve got Replica written down the side of your guns… Oh and mine does too because this is a movie and we all need to be safe.”
If we can make Han Solo shoot second…
Surely we can green screen a wooden prop into a real gun.
I’ll even volunteer for the sound effects.
Pew Pew Pew Pew zip Pew pew
I feel like a fake gun would be way cheaper than a real one. Real guns ain’t cheap.
So make a caliber that’s only used for prop guns and blanks.
The trick is getting the whole industry to standardize on it
You don’t need a working chamber at all; with modern cgi you can make it indistinguishable from the real thing.
Well while that’s a pretty great video, it’s definitely not “indistinguishable”.
I mean, you are correct that it can be made indistinguishable, but this youtube skit ain’t that, although it’s pretty fucking hilarious.
True. I guess they don’t do it because they’d basically need 1 nonstandard “blank only” variant for each actual caliber, otherwise the bigger gas/blowback-operated guns might have some trouble cycling ?
Yes and no. There are both but real guns are typically used for hero shots because they have the right weight and make the right noises.
There’s also blank firing adapters for some weapons which are fairly big and obvious but essentially split the round in two as it exits the barrel and mushes them up so they lose all their energy.
That’s not really what BFAs do, at least not the models I’ve used. You seem to imply that weapons with BFAs fitted are still firing real rounds, which are rendered safe by hitting the adapter. That’s not true. They are firing blanks, which are cartridges with the bullet and some of the powder removed. Pull the trigger, you get a pop, a flash, and some smoke. Yay!
Pull the trigger again though, and you’re very likely to have a misfire because the next round failed to feed from the magazine to the chamber. This is because most semi or fully automatic weapons use some of the energy of a fired round to cycle the action which expels the spent cartridge and feeds a fresh round into the firing chamber. When you fire a real bullet, it actually acts as something of a plug in the barrel for the very brief period of time it travels through it. This allows the pressure to overcome the resistance of the weapon’s action, and thus operate.
When you fire a blank, there’s no bullet. No bullet means no plug, which means that all of the gas from the explosion just rushes right out the end of the barrel and is not enough to cycle the gun. This, you have to manually run the action, turning your scary big black assault rifle into a quaint bolt action rifle.
So, how do you solve this problem? You make your own plug and stick it on the end of the barrel to redirect all of the energy through the weapon system rather than expelling it. That’s a all a BFA is, a metal post matched to the diameter of the barrel that screws into place to plug it. This has the additional positive of preventing anything from exiting the barrel accidentally while firing blanks, which is useful in the training contexts that you often see these devices, because you’re often “firing” on other people.
If you were to use a BFA in the manner you describe, i.e. with a real bullet, you’re certainly going to damage the shit out of your weapon, and possibly wind up in the Emergency Room because you caught some metal splinters in the face when the end of your weapon exploded.
They fix everything in post anyway; why do they have to fire blanks and not just cap gun caps?
Look, that was only there in case he or his similarly hot brother has to kill a demon.
Was it a silver bullet?
Might have been a werewolf problem on set, is all I’m saying 🤷
