Enough already with the prop gun. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last week, Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed his cinematographer on the set of the low-budget film “Rust”, where he is the producer and star, while rehearsing a scene in which he points a gun at the camera. Not Smart. When will these sniveling liberals learn that when you handle firearms or even talk about them for that matter, it is wise to have someone on hand who actually knows what they’re doing. Explanations that it was a “Prop gun”, it was declared a “Cold Gun”, it accidentally “Misfired” or had a “Malfunction”are all complete nonsense. All misdirection to blow smoke up the public’s backsides as Hollywood circles the wagons to protect their own, while figuring out who to offer up as a sacrificial lamb in this tragedy. It didn’t take liberal darling Alec Baldwin’s publicist long before issuing statements and prompting a People Magazine article to convey to the public how “distraught” Mr. Baldwin is and how he is “suspending all projects” so he can “re-center” himself. What a load of rubbish. It would appear at this juncture that the lamb being led to the slaughter is the assistant director, David Halls, after Mamie Mitchell, the script supervisor, made an expletive- filled 911 call after the incident, accusing him of handing the loaded gun to Mr. Baldwin. Further damning reports are emerging about this AD having had previous incidents where a gun on his set was “unexpectedly” discharged. Sorry, guns don’t unexpectedly discharge. They discharge when some idiot pulls the trigger. Of course, Ms. Mitchell already had a beef with the AD over script revisions, adding to the intrigue. It also leads one to ask the obvious question as to why an assistant director was in charge of the firearm, and why exactly didn’t the director intervene if they weren’t following protocol?
In actuality, Hollywood sets should have an armorer who is responsible for the loading, handling and ultimately the safety and security of firearms on a movie set. In another article, that armorer was identified as a relatively inexperienced 24 year-old woman, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was quoted as saying she”wasn’t sure if [she] was ready” in her first position as lead armorer on a film shot back in September. She stated in a podcast shortly after filming the Nicolas Cage film, “The Old Way”, “I think loading blanks was like the scariest thing to me because I was like, Oh, I don’t know anything about it”. Seriously? The gun should also have a chain of custody, where it leaves the armorer and may only have the prop master as an intermediary before the gun is handed to the actor. The fact that the AD called out “cold gun” on the set, a term to describe a gun that is not loaded and has been determined to be safe, suggests that protocol was not followed. According to an affidavit filed by the Sante Fe Sherriff’s department, Guitierrez-Reed was the armorer who prepared the gun before assistant David Hall gave the gun to Baldwin. The prop master’s union has released a statement that states that the gun contained a “live round”. Well, duh. Further information has shown that investigators found live rounds on the set and in a fannypack and that the crew had been using the firearms for target practice with live rounds off the set. The film was also plagued by budget constraints and had a film crew walk off the set prior to the day’s filming on which the accident occurred, further adding to the mayhem. Reports are also circulating that there were union issues when, for cost cutting reasons, local workers were substituted for union employees. In short, this entire operation sounds like it was a disaster in the making.
But let’s get down to the business of firearms. It appears that there was in fact no “expert” armorer on the set. The gun in question was no “prop” gun but was actually a vintage Colt, presumably a Single Action Army given the period piece that was being filmed. That’s an actual gun, kids, not a “prop”. Itwas likely a .45 Long Colt, an impressively robust caliber at that. That gun is also single action, meaning that the gun had to be cocked before the trigger could be pulled. Therefore Mr. Baldwin, who was apparently brandishing the gun in a cross-draw rig, had to reach across his body, draw the firearm, cock the hammer and pull the trigger for the gun to fire. In other words, the gun did not malfunction or misfire at all. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. Mr. Baldwin, however, did not. He was rehearsing a scene in which he did this while facing the camera, putting the camera crew, in this case the director Joel Souza, who was grazed in the shoulder, and cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was struck in the abdomen and killed, in the line of fire. Do we really have to go over gun safety again? Apparently we should when liberals are involved. Listen up: Always treat every gun as if it were loaded.Always point the gun in a safe direction. Always keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot. And that’s the dumbed down simplistic version so you nitwits can understand it. So perhaps Mr. Baldwin and the rest of these Hollywood idiots should renew their NRA memberships and take a gun safety class. Oh right, these are the same idiots that condemn the NRA for lobbying for the gun rights of Americans and accuse them of putting assault weapons into the hands of children when in truth, the NRA is the foremost authority on firearms and firearms training. And in an example of typical Hollywood posturing, other production companies, most notably ABC’s “The Rookie”, have announced that they will no longer use real firearms on their sets, and a petition is circulating that already has 25000 signatures asking for “Halyna’s Law” to ban real guns from sets. Never let a crisis go to waste. I can’t wait for the next John Wick film where Keanu Reeves points hisorange nerf gun at the bad guy and shouts “bang!” Won’t that be exciting. Rather than ban real guns from the set, how about we ban incompetence. And Hollywood’s hypocritical spin culture.
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