Firearms Safety In The Entertainment Industry

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thanks guys, (gun safety in school responses)

I had some safety when I was in Cadets too (was on the shooting team)

and yes, the world (the US) has changed..
 
Trying to stay as objective as possible,... here is how I think through it:

  1. Movies that show actors shooting guns are obviously depicting firearms practices AND/OR criminal activity that would be considered entirely UNSAFE/ILLEGAL in REAL LIFE. ("Real Life" = outside of the movie set).
  2. Traditional "Real Life" Firearms Safety practices would not allow creating these types of situations for a movie. HOWEVER, the movie storyline requires showing unsafe firearms practices and criminal activity.
  3. THEREFORE, the movie industry created its own set of "Movie" Firearms Safety Practices that are used INSTEAD of the traditional "Real Life" firearms safety practices used by the public. The "Movie" practices should give EQUIVALENT SAFETY to the traditional firearms safety practices we are familiar with.

Unfortunately, seems like the people didn't follow the process. It's not a process design problem - it's a people problem.
 
I've always been skeptical of the accidental shootings on movie sets.
I believe it's somehow not just an accident, and things happen because someone (or group of someones) have designed it that way.
You have to look at the history of guns and shooting being filmed from the very beginning and realize when these things happen.
You would have to think of all them Western movies, where hundreds of people are making a shooting scene.
There were no shooting accidents, but people did get hurt falling from horse back.
When I hear of something like this, I immediately think of Bruce Lee.
I am probably wrong, but wasn't he the first causality on a movie set with a firearm?
The first one I remember of anyway.
What bothers me the most is why there is anything but blanks on site?
I know if I was an actor and was involved with a scene that involved with a firearm...
I would check the gun and the ammo in it as soon as it was handed to me to make sure live ammo wasn't "Mistakenly" loaded!
But then again, who knows if that isn't the case an the gun handling actor didn't load the real ammo in?
I think you are thinking of Bruce Lee’s son Brandon. He was killed while filming a Crow movie.
 
Since 1915 only 4 people have been killed by a bullet on a movie set. One in 1915, Brandon Lee in 1993 and someone on the set of a Mexican movie in 2003, and now the shooting with Alec Baldwin. I dont count the guy in Cover Up. He played Russian Rolette with a gun loaded with a blank and died of stupidity. For the most part thats not a bad record.



https://www.latimes.com/entertainme.../alec-baldwin-prop-gun-accidents-in-movies-tv
 
Sorry manixfan, I thought it said maxifan.
Guess I should put on my glasses :(
You can go back and edit your original post as well. Simple to do. Just click the 'Edit' button at the bottom left of your post and you can change the text. If you're on mobile you may have to tap the '...' next to the Report text in the lower left to see the Edit command.


Tony
 
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Since 1915 only 4 people have been killed by a bullet on a movie set. One in 1915, Brandon Lee in 1993 and someone on the set of a Mexican movie in 2003, and now the shooting with Alec Baldwin. I dont count the guy in Cover Up. He played Russian Rolette with a gun loaded with a blank and died of stupidity. For the most part thats not a bad record.



https://www.latimes.com/entertainme.../alec-baldwin-prop-gun-accidents-in-movies-tv
Wow, so four cast/crew killed in over 100 years of film making? That's an enviable record:

https://www.insider.com/police-wrongly-discharge-their-weapons-more-often-than-you-think-2021-4
"The AP analysis cites at least 21 deaths since 2012 that have resulted from accidental weapon discharge by the police." You can make two arguments from this: if highly trained professionals can't avoid accidental discharges, nobody should be allowed to handle a firearm, it's just too dangerous; or, firearms are dangerous and accidents happen even to the most highly trained individuals.

Clearly, everything that can be done should be done to mitigate any kind of risk from using a firearm on a movie set. Same with stunt falls, car crashes, fight scenes, etc. All carry risk that is part and parcel of making a movie. Accidents happen with tragic results. If things need to be changed because of that to make movies safer, I'm all for it.


Tony
 
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Did anybody look at Dan Millican's video in Michael's post above?
He says that if Baldwin did what the weapons master, the armorer, and the director told him to do then he's blameless.
This from a feature film director who doesn't agree with Baldwin's political stance.
He also says that live rounds should not be present on a movie set, ever.
There were safety complaints against the armorer and the assistant director previously.
There were two accidental discharges in a cabin prior to this, complaints were lodged, no immediate action was taken. Total breakdown in safety protocols.
 
Some of Alec Baldwin's old tweets have certainly not aged well!!!


How do you figure that? He proved

Guns are dangerous
Guns should not be used by people who are not trained to use them
Just because the gun nut who handed it to you tells you it is safe doesnt mean its safe

What didnt age well?
 
At the USAFA we had (previously) operable rifles , I think it was the M1 Garland. I don’t know what they did to it, but even though we could and did field strip it and clean it, they did something that made it non-opearationable.

I don’t know much about blanks, but it seems to me that just about any weapon using bullets or shells can be rendered impossible to fire. Given movie props are presumably NEVER intended to actual LAUNCH a projectile, if we wouldn’t trust 2000 cadets any given year with operable weapons, why trust untrained Hollywood actors and actresses with them?

I heard a story of Harrison Ford during the initial Star Wars movie firing his “blaster”. He said it was weird acting the firing of a laser pistol with no sound, obviously the sound and “Laser beam” was edited in later. Point is, if we can do that with non existing futuristic weapons, we can do it with existing firearms.

I simply see no reason EVER to have useable weapons in ANY situation where you have no intention of actually launching a projectile. Either physically render real weapons “unfireable” or make fake ones. If you can’t use CGI, figure a way to make real or fake weapons belch smoke and make noise WITHOUT any risk of anything solid leaving the barrel and WITHOUT risk of gun exploding. If realism requires bullets in chambers, weld fake bullets in the chambers.

this is the year 2021. This is NOT a difficult problem.

1 rule: no operable fire arms on the set. Period.

I find it sad that the main concern in this thread seems to be “who can we blame?” rather than “how do we keep this rare event from becoming an impossible event?”

you can’t fix stupid. You can reduce the frequency of events for stupidity to occur.

every movie with animals has the line in the credits “no animals were hurt in this movie.”

let’s add a line

“no working fire arms were used in this movie.”
 
This is certainly a tragedy for all involved, but I would bet that something like the "no operable firearms" rule is going to come of it. Gunshots and flashes are trivially easy to add post-prod.
 
And school shootings where ....




(another thread where politics / political sides are starting to show..)
(Another thread where the 2nd amendment .....)
 
This movie scene could have been captured WITHOUT someone BEHIND the camera (and on the business end of a weapon) I personally would'nt care if everyone on the set (including me) checked the weapon 10 times and deemed it safe. My gut would scream BAD IDEA! It's contrary to the most basic Firearms Safety Rules. My sympathies go out to all those who must relive that awful event the rest of their days. So sad.
 
Another update, more fingers pointing at the crew responsible for the firearm.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainme...ust-crew-member-previously-fired-incident.amp
“ The crew member who handed Alec Baldwin a prop gun on the set of "Rust" had been previously fired from a separate project after another incident with a prop firearm.”

"I can confirm that Dave Halls was fired from the set of 'Freedom's Path' in 2019 after a crew member incurred a minor and temporary injury when a gun was unexpectedly discharged," a producer from the film said in a statement.”
 
To me it is not an accidental discharge. It is a negligent discharge. If you don't want it to go bang don't pull the trigger. The number of people we had go thru our range who couldn't keep their finger out of the trigger guard before they were on target was staggering. I would have to physically hold their finger pressed to the slide to keep them from sticking their fingers inside the trigger guard. Even thought I kept repeating do not put your finger on the trigger until I tell you. We had holes in the ceiling, the side barriers, the walls, the floor, just every where. Regular shooters didn't have to have an instructor to use the range and only people you rented guns had to have an instructor. It cut down on suicides. I now know why some instructors wear body armor as I have come close to getting shot by customers more than once. Once I had to go hands on with a guy. He started shooting gangster style with the gun sideways. I told him to stop and set the gun down. Instead he started to turn around with the gun in hand. I tried to stop him verbally and then with my hand on his shoulder. He continued to try to turn which would have swept the muzzle over his friend. I grabbed his right wrist and forced his hand down range and then used an arm bar under his chin and against his throat. The fool was looking at me smiling. We had cameras in the range. So while I was holding the guy thinking what to do next I hear the boss from behind me yelling at the guy to let go of the weapon. The boss had drawn his pistol and was aiming at the guy. He let go. The boss was a former cop.
I learned basic firearm safety in the Boy Scouts. I got a shotgun when I was 13 and my first pistol when I was 16. On opening day of deer season half the school would be missing. I don't remember any other high school kids having accidents hunting. Everyone grew up with guns. Now that most of the population is in an urban setting less people have any knowledge of firearms.
 
I got my first air rifle at 8yo. At 12yo I got a 0.22 semi auto (just a cheap one) for my birthday. I walked to school with the rifle in a bag, got it out and passed it around at show-and-tell and then walked it home at morning recess.

Dad always taught me to check the firearm is not loaded when relevant, and never point it at anything you don't want to kill, regardless if it is loaded or not.
 
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Not buying that, David. One person tragically died on the Rust set last week. I appreciate K'Tesh's words in post 1. I just wonder why I never see similar threads with hundreds of passionate responses here following other incidents involving gun violence.

Obviously things need to change in the industry to prevent any repeats of these tragedies.

Folks need to remember that guns are not toys, and should always be treated as if they could be loaded and capable of harming someone.
 
I just wonder why I never see similar threads with hundreds of passionate responses here following other incidents involving gun violence.
Same answer. People know who is at fault for the other incidents.

If Alec Baldwin brought a real gun to the set that was not supposed to be there, pulled it out, and started firing at the crew, this discussion wouldn't be happening. But there's a lot to debate here about who is ultimately at fault.

So far nobody that I've seen is suggesting anywhere that it's okay to randomly kill other people with guns.
 
One thing I see repeatedly in this thread is the importance of education about gun safety practices. That shows in both the "Baldwin should have checked his gun" comments and the ones like @teepot posted above about experiences with the general public on the gun range. And a side helping of "We were educated in safe gun use early because we all hunted when I was a kid"/"People under 18 are required to take gun safety classes to get a hunting license in this state."
 
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