Alec Baldwin Prop Firearm Movie Set
The Santa Fe County Sheriff's Officers respond to the scene of a fatal accidental shooting at a Bonanza Creek Ranch movie set near Santa Fe, N.M. Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021. Authorities say a woman has been killed and a man injured Thursday after they were shot by a prop firearm at a movie set outside Santa Fe. The Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office says a 42-year-old woman was airlifted to a hospital, where she died, while a 42-year-old man was getting emergency care at another hospital. (Luis Sanchez-Saturno/Santa Fe New Mexican via AP)

On the set of Alec Baldwin’s Western movie Rust, the volatile actor has reportedly killed a 42-year-old woman and wounded other person with a “prop” gun that was loaded “with blanks” “misfired.”

Personally, I’ve never seen a prop gun that could fire real ammunition.  Frankly, many of them don’t fire at all.  And others only fire blanks.  This keeps the paperwork down for the production staff and increases safety.  It also allows actors who are prohibited persons to legally handle these non-firearms on set.

In this case, something went terribly amiss if someone died and a second person was seriously wounded.

According to the AP . . .

Actor Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun on a movie set and killed the cinematographer, authorities said. The director of the Western being filmed was wounded, and authorities are investigating what happened.

Halyna Hutchins, cinematographer on the movie “Rust,” and director Joel Souza were shot Thursday on the rustic film set in the desert on the southern outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico, according to County Sheriff’s officials.

A spokesperson for Baldwin said there was an accident on the set involving the misfire of a prop gun with blanks, though a charge without a metal projectile is unlikely to kill at a moderate distance. Sheriff’s spokesman Juan Rios said detectives were investigating how and what type of projectile was discharged.

Not long after, the UK Daily Mail reported additional details:

Alec Baldwin was pictured weeping and doubled over with grief after he accidentally killed the cinematography director of his upcoming western movie Rust and wounded the director while firing a prop gun on set. 

The 68-year-old was filming a scene for the movie at Bonanza Creek Ranch, near the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, when the gun went off around 1.50pm, fatally wounding 42-year-old photography director Halyna Hutchins and leaving writer-director Joel Souza, 48, injured.

Hutchins – believed to be a married mother-of-one – was rushed to the University of New Mexico Hospital in an air ambulance but was pronounced dead a short time after, while Souza was taken by ambulance to the Christus St Vincent Regional Medical Center. He has since been released, though his exact condition is unclear.

Meanwhile Baldwin was taken to a Santa Fe detectives’ office to be questioned about the shooting. He was not arrested and was later released without charge – though investigations are ongoing.

He was pictured outside the sheriff’s office by the New Mexican: Bent over double near the curb with grief, and tearfully speaking to someone on the phone.

Obviously we will follow the story for additional details and if criminal charges are lodged against the actor. It will be interesting to learn how a supposed prop gun loaded with blanks killed one person and wounded another.

Hollywood has a history of “accidents” with prop guns causing serious injury and even death. While fooling around on a set, John Eric Hexum intentionally shot himself with a .44 Magnum blank in 1984. The blank fractured his skull and sending a bone fragment into his brain causing hemorrhaging. Eventually, he died.

And as the AP recalls . . .

In 1993, Brandon Lee, 28, son of the late martial-arts star Bruce Lee, died after being hit by a .44-caliber slug while filming a death scene for the movie “The Crow.” The gun was supposed to have fired a blank, but an autopsy turned up a bullet lodged near his spine.

Watch this space for additional information as it becomes available.

153 COMMENTS

    • A horrible accident occurred. One person is dead, another injured, and several will have to live with the trauma. It’s time to be selective with the jokes.

      Due to the loose and often error-filled style of journalism that pervades media these days, I have to wonder what the “prop gun” was. I’m not familiar with NM state law, but I’m certain (as I live next door to Hollywood and have actors as personal friends) that the set crew were still operating under union regulations. Meaning there had to have been an Armorer on site to certify all “props” as not being loaded with projectiles. There are checks, double-checks, and all that.

      The report doesn’t state the type of gun or how it was prepared, but I’ll be interested to know the eventual details if available.

      To clarify: A “prop” gun is permanently disabled against the ability to fire live ammunition or projectiles. A “blank firing” gun is still a fully operational gun. Not sure if Mr. Baldwin had the latter in his hand.

      • Prop or no prop if the weapon is going to be used as real and especially used by a known drama king like Alec Baldwin you need to call “Time Out” and You Need To Verify the weapon/prop will do no harm…Because a proven azzhat like Alex Baldwin will not in a million years do that for you or anyone else.

        • as mentioned, SOMEONE had the responsibility to check recheck nd verify that the thing thatlooks like a gun could not FUNCTIOIN as a gun. WHO is htat somebody, and how did he fail? I can see Baldwin not takting time to very himself.. something nearly every gun owner I know would certainly do. Hah, i[ve been at the gun counter in sa store, been handed a weapon from the shelf or case, and I will clear and safe it mysel,f no matter hat the store guy did/did not do. Because I know that if anything wierd or deadly happens whilst the thing is in MY hand, I am the ONLY ONE resposnible. Trust but verify, someone famously said some time back. I trust the thning is safe’clear, but I WILL verify EVERY TIME.
          Obviously this did NOT hppen in this instance.

          Somehow the source of the live rounds will be estalbished. The chain of custodyof that prop gun will be reviewed. The source of the live rounds will be identified, and its chain of custody be traced. HOW did that live round get into the gin? That will make a big difference to the outcome of this case.

      • Accident? Only in the minds of those too undisciplined to treat every firearm as real and loaded.
        On a movie set every person who handles a firearm, prop or whatever, should handle it just the way some kids doing a movie for a class did: they were using Airsoft guns, but despite that every time a gun switched hands the person receiving it checked to make sure it wasn’t a real gun. And that wasn’t because of any special rule, it was the way those kids were raised: if it looks real, you check it, even if you’re sure it’s an imitation.
        In this case the person in charge of props was negligent, Baldwin was negligent, and anyone else who handled the gun between those two was negligent — and someone should be charged with negligent homicide. Everyone involved is probably anti-gun, and they need to get the lesson that every gun owner should know: you screw up, you pay the penalty.

    • Are anti-gunners like Alec Baldwin willing to murder someone in, “an accident”, in order to get gun control passed??? Sound crazy?
      Well that was the plan when Obama and Eric Holder did making sure guns were sent to Mexican criminals.

      There have been crazy people who have shot or stabbed themselves. And then blame a person they hate for attacking them.

      • A person I spoke with this morning mentioned that very concept. He remarked on the parkland shooter pleading guilty, and said all these school shootings suddenly after Biden is in office and gun-control is being pushed harder than ever makes it seem like some big plan by gun-control interests.

        Would gun-control interests find some mentally unstable person and mold them into a school shooter as a means to shock the public to rally them to support their gun control and second amendment rights removal agenda?’

        I’m not a conspiracy type person. But a similar concept has been tried before.

        However, I don’t think Alec Baldwin would do that. His anti-gun is only anti-gun if he gets paid so he doesn’t really have that much of an emotional stake in it to go that far.

        • This was the stated of goal of the mass shooter in New Zealand. And he was successful in having the gun laws made more restrictive in that country.

      • the victim previously was an investigative reporter, covering corruption issues in Russia and the Ukraine…now, her previous expose’ work is being scrubbed from the internet, within HOURS of her death under strange circumstances. GO FIGURE.

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    • It was a “prop” gun, so totally not realz. You get to point it at people & pull the trigger whenever you want.
      Plus Alec Baldwin is pro-womynz.

      • But he’s Anti Gun isn’t he? Never trust an anti gunner with a gun. FWIW I am not so sure that guns used in traditional Western movies are “prop guns”. In many western movies the guns have been real revolvers and lever action rifles. maybe not period correct to time period of the movie per se, but real nonetheless. To fire a blank cartridge the firing mechanism and firing pin would still be in place. Thus still making it possible to fire live ammo. Watch an old John Wayne movie, The Rifleman etc.

        • I maintain that revolvers may be pointed at any person, anytime, anywhere, for any reason with ZERO caution, whatsoever.
          It wuz teh gunz fault.

        • I was once shown a rifle that had been modified to only be able to shoot blanks: the blanks for that rifle were significantly shorter than live rounds, and a gunsmith had made some modification so the longer, real rounds couldn’t be fitted in. At this point I wish I’d paid more attention to what that modification was!

    • “misfire” was the reasoning until Baldwin asked “Couldn’t we just put a throw down in her hand?”

      Its a sad thing, sorry it happened, but seriously I have no pity for Baldwin here. The man has lived a life of excesses, wealth, fame, been able to basically have what he wanted when he wanted it unlike over 80% of people in the country, and then he try’s to remove 2A rights via his anti-gun activities while he makes money from it while trying to ensure that we can’t protect ourselves as he uses his money to hire private security for his protection.

  1. “However one dead and second person shot with a prop gun requires a willing suspension of disbelief.“

    Not really. A lever action in 45/70 could easily mortally wound one person and still have enough energy to do for another. The main question will be “how did a live cartridge make it onto the set”.

    Discreetly placing a live weapon in the hands of an actor to kill someone you know will be in their immediate line of fire would certainly be a creative method of getting rid of someone you didn’t like.

    • I think they key word is “prop” gun. There are lots of real guns that could harm two people with a single shot. The whole point of a prop gun is that it is either completely inert or fires low-energy blanks. Though I’m not an expert, my understanding is that prop guns are usually modified so that live rounds cannot be fired from them, for example by modifying the chamber diameter or headspace so live rounds won’t chamber.

      Maybe a live round made its way into a prop gun that was capable of firing it. I think it’s more likely that the prop gun had a barrel obstruction, and a blank round managed to fire a projectile at close range and with no real accuracy into the two victims. Or perhaps the prop firearm was previously damaged in some way, and came apart while firing. Though it’s tempting to criticize Baldwin for unsafe gun-handling, on a film set, prop guns will often be pointed in ways that would never be the case with a real firearm, including at other actors in a scene, and at the camera and crew. Usually, someone is responsible for checking prop firearms to ensure they are safe to use before a scene – there will be blame to go around.

      I feel genuinely bad for the victims, Baldwin, and the rest of the film crew. This is a terrible tragedy, made all the worse because it was probably preventable.

      • It’s not a hard and fast rule, but it’s a good practice to “cheat” pointing blank-firing guns so they’re not pointing at someone directly, but appear so from the camera angle.

        This is why so many productions are moving to non-firing guns. Most movies CGI in muzzle blast anyhow, so the only reason to bother with blanks is realism for the actors.

        • Agreed. One good argument for using a blank-firing gun is that it can impart recoil, even if visual muzzle flash is added with VFX later. This is a lot more realistic than asking actors to pantomime recoil.

          Having a little bit of film production experience back in the day, my preference on a set would be to use inert guns in all scenes where firing was not needed. In scenes where guns were to be fired, I would want prop guns treated like real guns, i.e. following the four rules. If a specific shot required these rules to be violated, which can sometimes happen, all prop guns would be thoroughly checked by someone qualified before being handed to an actor. I’d want actors trained to always check the weapons for themselves as well.

          I’ve worked with people who were WAY more casual than they should have been about this kind of thing, up to and including using real (unloaded) firearms as props without any training for actors whatsoever and with no control over live ammunition on set. Literally just, “here’s a Glock from my personal collection; point it at that guy and pretend to be a cop.”

          I wasn’t a gun owner back then, and too young to know any better; now, I would pitch an absolute fit if I saw what I saw back then on the particular shoot I’m thinking of.

      • ‘I think it’s more likely that the prop gun had a barrel obstruction, and a blank round managed to fire a projectile…’

        This is what happened to Brandon Lee during the filming of The Crow. They had close up shots of a .44 magnum revolver that needed to appear loaded. Blanks would have been obvious. So someone removed the powder from live ammunition but failed to remove the primers. Someone then pulled the trigger and the primer had enough energy to lodge the bullet in the barrel. When a blank was fired it sent the bullet out the barrel with plenty of energy to kill someone. Probably effectively a .44 special.

        • This is the gist of what I heard. I worked for a company that sold both replicas and blank firing pistols for stage and theater companies and management let me know that it was a revolver that used both dummy rounds and blanks for obvious reasons. The projectile and been dislodged from the shell into the barrel before a blank was inserted and discharged without the revolver being inspected. If a western was being filmed, likely the same event occurred. I used to own a blank firing PPK and those blanks were powerful.

        • I would assume that the .44 magnum blanks were pretty potent, but with the bullet lodged in the barrel the charge wouldn’t be anywhere near magnum force, having vented through the cylinder gap before it could even begin to push the bullet. However I could easily see it still having enough force to be on the level of a .44 special. According to the Son of Sam, that’s still a highly lethal round.

      • You are mistaken most “prop guns” are real (see the article referenced below). My solution is that there should be no live ammunition on set in the calibers of the props. In other words no way to load live ammo into the props. For example, in a western is particularly easy to have security armed with 9 mm, 40 S&W, or 308 that will not fit into the 45 Colt revolvers and lever actions typically used in westerns, although they are not strictly historically accurate.

        There are legitimate reasons for security, both critter and human, to have live ammo, but care should be exercised to not confuse security ammo with blanks. Keep in mind that it is possible to be seriously injured or killed by wadding or unburned powder expelled by blanks too.

        Prop guns are an interesting story unto themselves. To read a really fascinating article google (or Duck Duck): Hollywood Reporter: “The Gun Industry’s Lucrative Relationship with Hollywood.” Highly recommended!

        • “My solution is that there should be no live ammunition on set…”

          My solution is, Alec Baldwin should have been in prison for the last 20 years.

          This young woman might otherwise still be alive today.

        • Very interesting article, thanks for sharing! My takeaway was that many prop guns start out as fully functional firearms, but are milled, modified, etc. to make them blank shooting only. Some are probably not modified for various reasons, while others were never real guns to begin with. It’s a pretty interesting facet of the firearms world, especially so in heavily 2A infringed CA.

          The latest news on the Baldwin shooting is that the gun was, in fact, a real firearm in which a live cartridge had been loaded. How that happens on an A-list film set is quite beyond me. Will be interesting to truth from speculation and learn what actually happened when the dust settles a little.

  2. At first, I wondered how a cinematographer was shot instead of another actor in a scene. Then I realized there are plenty of scenes where the camera angle is staring right down the barrel of a gun.

    The interesting thing is that Hollywood can get just about any kind of real guns, but the general citizenry of California can’t. Exemptions are written into almost every piece of gun legislation by their lefty cronies in the Capitol. I suppose that’s because they are so much better at handling them, and have a higher purpose than the rest of us. Just sayin’

    It’s a tragedy that someone on the set didn’t do their job properly.

    • They were “cheat pointing”. That’s where the actor points the gun somewhere else other than at the other actor or thing and the camera angle takes care of making it look like it was pointed at the other actor or thing.

      From what I understand so far, she was very close to the area where the scene was being shot trying to take a picture. Not sure where the other guy was. But with the “cheat pointing” it was probably actually pointed at them and not the other actor/thing.

  3. My predictions: Alec Baldwin will quickly become a hero within the gun control movement. This tragedy will be used to further infringe upon the second amendment rights of we the people with the ultimate goal of complete gun prohibition by civilians. There will be movies made about this tragedy blaming the gun of course . A bunch of work retards (a.k.a. actors) will make proclamations that they will never use a gun in their acting career ever again because they are morally superior to the rest of us dweebs. The name of the person killed in this tragedy will quickly be forgotten, but then again what do I know.

    • You are probably on to something with this, but I daresay the actors who vow never to make a movie with guns again will change their tune when the money looks good enough. They always do.

      • Matt Damon comes to mind. While he has never vowed to make movies without firearms he has made some pretty strong anti 2A statements while making movies with lots of firearms in them. And every once in a great while he gets called out on his hypocrisy by the media.

    • I have to agree with you. He has been an a** to many conservatives over the years. In all that time he has never fired a gun or heard of the 4 Rules?
      Rule 1 – ALL GUNS ARE LOADED
      2- ALWAYS POINT IN A SAFE DIRECTION
      3- FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER
      4- MAKE SURE OF YOUR TARGET.

      HE WILL BLAME IT ON THE PISTOL. AFTER ALL, IT COULDN’T BE HIM!!!!

  4. I can already tell you three things in the article are false, just by reading it:

    1- It wasn’t a prop gun, it was a real gun used as a prop.

    2- It wasn’t loaded with blanks.

    3- It didn’t misfire.

    • DaveL,

      You may very well be correct.

      A firearm shooting blanks can readily kill someone if the muzzle is almost touching that person at a vulnerable location.

      What is really hard to explain is why someone (allegedly Alec Baldwin) would have been holding a firearm with the muzzle nearly touching a film director AND pulled the trigger.

      And next to impossible to explain is how that single shot would have killed the film director AND injured another person. Or, if that did not happen, equally next-to-impossible to explain is how someone (allegedly Alec Baldwin) would have then fired a second time and injured the second person.

      I think the only plausible explanation is that the firearm in question had real cartridges with bullets and a single shot/bullet imparted a fatal wound to the film director and then continued its trajectory to the second person wounding him as well. Whether or not that was actually a prop gun is another matter entirely.

      • If it can fire live ammunition, to my mind it isn’t a “prop gun”, the fact it’s used as a prop notwithstanding.

        • Note to self: if it’s a ‘prop gun’, you have plausible deniability.

          (Probably shouldn’t have posted that on the inter-tubes)

  5. Looks like he had to brake all 4 rules of gun safety in order for this to have happened… 😮
    But like most anti-gunners, he’s surely oblivious to any laws or rules portraying to firearms.

  6. Considering he got two people, both “admins” for the movie, makes me thing he was jackassing around and pointed and fired the “prop” gun at them as a “joke”.

  7. The “victims” will quickly be forgotten while bada** Baldwin will be pitied and protected while simultaneously demonizing the guns they all seem to love waving around wasting countless people. Condolences to the victims, welcome to the real world a-hole!!

  8. One person being shot, maybe something was crammed in the barrel that was propelled when the blank round was fired.

    But two people by the same gun?

    Either they were close enough for any blank wadding to hit them, maybe two feet at most, or there were live rounds in the gun.

    people have been killed from being hit with the wadding from a blank round.

  9. That is the reason why at home, when we train with laser cartridges, I have my kids apply all the rules we follow at the range using real ammo.
    They only asked once why. Explained that, no need to repeat anymore.
    You never know…

  10. Gun rule #1: Absolutely NEVER, under any conditions, examine the firearm you’re handling before you point it a someone and pull the trigger.

    It’s just common sense.

    • Good call. He will now have the ultimate credibility iheeyes of gun grabbers…he will come out strong(er) against 2nd ammendment right.

  11. If he did it on purpose which I doubt ( even though he is a flaming asshole ) I would be amazed if someone thought they could get away with it.

    “Prop guns” are not supposed to be able to fire “live” ammo. In fact live ammo should never ever be on a movie set for any reason.

    This is F’ed up beyond all reason. Pure Evil.

  12. I will be waiting for the bumper stickers that said “my guns have killed less people than Alec Baldwin”. Typically I wouldn’t joke about something like this but the guy is a monster and even belittles his own children, so I don’t mind him being knocked down a few pegs. Horrible about the other people involved but if the 4 rules of gun safety were followed we wouldn’t be talking about this now.

  13. 1984 actor John Hexum CBS crime series during filming put a gun to his right temple. “Loaded with blanks” fractured his skull and later died.

    We all know about the negligence of a squib lodged in the barrel and full power blanks hit Brandon in the gut

    How long have Gangster, Black and White Westerns, combat and war movies been around? Not an accident. An anti gun actor using a gun themed movie for a check.

    Someone has some splainin to do.

    • Unlike most of these “comments” I am sympathetic to Alex Baldwin’s plight. I know he didn’t intend to kill this woman. Dumbazz prop master/ hollyweird idiot put a gun in his hands. BTW he’s 63…

      • FWW, how can you be sure he didn’t intend to kill her? Did he tell you?
        He’s a lefty loony, and actions have consequences, manslaughter at minimum.

        • Not Left,

          “… how can you be sure he didn’t intend to kill her?”

          There are plenty of people on the Far Left who are more than willing to sacrifice a few (or even a few million) people in order to usher in their utopia. They embrace the notion that you have to crack a few eggs and scramble them in order to make an outstanding omelet.

          Needless to say, the Far Left can (and probably will) use this tragedy to scream, “See! We told you that firearms are an extreme danger to society! We must eliminate private firearm ownership now!” The real question is whether someone on the Far Left purposely orchestrated this event. Heck, some of the people on the Far Left are so deranged that I can even see that film director volunteering to sacrifice herself for the cause.

          There could be another related angle to this tragedy. I can totally picture some moron saying, “Here is a great idea: we load a prop gun with blanks, we shoot and impart minor injuries to two crew members, then we get boatloads of free publicity AND we can tout how awful and dangerous firearms are to help usher in civilian disarmament!” Of course that moron and his/her accomplices did not realize that blanks can kill someone when the muzzle is nearly in contact with a vulnerable location on the body.

      • I don’t feel sorry for this racist anti-gun bigot. I feel sorry for his victims and their families. He has his armed security guards. But he wants us disarmed. I wonder when Rosie O’Donnell will kill someone on a movie set???

  14. A.Baldwin making a western movie?

    The original title was going to be “Box Office Poison”, but it was ultimately rejected for being TOO OBVIOUS.

    This NEGLIGENT DISCHARGE is probably the ONLY way this movie will get ANY attention.

    Don’t follow the four rules? You own the results!
    No exceptions, even for “artists”. 🙄

  15. Terrorist-actor!!! It is time to end the senseless gun violence in Hollywood! NO MORE GUNS IN MOVIES! Its just common sense gun control. Dems, do what you do, and pass a law banning movies with guns. Money where you mouth is, and all that.

    • “It is time to end the senseless gun violence in Hollywood! NO MORE GUNS IN MOVIES!”

      We better hope that never happens.

      Guns in Hollywood movies are the main reason we still have 2A rights. Every movie showing a good guy with a gun taking out a bad guy with a gun, (or getting the girl) projects a strong message to the kids who watch those movies that guns are cool…

  16. I will throw this out to everyone, the Movie is a Western. How does a single action revolver “Miss-Fire”? How does a lever action rifle “Miss Fire”. Never seen it happen in my lifetime.

    If a prop gun was loaded with blank rounds and an actor was “Screwing Around” or in the case of Alec Baldwin, who has anger issues, a Superiorly Complex and Verbally Abuses his own daughter, perhaps he was upset, took aim and fired, just to scare them or gain attention, etc.

    It is telling the the director was in the line of fire as was the director of photography, who died. These are the people who tell actors what to do and hold them accountable when they are doing a bad job. Hopefully, the crew and everyone on-set will be interviewed and perhaps the Sheriff will be smart enough to grab the Dailies that will reveal the atmosphere on-set prior to the shooting.

    Usually (back in the day) Hollywood would buy and use 5 in 1 blanks which will function in various caliber firearms and were wildly used in Western films of the past. New blanks that I have seen are mostly made of plastic, but the older ones and perhaps others were made of brass. If they were using brass, it is possible that part of the case separated and was expelled from the barrel. It will be interesting to learn what the projectile was that hit the victims.

    On a case like this, which is a Homicide, “Death by the hands of another” it will come down to the actions and intent of the person who pulled the trigger and perhaps the prop master.

    Guess we will see if they do a real investigation?

    • Mauser6863,

      “… in the case of Alec Baldwin, who has anger issues, a Superiorly Complex and Verbally Abuses his own daughter, perhaps he was upset, took aim and fired, just to scare them or gain attention, etc.”

      Sadly, the same thought occurred to me as well. If I can picture anyone “losing their cool” and firing blanks in a prop gun in anger at supporting cast and crew, Alec Baldwin is quite literally at the very top of my list.

      • Or he could have been filming or rehearsing a scene. It’s a big step from being a douche to being a murderer.

        • Governor,

          Does Baldwin fly off the handle with enough intensity to intentionally murder someone? I have no idea. Does he fly off the handle with enough intensity to intentionally frighten/berate someone with a firearm shooting blanks (without realizing that a firearm shooting blanks can be deadly)? I can totally picture that.

          All you have to do is listen to the audio of him berating his 11 year-old daughter–where he allegedly calls her a “rude, thoughtless, little pig”–and you will learn firsthand that he is a giant douchebag.

        • No question he’s a douchebag. But that 11 year old girl is now 25. Anger issues tend to lesson with age for men. I’m guessing they’ve moved on. Could he have done this on purpose? Sure. But the odds of this being an accident are a million times higher and you have nothing but speculation to support your suspicion.

        • Governor,

          Baldwin’s problem goes well beyond mere angry outbursts. He is an incredibly wealthy A-list actor. That almost always means an entitled narcissist who expects, no make that DEMANDS that everyone bow before him. Such an entitled narcissist with fits of rage is totally capable of pointing a prop gun loaded with blanks at supporting cast and crew–and even pulling the trigger if he/she is unaware that blanks can kill under the right circumstances.

          In support of this concept of an entitled narcissist wealthy A-list actor who is a “seething cauldron of rage ready to blow-up at the slightest provocation”, reference the recent Tom Cruise tie-raid while filming Mission: Impossible 7. Anyone who loses control like that and thinks that it is okay to berate and belittle people like that is capable of physical acts as well.

        • It’s not what’s possible but what’s likely. In the likely event that Baldwin was handed an unsafe weapon by a props guy and other than perhaps not knowing enough about firearms to confirm for himself that the weapon was(n’t) safe, if he was not at fault, then trashing him with wild speculation turns him from asshole to martyr. The left can use this type of slander to paint gun owning conservatives as genuinely bad people, and why not, right leaning publications frequently publish the rotten Tweets the left posts.

          There’s an ongoing investigation by the local sheriffs department that will have answers soon enough. Until then the man, asshole that he may be, deserves the presumption of innocence.

        • “…. It’s a big step from being a douche to being a murderer.” 🤣

          🎉🎊🏆🎊🎉

          🥇Post of the day right there! 👍

          On topic, will SNL be doing a funny skit tomorrow night on this incident? 🤔

          They could get 45 to play Alec B.

      • 100% on the “anger issues” tip.

        This is the same Alec Baldwin who was caught on video threatening to “curb stop” a total stranger over a parking space in “laid back” Soho NY.🤪

        What sane person would put a firearm in his hand? Even a blank gun. 🤔

    • ‘How does a single action revolver “Miss-Fire”?’

      Maybe nobody told him to load one, skip one, load 4?

    • “How does a single action revolver “Miss-Fire”? How does a lever action rifle “Miss Fire”. Never seen it happen in my lifetime.”

      Google “Brandon Lee” and read how he was killed. That’s how it can happen…

  17. He’s a narcissist with rage issues. Wouldn’t surprise me if he made passes she rebuffed and he did this intentionally.

  18. Anti-gunners are very dangerous people. They always have been. They are proud of being ignorant about guns. But by our constitution they have a right to have Arms. And they go out of their way to make sure the civilian population is kept ignorant about history, guns, knives, etc, and their right to keep them, and travel where they please with them.

  19. The working definition of “acting” is, ‘successfully portraying something other than yourself’.

    So is Alec Baldwin an actual murderer, or is it just “art”?

  20. This is what happens when liberals who know nothing about gun safety handle firearms.

    1). The prop maser obviously didn’t know a blank from a wad cutter. 2). The armorer was absolutely negligent 3). Baldwin himself knew nothing about gun safety or he would not have pointed any firearm at another human being he did not intend to kill. 4). The cinematographer and director did not know, that under no circumstances do you ever place yourself in the path of a weapon being discharged (the director was obviously standing directly behind the cinematographer directly in the line of fire).

        • We have to assume a bunch of stuff to answer that question, but even assuming that the gun was loaded with real bullets, Baldwin had no reason to believe it was. The gun was handed to him by an armorer who was responsible for loading the pistol. As Alec said, no one had ever handed him a hot gun before, from which we can imply that he believed the gun was loaded with blanks. For him to be guilty of negligent homicide, he would have had to have known or should have known that the gun was loaded with live ammo.

  21. oh he better be on his way to jail for this, if not I want to see them protest and burn this whole country down.

    he will probably just get another oscar

  22. What a shame. Halyna Hutchins was hot.

    I can not understand why anyone would be stupid enough to employ a real gun that is capable of firing live ammo as a prop. Then again, Baldwin is a screaming liberal who favors gun control.

    • The Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns we shot with replica revolvers made by Uberti. They were real. If you use freeze frame in the final gun battle in The Good the Bad and The Ugly, you can see that the Remington used by Lee Van Cleef has no primers on the nipples as a safety measure.

  23. Way I see it, either the shooting was on camera (during shooting the crimp shrapnel/wadding/etc. of a blank became a deadly projectile), Baldwin did something he knew full well he wasn’t supposed to do, and/or the two struck parties did something they knew full well they weren’t supposed to do.

    if the “”How about I just ******’ shoot the both of ya” line is true, it sounds like the second: Baldwin, despite having gotten the safety brief and likely fruit demonstration, intentionally fired a (?) blank at a person. That would (in the opinion of this non lawyer) make this a criminal act: He purposefully did something he was clearly told and shown was extremely dangerous and did it toward another person.

    • “if the “”How about I just ******’ shoot the both of ya” line is true”

      it’s not, it’s a lie that people can’t help from spreading and making the whole thing seem less believable.

      Stop spreading crap you see on boomer facebook, everyone.

  24. Those of us even moderately familiar with firearms know there are only four rules to follow in order to ensure nothing like this happens. You have to break two of those rules to hurt someone. We are angry and horrified that this happens over and over again in the movie industry. Especially when so many people in the industry constantly vilify and demonize gun owners. And Alec Baldwin in particular is one of them.

  25. Let the madness begin! This from a “blue-check” beyotch on Twatter (sic):

    “Might the prop gun have been secretly loaded with real bullets by a Trump supporter, to punish Alec Baldwin for his Trump parodies? Should be a line of inquiry.”

    Bhahahahahahahahah! I’m dyin’ here!

  26. First…RIP to the deceased…best wishes for a full/fast recovery for the wounded.
    Still technically a homicide…even if accidental.
    Will this be counted in the “gun violence” tally as well? A gun was involved.

  27. Yahoo Home
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    USA TODAY
    Alec Baldwin discharged prop gun containing a ‘live single round’ in fatal ‘Rust’ set incident, reports
    Charles Trepany, USA TODAY
    Fri, October 22, 2021, 8:49 AM
    Alec Baldwin discharged a prop firearm on the set of the upcoming film “Rust” on Thursday, killing the cinematographer and injuring the film’s director in an on-set incident, authorities say.

    A helicopter transported cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, to the University of New Mexico Hospital, where she was pronounced dead by medical personnel, according to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office. The director, 48-year-old Joel Souza, was transported via ambulance to Christus St. Vincent’s hospital and has since been released, according to his rep Matt DelPiano.

    Variety and IndieWire report that an email sent from IATSE Local 44 to its members confirms that the prop gun was loaded with “a live single” round.

  28. Knowledgeable actors will be sure to aim off to one side when using props, from the camera’s viewpoint it still looks like the gun is being pointed at a person.

  29. The article says “the gun went off around 1.50pm”.
    Bad gun! Naughty gun!
    Someone should teach these guns to behave themselves so they don’t just “go off” by themselves without permission when left on their own.

    Why was Alec Baldwin aiming a gun at a cinematographer, whether it was a “prop gun” or a real gun? Even blanks can kill at close range.
    Why was he aiming a gun at anyone unless the movie script called for it? (I seriously doubt that the movie script told him to shoot the cinematographer).

    Why isn’t he in jail for manslaughter, or at the very least, reckless endangerment? If you or I did an accidental shooting that killed someone, we’d be arrested for damn sure. Why do movie stars get special treatment from the police when they kill someone? If you or I “accidentally” shot and killed someone, we’d be arrested for murder or manslaughter, and maybe with a good lawyer would be able to plea-bargain it down to reckless endangerment, but with Alec Baldwin, “no charges were filed” — why the hell not? Rich, white, old, liberal Hollywood dudes get a free pass, apparently.

    This isn’t surprising, with the careless way actors handle guns. I’ve frequently seen movie actors muzzle their partners or even little kids in movies and TV. I was watching the Liam Neeson movie “The Marskman” (don’t bother watching, it’s a lousy movie), and he muzzled the little boy he was trying to protect, waving his gun around like it was a banana. Later, Liam Neeson aimed his scoped rifle for a long-distance sniper shot at the bad guys, but not only did he have both eyes open while shooting, but the scope was right up against his nose when he pulled the trigger — not his eye, his nose!!! — so unless he has eyeballs in his nostrils, there’s no way he would have hit anything, and the rifle’s recoil would’ve given himself “scope-nose” rather than scope-eye, would’ve given him a nosebleed! But of course the movie rifle had no recoil, as it was an actual prop gun (not the kind that just “went off” and shot Alec Baldwin’s cinematographer, all by itself). It was the worst Liam Neeson movie I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying a lot.

  30. Why is live ammo on any movie set??? I don’t know about Baldwin’s film. But I know there was live ammunition on the set of “The Crow”. Brandon Lee was shot by a live round. Not a blank at close range.

  31. If the shooter were anyone other than a liberal Hollywood celebrity, the news media would call this “another senseless act of gun violence” and “a mass shooting, with one dead and one seriously injured.” But it was Alec Baldwin, so they won’t call it a “mass shooting” or “gun violence.”

    The MSM are hypocrites, so don’t hold your breath waiting for them to call this “another senseless act of gun violence by a liberal Hollywood celebrity” or “a mass shooting by Alec Baldwin, with one dead and one seriously injured.”

  32. LA Times
    Alec Baldwin ‘Rust’ camera crew walked off the set in protest before the fatal shooting
    Meg James
    Fri, October 22, 2021, 12:34 PM

    Hours before actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot a cinematographer on the New Mexico set of “Rust” with a prop gun, a half-dozen camera crew workers walked off the set to protest working conditions.

    The camera operators and their assistants were frustrated by the conditions surrounding the low-budget film, including complaints of long hours and pay, according to three people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment.

    The camera crew showed up for work as expected at 6:30 a.m. Thursday and began gathering up their gear and personal belongings to leave, one knowledgeable crew member told the Los Angeles Times.

    Labor trouble had been brewing for days on the dusty set at the Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe.

    Shooting began on Oct. 6 and members of the production said they had been promised the production would pay for their hotel rooms in Santa Fe.

    But after filming began, the crews were told they instead would be required to make the 50-mile drive from Albuquerque each day, rather than stay overnight in nearby Santa Fe.

    The cinematographer who was accidentally killed, Halyna Hutchins, had been advocating for safer conditions for her team, said one crew member who was on the set.

    As the camera crew — members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees — spent about an hour assembling their gear at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, several nonunion crew members showed up to replace them, the knowledgeable person said.

    A member of the producer staff then ordered the union members to leave the set. She said if they didn’t leave, the producers would call security to remove them.

    “Corners were being cut — and they brought in nonunion people so they could continue shooting,” the knowledgeable person said.

    There were two misfires on the prop gun on Saturday and one the previous week, the person said, adding “there was a serious lack of safety meetings on this set.”

    A representative for the production company did not immediately comment.

    “The entire cast and crew has been absolutely devastated by today’s tragedy, and we send our deepest condolences to Halyna’s family and loved ones,” the spokesperson for Rust Movie Productions said in a statement Thursday.

    The shooting occurred about six hours after the union camera crew left.

    Baldwin, the film’s star who also served as a producer on the film, was apparently rehearsing a scene outside the church of the Bonzana Creek Ranch set, according to two knowledgeable people.

    The scene involved a gun fight that began in the church, and then Baldwin’s character was supposed to back out of the church, according to production notes obtained by The Times. It was the 12th day of a 21-day shoot.

    The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were dispatched to the Bonanza Creek Ranch movie set, where filming was underway for the western “Rust,” after calls to 911 at 1:50 p.m. Baldwin was starring in the movie in addition to serving as one of the producers.

    No charges have been filed, but the Sheriff’s Office said that “witnesses continue to be interviewed by detectives.”

    Baldwin said Friday he’s “fully cooperating with the police investigation” into the incident.

    “There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours,” Baldwin wrote Friday in a series of tweets.

    Production has been halted on the low-budget movie, which began filming this month.

    In an email to its members, Local 44 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, a union that represents prop masters, said the shot that killed Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza on Thursday was “a live single round.”

    “As many of us have already heard, there was an accidental weapons discharge on a production titled Rust being filmed in New Mexico,” said the North Hollywood-based local. “A live single round was accidentally fired on set by the principal actor, hitting both the Director of Photography, Local 600 member Halyna Hutchins, and Director Joel Souza. Both were rushed to the hospital,” the email said.

    A source close to union said Local 44 does not know what projectile was in the gun and clarified that “live” is an industry term that refers to a gun being loaded with some material such as a blank ready for filming.

    Bonanza Creek Ranch has been a popular filming location for more than 60 years. The first movie to film there was “The Man From Laramie,” starring Jimmy Stewart. It also was the set for the classic “Blazing Saddles,” “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” and the popular TV show “Longmire.”

    Staff writers Wendy Lee, Anousha Sakoui and Richard Winton contributed to this report.

    This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Tim

    • And here it is in black-and-white, the production company refused to pay professional IATSE union members and instead, relied on local nonunion labor to save money.

      “As the camera crew — members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees — spent about an hour assembling their gear at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, several nonunion crew members showed up to replace them, the knowledgeable person said.

      A member of the producer staff then ordered the union members to leave the set. She said if they didn’t leave, the producers would call security to remove them.“

      Look for the Union label.

  33. Legal experts say Alec Baldwin likely won’t face murder or manslaughter charges in prop-firearm shooting that left a cinematographer dead
    Kenneth Niemeyer,Ashley Collman,Jacob Shamsian
    Fri, October 22, 2021, 9:06 AM
    Halyna Hutchins Alec Baldwin
    Legal experts told Insider that Alec Baldwin likely won’t face charges in the prop-firearm shooting on the set of “Rust.” Halyna Hutchins/Instagram; Jim Spellman/Getty Images
    Legal experts said Alec Baldwin likely won’t face criminal charges in the “Rust” film-set shooting.

    Baldwin fired a prop gun filled with live ammunition and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

    Experts believed Baldwin wouldn’t face charges if he didn’t know the gun had live ammunition in it.

    Legal experts told Insider that it’s unlikely Alec Baldwin will face criminal charges after he fired a prop-firearm that contained a live round on the set of “Rust” on Thursday, killing the film’s cinematographer and injuring the director.

    Halyna Hutchins, the film’s director of photography, died at the University of New Mexico Hospital on Thursday after the on-set incident.

    Arthur L. Aidala, a managing partner of the New York criminal-defense firm Aidala, Bertuna & Kamins, said he didn’t believe Baldwin would face charges if the actor was unaware that the prop gun had live ammunition in it.

    “Even though we absolutely know who possessed the weapon, who discharged the weapon, and who caused the death of a human being, it would fall under the excusable homicide statute,” Aidala said.

    That’s because New Mexico law has a stipulation called “excusable homicide,” which means that it’s not a crime to kill someone “by accident or misfortune, in doing any lawful act, by lawful means, with usual and ordinary caution and without any unlawful intent.”

    Manslaughter charges possible, but unlikely
    Neama Rahmani, the president and a cofounder of West Coast Trial Lawyers, a personal-injury firm, said that the fact that the prop masters union said the gun was loaded with a live round opened the possibility for manslaughter charges.

    But he added that prosecutors would have to prove that Baldwin or the prop master knew that the gun was loaded with a live round.

    It’s unclear how the live round ended up in the gun, though it’s not the first time a prop-gun accident turned deadly.

    In 1993, part of a live round got lodged in a prop gun and killed actor Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, on the set of “The Crow.” In that case, the district attorney ruled the death an accident due to negligence.

    If a similar situation happened here, Baldwin would not face charges, Rahmani said.

    Ralph Cilento, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, agreed. He said police would have to prove that Baldwin intended to cause someone harm when he discharged the gun and that his intent to cause harm led to someone’s death.

    “The bottom culpable mental state of manslaughter is to intend physical harm, but accidentally cause death,” Cilento said.

    Aidala said, “The absolute worst-case scenario for Mr. Baldwin is that a witness comes forth and says, ‘Yeah, we told him it was loaded with live ammunition because in that particular scene we needed to shoot a hole in the wall, so it was a real bullet.'”

    While Aidala said he “doesn’t see that happening,” he said in that case, Baldwin could face charges of “depraved indifference homicide,” which is “not intending to kill anybody, but committing an act that any reasonable person would know would cause death of another.”

    Criminal charges are still possible if prosecutors can prove that the live round was put in the gun out of “willful ignorance” or “deliberate indifference.”

    Rahmani said an example of deliberate indifference is a person agreeing to transport a suitcase across the border without checking what’s inside. If that suitcase ends up having drugs in it, that person can still be charged because they didn’t even bother to check.

    But Rahmani said these types of prosecutions were rare.

    Future lawsuits
    Simple negligence wouldn’t result in criminal charges, but it could give rise to civil lawsuits, Rahmani said.

    Imran Ansari, who heads civil litigation at Aidala, Bertuna & Kamins, said there was a “very high likelihood” that the case would lead to lawsuits from the victim’s family and the injured director.

    These lawsuits “could focus on Mr. Baldwin himself if he was handling the prop gun in an unsafe manner or negligently,” and they could “focus on the prop master if somehow he didn’t safeguard the gun or keep it in the proper state.”

    Such lawsuits could also extend to the “prop gun manufacturer or the manufacturer of the blanks that were used, if it could be determined that there was some sort of defect in the way the gun or the blanks were manufactured,” Ansari said.

    • “with usual and ordinary caution and without any unlawful intent.” is key here. “usual and ordinary caution” for firearms is actually pretty very well defined and established, and it seems really unlikely Baldwin had never gotten a safety briefing on firearms handling (He has appeared handling firearms in at least 12 separate productions, including 4 separate episodes of a TV show) which would certainly have included the four rules and proper respect for blanks.

  34. Real ammunition in a “prop gun” or any sort of gun on a movie set is no accident. It is negligence, by definition. Who was the armorer? Was that person present on set? If not, why weren’t the firearms locked away? Who loaded the “prop gun”? If not the armorer, then how’d it even get loaded? Did the company even hire an armorer or were they playing it on the cheap and winging it? And why did the safety people allow anyone to be in the line of fire? Even blanks in a gun being fired toward the camera require a shield for the camera man and no one else within twenty feet.

    No, not an accident. Negligence. The questions are toward who and how that person or persons did their job so badly.

  35. Alec Baldwin arrested for first-degree murder and possession of child pornography – media blackout

    https://www.conservativebeaver.com/2021/10/23/alec-baldwin-arrested-for-first-degree-murder-and-possession-of-child-pornography-media-blackout/

    “The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office has arrested Alec Baldwin and charged him with first-degree murder as well as possession of child pornography, and ordered a media blackout that has been approved by a judge. Outlets in the United States are temporarily banned from reporting on Baldwin’s arrest.”

  36. In the first place, why was he pointing the gun at Halyna Hutchins, then pulling the trigger? Most know Baldwin suffers from multiple derangements due to his hatred for others that seek truth.

  37. Now gun and ammo manufacturers can sputter and moan about the loss of business, but after all, we don’t want dangerous weapons in the hands of Hollywood children, now do we..?

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