Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
There is a natural allure to firearms. Guns represent power under control. In responsible hands, firearms can be a great source of recreational enjoyment, security in sketchy spaces, and inimitable peace of mind. In the wrong hands, however, the results can be catastrophic.
Table of contents
Being as dispassionate as I’m able–on Thursday, 21 October 2021, a handgun went off during the filming of the Alec Baldwin Western movie Rust. The cast and crew were rehearsing an upcoming scene inside a chapel used as a set for the film. The weapon was in Baldwin’s hands when it discharged.
The .45-caliber lead bullet struck the director of photography, a Ukrainian-born woman named Halyna Hutchins, in the chest and penetrated through and through. That same round then hit the director, Joel Souza, in the shoulder. Hutchins was airlifted to a nearby trauma center but did not survive. Souza underwent surgery to remove the bullet and recovered. The smoke had barely cleared before the lawsuits began flying.
Frenetic Butt Covering
I read a lot about this horrible incident. All of the major players had agendas. Everyone’s statements, platitudes, and actions seemed founded upon an innate drive to exonerate themselves. Accusations ran the gamut.
There were allegations that the producers, Baldwin among them, had cut both corners and costs to make the movie on the cheap, setting up a toxic environment that allowed the accident to happen. The armorer, a relatively inexperienced young woman named Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was accused of drinking excessively and doing drugs in the evenings between shoots. For his part, Baldwin swore passionately that the gun was defective and fired without his having pulled the trigger.
All that stuff seems suspect in retrospect. As a result, I used the official report from the State of New Mexico Environment Department of the Occupational Health and Safety Bureau as my primary source. I figured if anything might be dispassionate and reliable, that would be it.
Alec Baldwin
Full disclosure, I don’t care much for Alec Baldwin or his politics. I thought he was fine in The Hunt For Red October, but I can’t recall seeing him in anything else that really moved me. Before this event, Baldwin jabbered incessantly about the necessity for ever-greater gun control laws. He also played the recurrent satirical Donald Trump character on Saturday Night Life. Baldwin’s depiction was consistently caustic, angry, and mean. I just never found it funny.
My favorite Alec Baldwin gun control quote was directed against NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch. He said, “And she doesn’t care how many dead bodies she has to step over in that pursuit. The Second Amendment is not a moral credit card that buys you all the guns you want.”
To my knowledge, Dana Loesch never actually shot anybody. Needless to say, that particular platitude did not age well.
Halyna Hutchins
Halyna Hutchins was born on 9 April 1979, in Gorodets, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union. Her dad was an officer in the Soviet Navy. She grew up on military bases and first became interested in film while coming of age in that cold world. She earned a degree in international journalism and helped produce documentary films in Eastern Europe. While traveling in the US, she met Matthew Hutchins. They subsequently married and had a son named Andros.
Halyna made her living for a time as a fashion photographer. Like most folks in her weird business, she worked on a variety of piddly projects before earning her spot in the big time. In 2006, she served as an associate producer on the Discovery Channel documentary World’s Tallest Man about the giant Leonid Stadnyk. She later earned a degree in film production from UCLA as well as a master’s from the American Film Institute Conservatory. Several full-length movies as well as a stint on The Walking Dead later, she found herself the director of photography on Rust.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed is the stepdaughter of esteemed American exhibition shooter, stuntman, and movie armorer, Thell Reed. She grew up around firearms. Rust was her second film as an armorer.
Her first was The Old Way. While filming this picture, several cast members complained about her lack of professionalism around weapons. In one incident, she inadvertently discharged a blank-firing firearm, causing Nicolas Cage to storm off of the set. However, Nic Cage seems a bit unhinged himself. It might not take much to get him to storm off of something.
Fake Ammo, Not Fake Firearms
There were thirteen different live Colt-style revolvers used in the production. They were manufactured by Uberti, Pietta, and Cimarron. The weapon in question was a Pietta 1873 Peacemaker clone in .45 Long Colt. These guns were maintained under the control of the props department. The props department for this production was small. Though there was a definitive chain of command that led up to Baldwin, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed had ultimate responsibility for the weapons.
Blank and dummy rounds came from PDQ Arm and Prop based in Albuquerque. Dummy rounds were supposed to be distinguished by a small hole drilled in the case, a dented primer, or the presence of a BB inside the case that rattled noticeably when shaken. These dummy rounds were used in cartridge belts as well as in the weapons themselves so that bullets would be visible when viewed from the front.
Prior Performance
Before the lethal shooting, there were two negligent discharges on set. In one case, a revolver charged with blanks went off as it was being loaded by Sarah Zachary, the Props Master. Zachary later reported that the hammer slipped from underneath her thumb as she was attempting to decock the gun.
Later that same day, Blake Teixiera, Alec Baldwin’s stunt double, discharged a blank round from a lever-action rifle while purportedly alone. He later said, “It just went off.” Gutierrez-Reed postulated that he had handled the weapon too roughly.
Actors are supposed to undergo training before handling weapons on set. When it was time for Baldwin to get his, he was preoccupied on the phone. As he was the boss, nobody pressed him on the issue.
The Alec Baldwin Shooting
David Halls was the Assistant Director. He had been fired from a previous production, Freedom’s Path, after the unexpected discharge of a firearm on set injured a crew member. On the day of the lethal shooting, Halls handed Baldwin a revolver purportedly loaded with dummy rounds and loudly announced, “Cold Gun!” on the set.
The scene in question involved Baldwin removing the weapon from its holster and pointing it at the camera. The three people behind the computer monitor were roughly two feet from the muzzle of the gun. As the crew maneuvered the camera to remove a shadow, Baldwin said, “So, I guess I’m gonna take this out, pull it, and go, ‘Bang!” He then drew the weapon and discharged it a single time, striking both Hutchins and Souza.
Alec Baldwin, Esteemed Gun Expert
Baldwin later claimed, “The trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them. Never. I have no idea [how a bullet got in there]. Someone put a live bullet in a gun. A bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property.”
Baldwin then speciously explained what fanning a vintage six-gun entailed. He claimed that this could be successfully undertaken without pulling the trigger. However, consider the source…
Anyone who has ever spent any time around single-action revolvers appreciates that the trigger must be held back for the gun to fire even when fanning the hammer. The FBI later did an in-depth assessment of the weapon and found it to be in good working order. They officially announced that the gun would not have fired had the trigger not been pulled.
Fallout
Baldwin visited with Halyna’s husband and 9-year-old son immediately afterward to offer his heartfelt condolences. Then everybody sued everybody. In his first sit-down interview after Halyna’s death, Baldwin explicitly stated that he did not feel guilty about anything. However, there is a fair possibility his lawyers told him to say that.
Lawyers for Gutierrez-Reed released this statement, “Safety is Hannah’s number one priority on set. Ultimately this set would never have been compromised if live ammo were not introduced. Hannah has no idea where the live rounds came from…Hannah still, to this day, has never had an accidental discharge.”
Actions Have Consequences
Whatever. The actual source of the live ammo has, as near as I could ascertain, not been definitively determined. There were rumors that the dummy rounds arrived from the supplier faulty, but PDQ Arm and Prop made a compelling argument that this was not the case. There was even a story that somebody had been out firing live rounds nearby after filming knocked off in the evening, but I could not find any real evidence of that. Of the 500 or so remaining rounds confiscated from the prop department and gun belts on the set, six were found to be live.
Serious Charges After Alec Baldwin Mistake
New Mexico’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau fined the Rust production company $136,793 for a wide variety of safety violations. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was charged with involuntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence for supposedly surreptitiously disposing of her stash of cocaine. She was convicted of the first, acquitted of the second, and subsequently sentenced to 18 months in prison.
READ MORE: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
Alec Baldwin was due to be tried for involuntary manslaughter himself. However, the defense alleged that the prosecution failed to disclose critical information concerning the source of the live ammunition involved in the shooting. The judge agreed and dismissed the charges with prejudice. The prosecutor was livid. That was a controversial decision, to say the least. I suppose it’s good to be king.
At Least the Lawyers Win
Alec Baldwin has killed more people than any law-abiding civilian gun owner I know. As I was researching this piece, I quit counting at nine civil lawsuits. Legendary plaintiff’s attorney Gloria Allred was neck deep in it. These litigations will likely require decades to adjudicate and will undoubtedly result in a great deal of wealth redistribution. We will also probably see a lot more airsoft guns on screens both large and small going forward. However, after all the accusations, recriminations, and questionable claims of innocence, Andros Hutchins still grows up without his mom. That’s obviously the real tragedy here.
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Alec is a disgusting dispicable cognitively challenged imbecilic piece of shit who should be arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to death!
He may have escaped judgment on this earth , but my belief is
he’ll not escape it from the Creator .
I would not like to be in his shoes when that time comes .
That revolver with the originally designed parts cannot be “fanned” without having the trigger pulled back. The hammer has a safety notch that will be caught by the sear if the trigger is in the forward position and the hammer will be stopped before reaching the cartridge
One of the first rules of safely handling a firearm is “Never point a firearm at something you don’t intend to shoot”. Obviously, Baldwin was too busy on his cellphone to attend the gun safety meeting so he didn’t know that.
In my opinion, the trial judge rendered the wrong verdict.
I said he wouldn’t get in trouble since day 1 and the way he got off proves hollywood bought off all parties involved! someone should check for political donations/favors to the prosecution and judge’s coffers. unrelated ammo that was out of state causes an acquittal…..hmm……yea right….
The Hollywood elites like Baldwin would love to take your right of owning a firearm, but they sure love to used them and portray plenty of violence with them. I almost forgot all of the Hollywood elites don’t mind having their security armed and let’s not forget the police to protect them. Most of these actors are a bunch of communists.
Assume all guns are loaded,
No industry safety standards for the handling of firearms while filming movies, not even for the weapons master and probably still won’t be. Look it up, very sketchy safety protocol. Enough said.
Dr D is right the long colt is very lethal, figure 230 grains of soft lead running at 850-900 fps will transfer all that ballistic energy fast. Frankly I’m surprised that it went thru and thru, must have been close.
How come you left off a comment I wrote saying the judge threw out the case because the prosecutor left out critical evidence that would have helped the defense?
Why do your editors omit the crucial information that the judge eventually threw out the case against Alec Baldwin because the prosecutor had purposely withheld evidence that would have helped the defense? Geeze, this couldn’t be because you don’t like the accused!
You mean the insignificant evidence to the case?
If you’re at a party and the host gives you a drink for your wife and your wife dies after drinking it because it was poison were you the one who killed your wife?
No, but if you point a weapon at someone and shoot them, you’re responsible regardless of whether you were told it was loaded or empty. You might also ask what your wife’s drink is if you don’t recognize it.
He can not deny the fact a lethal weapon discharged while in his hand. No one else had control. He killed someone and should be held accountable for his actions. He deserves all the negative karma in his life and should never be apart of any movie with him having to handle a firearm.
Alec Baldwin is a terrible actor and a dispicable disgusting cognitively challenged imbecilic piece of feces who should be arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced for murdering Mrs. Hutchins. The fact that human tird got off scott-free proves our republic is being bought and run by the simple-minded who themselves should be eradicated for abusing oxygen consumption rules.
Well said. Alec Baldwin is a terrible human being.
Isn’t it ‘turd’ not ‘tird’?
If I was an actor, I would check every round on the set myself.
.45 Colt. Not “long colt” although people use that frequentlyYou’re writing about specific technical and legal details so why not use the only official, correct name for the cartridge?
Alec Baldwin..decent actor..horrible human being
A couple of points, at the end of the day Halyna is still dead and as Dr. D observed her son will grow up without her. Even an ‘antiquated’ piece say a Brown Bess musket, can still be lethal in the wrong hands especially if mishandled. Seems to me there was a host of errors made but ultimately violation of several (all?) of the 4 Rules were likely broken. IMHO bald win essentially got away with at the very least negligent homicide, Prove me wrong.
NOTE – I am one of them ‘gun nuts’ who has never killed anyone with a firearm either intentionally or due to negligence.