This is an unspeakable tragedy for everyone involved. I'm at a loss.
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https://variety.com/2021/film/news/alec-baldwin-rust-incident-santa-fe-1235094931
In regard to the tragic death of Halyna Hutchins, I don't need to reiterate to my brothers and sisters in the film industry that no movie is worth dying for. It is our jobs when we ascend to positions of authority to safeguard the people who report to us.
I've been working in the film industry in one capacity or another for nearly two decades. Before then, I was into theater. For a time, I performed in Western gun shows in Arizona.
Needless to say, gun safety was to the first thing that I learned in performing gun shows.
Back in my day at least, kids were under the impression that playing Russian Roulette with a blank wouldn't kill anyone. Before all of our gun shows, we would fire a blank at an aluminum can from six feet away and let everyone see it get blown to pieces. A blank is dangerous. Guns are dangerous. You should treat a gun that you know is unloaded as if it were loaded. You never point a gun at anything unless you mean to destroy it.
It's been, so far as I'm aware, since 1993 when Brandon Lee was killed on The Crow that a person was killed on set by a firearm. Most people seem to know what they're doing. In this case, somebody screwed up royally. It might have been the armour or somebody in the props department or a combination. It wasn't Alec Baldwin.
We have no idea what happened yet except that a safety precaution wasn't taken that should have been. Even if there were no live ammunition close to the set, it can't be stressed enough how important it is to check, clean, and examine every weapon lest some random piece of hard matter be pushed through the barrel by an explosion.
A life was tragically cut short and we are waiting for answers that nobody has at the moment.
Now is the time for tears. Anger may come later.
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