Actor Adam Baldwin, who has handled multiple guns in his roles onscreen, said that Alec Baldwin clearly neglected to check the chamber of his gun on the set of “Rust” before firing a live round that killed a cinematographer and injured a director.
“Why he didn’t check to see if it was cleared?” Adam asked on “The Dana Show.” “That’s, you know, to me, that’s just clear negligence. Everyone that is handling a firearm should know and is trained to check the weapon, clear the weapon, make sure that it’s empty. The barrel, the breech, the magazine, and the cylinder of a revolver in this case.”
Adam said he wasn’t sure if COVID-19 protocols played a role in whether the prop master was “nearby” or not but that it’s clear Alec did not properly check the gun before firing.
Reports indicate that assistant director Dave Halls told Alec the gun was a “cold gun” without any live ammunition in it but when the actor fired it, a real bullet struck two staff on set. Halls was previously fired from a movie set in 2019 after a crew member was injured by a gun.
Adam said it is possible the crew tried to practice with the weapon by shooting live rounds in the New Mexico desert but even then he said “oversight from a professional trainer” is usually required.
“It’s inexcusable that any live ammo would be mixed in with the blanks,” he said. “However, it’s inexcusable not to check and see if your weapon is loaded. … Whoever hands me a weapon, I check it.”
Adam also said that Alec should have known better since he has decades of experience filming on sets with prop guns.
“Alec Baldwin is 63 years old. He’s been doing this for 40 years or more. He’s had a gun in his hand on camera for decades and he would know that protocol had been broken when that gun was handed to him and he didn’t check it himself or whoever was handing it to him didn’t hand it to him opened so that he could see it and so that the people he was aiming at” could see it, Adam said. “It’s common practice to show the people behind the camera if you’re pointing in that direction, ‘see how empty this gun is? It’s completely empty.’”
Adam said he doesn’t know who put a live round in the gun but said the corporate media’s treatment of the armorer seems unjust.
“This armorer in the media is now being crucified and it reminds me of the way they treated Monica Lewinsky. … ‘I did not have manual relations with that weapon.’ It just seems so familiar, there’s some sort of PR firm right behind this that’s spinning it in the media and it’s disgusting,” he said. “It’s horrible that you would give armorers a bad name just because an anti-gun activist is incompetent with a weapon and shoots and kills the cinematographer. It’s a horrible tragedy, I mean, clearly he didn’t do it on purpose, but he did it out of negligence.”
Source: The Federalist
