'Rust' film armorer found guilty in death of cinematographer

It really should not matter whether Actor Alec Baldwin pulled the trigger or not -- but it will, or at least it will depend on whether the jury believes he pulled the trigger.

That will become a key point in his trial because the jury consists of slightly-below-average citizens of the local area. Perhaps as many as half of them will have heard of Cooper's "Four Rules of Gun Safety" while the rest will be completely ignorant of guns and perhaps scared of guns. The first problem is that Cooper's Four Rules do NOT apply to this situation, and the bigger problem is that neither side is going to try to educate the jury about who really is responsible and why.

The proper procedures for handling firearms in a movie, TV show, or other theatrical performance are well established and are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from Cooper's famous Four Rules. But none of those proper procedures were followed by anyone on the set of the movie Rust.

You said that the Actor should have checked the gun, but that is exactly what an Actor is NOT ALLOWED to do if everyone is following proper procedures. Actors are not trained to inspect firearms, most actors are completely ignorant about firearms. The PROPER procedures on a movie set would have required the Armorer to be the one who kept the gun secure, the Armorer would have inspected the gun, the Armorer would have inspected each dummy round, the Armorer would have loaded each dummy round, the Armorer would have personally brought the gun to the Assistant Director for that scene, the Armorer would have shown (not just told) the Assistant Director that each round was a dummy, then the Armorer and the Assistant Director would have taken the gun to the Actor, the Armorer would have again inspected the gun and each dummy round and shown (not just told) the Actor that the gun was "cold". But none of that happened. The Armorer loaded the gun (supposedly with dummy rounds) and left the gun unsecured on a cart with other props for the scene. The Assistant Director got the gun from the cart and gave it to the Actor. The Assistant Director told the Actor that the gun was "cold" (which means either unloaded or loaded with dummy rounds).

The proper procedure is well established within the movie industry and is established to be nearly idiot-proof on the assumption that the Armorer is an expert about guns and that the rest of the cast and crew don't know anything about guns. The proper procedure is also slow and tedious which means that sometimes people take shortcuts.

While everyone is supposed to follow safety procedures all the time, the ultimate authority and responsibility for enforcing safety procedures lies with the Producer. It is the Producer or hires (and fires) every member of the cast and crew. It is the Producer who determines who is where when and who does what. It is the Producer who establishes the schedule, sets the priorities, and has the authority to enforce all the procedures on the entire set, including safety.

People here on RP might recognize the role of the Producer as being similar to the role of a unit commander, being responsible for everything the unit does or fails to do, but on a movie set the Producer is much more powerful than any unit commander, because the Producer is the one who hires and fires everyone in the production, this is something unit commanders can only dream about.

The Armorer works under the Producer. The Armorer is supposed to be responsible for ensuring that the established safety procedures related to weapons are followed. A well-trained, experienced, and confident Armorer would refuse to not follow safety procedures.

In this movie, the Producer chose to hire a young inexperienced Armorer whose only previous experience had been as an Assistant Armorer. We cannot positively know what the Producer was thinking but hiring a young inexperienced individual for her first Armorer job accomplished two things that appear to have been the reasons she was hired: 1) she cost less than a more experienced and better qualified Armorer would have cost; and 2) she was less able to stand up against the Producer in a business where personal reputation is critical. She was a nobody and the Producer was an established power in the industry.

Multiple reports from people involved with the production of Rust show that safety procedures (not just for weapons but overall safety procedures) were regularly bypassed to save time and reduce the number of people needed. (Time and people both equal MONEY in the production of a movie, so any corners that can be cut mean more money for the producer and the financial backers of the film.)

In my opinion, the local prosecutor should have made a plea deal with the Armorer for her testimony against the Producer (perhaps he tried, I don't know)

The problem that the prosecutor faces is that the jury will not understand either the proper procedures for weapons in movies or the responsibilities of the Producer. The jurors will likely focus on who-fired-the-gun rather than understand that firing the gun was not the problem. The Actor who fired the gun made the small mistake of accepting the gun from the Assistant Director without the Armorer being there. Beyond that the Actor did nothing seriously wrong. He as supposed to aim the gun where he did. Whether or not he "pulled the trigger" is immaterial. The Armorer is the one who was responsible for a loaded gun reaching that actor’s hand and the Producer is the one responsible for letting that happen.

This confusion will be compounded by the fact that the Actor and the Producer were both Alec Baldwin. Actor Alec Baldwin didn't kill anyone, but Producer Alec Baldwin certainly did.

MSG Thomas Currie - That was a well written response of the legal liabilities involved in this case. You are correct, there are different rules for the handling of weapons on movie sets, stage plays, etc. than there are for regular gun owners. And if the prosecutor understands this, then the prosecutor can point out every wrong move that was made. BTW, the armorer (Hannah Gutierrez) for the movie set is the daughter of Thiel Reed, a well known stunt man and armorer in Hollywood.

Patricia Overmeyer - Yes, she is his daughter. All her previous jobs as "Assistant Armorer" were on productions where her father was the Armorer. She had been around the business all her life and should have known better, but she would also have known that cutting corners is normal in the movie industry.

We cannot know exactly what was going on in her mind but is seems likely she wanted to get the movie credit to establish herself as a full-fledged armorer not just Her-Daddy's-Little-Girl and lacked the confidence to hold a hard line on how much corner cutting was acceptable when dealing with more experienced and established people like the Producer.

It's easy for the Prosecutor to point out each error that was made and to tie them all directly to the Armorer, but I expect that it will be more difficult to get a jury of random civilians to grasp the degree to which the Producer is responsible for everything that happens or fails to happen on a movie set.