Monday, November 22, 2021
Should guns be banned from film sets? Professional armorers push back
www.msn.com: After news broke of the Oct. 21 shooting that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza on the set of the western “Rust,” heartbreak rippled through an industry that has long established safeguards designed to prevent this kind of tragedy.
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4 comments:
I think outright banning weapons would probably have unintended consequences as mentioned in the article. I think in a perfect world there is not really a reason to keep guns on sets, but recognizing the impacts a full ban could have, it is probably best to be careful about the restrictions put in place. There should be more regulation around on set armorers and their qualifications for sure. I agree that guns aren’t exactly the problem. In the case of “Rust” the problem was cutting corners and not spending money where it should have been spent. Banning guns would prevent the same type of accident from occurring, but the attitude of hiring inexperienced people would continue and there will just be rigging accidents instead. I think we should be addressing the root problem and placing regulations on who can be hired to do dangerous work like rigging, weaponry supervision, etc…
I agree with Kaylie here that the problem wasn't the guns, its how they were handled when people tried to cut corners. I think taking more regulatory steps is not a bad thing, and truly necessary going forward. But, just like most things, outright banning something can lead to outright dangerous practices. Harsh penalties for not having a certified armorer on set ought to exist, regardless of whether there are union crews. The thing that really gets me is how simple the protocols actually are, and it is easy to feel the frustration of the armorers quoted in the article. The stupidity of having live rounds AT ALL sounds too much like common sense honestly. Beyond that though, the steps that a trained armorist would go through to further verify the safety of the weapon would have caught the bullet several times before it hit the actor's hands. But, it all boils down to cutting the people that know what they are doing out of the discussion because of budgets. If you can't afford to do it safely, you can't afford to do it at all.
As much as I don’t like firearms, I don’t think that they are the problem when it comes to film sets. From everything that I’ve heard about what happened on the set of Rust, the problem came from a lot of negligence and improper training. They hired an armorer that clearly didn’t have the required experience for that kind of job, and managed to have a live round in a prop gun. I think having more regulations around firearms and armorers in entertainment is definitely the best route here. Banning guns would simply just ban guns, but the core issue of directors overlooking basic safety of their crew would not be addressed. There should be harsher punishments for not having the proper equipment, professionals, etc. on set. I’m kind of surprised by how little protocols there were for weapons. It’s tragic that the cuts made because of budgeting were ones that directly threatened the safety of everyone there, and resulted in Halyna losing her life.
It’s interesting to me how we’ve come full circle on this story. It started off as “Alec Baldwin shot and killed someone” but everyone said to hold off on placing blame because he was just an actor that had been handed a gun and was even told that it was a cold gun. Not to mention the fact that there should not even have been any live rounds on the set and it was the fault of the armorer. Fundamentally, it is the fault of the armorer, but It’s also partially his fault because he was one of the short-cutting producers on the film that hired an inexperienced person so it is somewhat his fault as well. A few weeks into this semester I had a discussion with our props manager spout prop weapons and maybe the confusion was on my part, but my understanding was that prop guns should not be able to fire live rounds even if you wanted them too and that was one of the safety rules. Prop guns I thought were supposed to be manufactured to not hold a bullet or they are supposed to be decommissioned real guns.
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