1 On a professional movie set there are VERY strict rules about how guns are handled: checked in and out of storage, what cartridges (supposed to be blanks) and how many are loaded into each gun, etc.

But blanks can kill if fired at close-enough range, and have done so occasionally. THIS situation is odd since more than one person was hit by a shot -- or multiple shots? I wonder if we'll ever get the full skinny on this.

2 Like you, I have little use for Baldwin. But I'd not wish what he's going through now on anybody. He needs our prayers.

3 Agreed on all counts Dana. That's why this story caught my eye; it is just entirely too weird.

Yeah; I feel sorry for Baldwin in that this is a terrible thing.

More news on this yesterday; there had been a walk out by the union people on the set just before the incident. Did someone load live ammo in a prop gun in spite?

I remember when there was the strike against St. Louis wine and beer distributors. I was working at a grocer then, and opened the loading dock to get the beer off the truck. The driver came in shaking and pale as a ghost. He took me out and showed me the star-shatter of a shotgun blast in his windshield. The union thugs were trying to MURDER him for running STL Beer products.

Wonder if this wasn't something like that.

4 I never knew blanks could kill if fired up close! Learn something new every day.

5 I have the box set for the television show Lost and the extras are all included. They actually had a gun master - a full time staffer whose sole job was to manage the guns on the show, and guarantee they knew the "chain of custody" of weapons on the show, as well as make sure they were in order and properly handled.

That's how important it is.

This movie needed one too, apparently.

6 A fully-loaded cartridge has a "wad" between the powder charge and the bullet. To make a blank, the bullet is taken out but the wad remains, to keep the powder from falling out. Depending on the caliber of the gun, that wad is expelled from a blank with a heckuva lot of force and can cause damage.

Power Line had a good article today suggesting that Baldwin was remiss for aiming the gun at somebody and firing, though it's unknown if he might have just been aiming at an amorphous point in space where the director told him to aim. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/10/alec-baldwins-accident.php

I see Baldwin's coming under heat from everybody. (I heard a suggestion on the news today that perhaps a union member who got fired from the studio sneaked back in and loaded the real cartridge, though that seems a bit far-fetched. True, this is an "indy" movie and likely the unions aren't getting what they consider their due.) He's getting castigated for not having checked the magazine, which I think is a bit unfair -- he's an anti-gun guy and I doubt he knows anything about guns, how's he supposed to check? Anyhow, I never thought anything in the world would make me feel sorry for Alec Baldwin. Just goes to show, you never know. Guy's career is effectively over now.

7 Yeah; it's unfair to blame Baldwin for not checking the bullets. How would he even know what they looked like? He probably never even saw a bullet. He assumed the people who were supposed to check these guns did their jobs. It's like blaming the driver of a car for his brakes going out because the mechanic didn't fix them right.

I imagine Baldwin won't have many people willing to shoot movies with guns in Baldwin's hands in future anyway.

8 Yeah -- there goes his chance to be the new Clint Eastwood.

9 "Do you feel lucky, well do you punk!" I think that now most crew wouldn't feel so lucky with old Alec.