The film production crew working on a set in which actor Alec Baldwin shot two crew members and killed one had previously protested unsafe working conditions, including lax gun safety on the set of Rust.
Baldwin shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and director Joel Souza on Thursday, with the former dying after being evacuated to a hospital. Crew members had walked off the set of the production on Thursday morning, protesting a daily 50 mile drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, New Mexico for filming.
A source familiar with Rust filming told the Los Angeles Times that the firearm that Baldwin shot the crew members with had already misfired several times previously during production. This assertion would conflict with claims on the part of Baldwin that he thought the gun was merely a dummy- a gun is a gun, whether it’s a prop or not. Proper gun safety entails treating every gun as if it were loaded and fully clearing the weapon of any ammunition before holding it a potentially unsafe manner.
