We need to accept that all activities in life have risks. We can balance the activities we chose based on their risk, but we cannot eliminate all risk.
And we shouldn’t confuse risk with outcomes. Let’s say you have a 1/10 chance of losing a game if you play. You play. You lose. Did that outcome mean you made the wrong decision? No, the decision was fine, but someone gets to be that 1/10 from time to time.
My revolver has a 5 round capacity and I keep the chamber under the hammer empty when loaded for just that reason. So it really only has a 4 round capacity - which is still plenty.
If he was practicing fantasy western “quick draws”, is it possible that he snagged the hammer on something, lifting the pin off the primer, then falling back on it?
The hammer only ratchets back and connot be released unless the trigger is pulled. Or at least it works that way on every revolver I’ve ever seen.
That was one thing I forgot to put in above. One should NOT have had the gun cocked in the holster. Half cocked would have been ok. So any draw and fire would have had to also been with the gun cocked. Or cocking the gun on the draw. (Usually. I have seen westerns where someone senses trouble and cocks the gun in the holster in anticipation of using it.)
Snagging a hammer and fully cocking it is possible, but it should not have fallen unless the trigger was pulled. If it was snagged and cocked part way, it would fall back to the half cocked position.
So like I said, if Alec really did not touch the trigger, then something mechanically was wrong with the gun. Parts can and do break. People also modify guns, sometimes to the point of not being safe. The weight and pull of the trigger can be changed with different springs. People can polish a sear to make it smoother, and over do it, leading to a sear that is too sensitive. Target revolvers usually have a very light single stage trigger, for example, but with a crisp pull due to a perfectly mated sear and hammer. Sears also can wear our, or have a bad heat treatment leading to faster wearing than normal.
Normally I would give the chance of a faulty gun causing an accident to be fairly low. But like I said, I remember an article saying it had happened once or twice before on set with a blank going off when not intended. This still could be lax handling on the actors parts, but it also could be a sign of a malfunctioning firearm. If it did have something mechanically wrong then it should be something that can be repeated in a lab.
“ In Baldwin’s case, though, the claim is at least somewhat more believable. That’s because the gun involved is more prone to firing without the trigger being pulled. And, even though it’s a modern replica of an antique design, it’s possible it did not include modern safety devices.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza identified the gun used in the shooting as a modern Pietta replica of a single-action army revolver. Those guns can be bought either with a transfer bar that makes it impossible for the firing pin to strike the primer unless the trigger is pulled or without one. Often, enthusiasts and collectors prefer the models without modern safety devices because it’s more authentic and perfectly safe when handled properly.
A single-action revolver usually requires the hammer to be manually cocked, and the trigger be pulled for a shot to be fired. That’s why it’s referred to as a single-action: because the trigger performs just one action. It drops the hammer. In a double-action revolver, on the other hand, the trigger can both cock and release the hammer.
However, a single-action revolver with the old-style firing mechanism can fire without either the hammer being cocked or the trigger being pulled. When the hammer is down on that kind of revolver, the firing pin protrudes and, if a live round is loaded in the chamber underneath, a sharp enough jolt can cause the pin to strike the round’s primer with enough force to set it off.”
Even some semi-automatics can fire without the trigger being pulled if they have a floating firing pin and things go bad just right.
Modern ones lock the firing pin until the trigger is pulled but older ones do not all do so.
I was going to draw a link between firearms ‘accidents’ in stage or film productions, and the prevalence of weapons in the USA. But then I thought: firearms appear in films made by other nationals, right? Are films produced by USA groups more or less deadly than those from elsewhere?
What I cannot understand is… why is there a real weapon anywhere in a film production set? For that matter, anywhere that’s not a designated shooting range.
Hollywood, an industry that creates the most amazing movies should be able to have 100% non-functioning replicas, and nothing but, on set. And by non-functioning replica, I mean things that don’t have a hole down the barrel, or a way to chamber rounds.
But the likely outcome i fear will be small changes to the “best practices”, like always leave the chamber under the hammer empty. “Best practices” that are usually followed, until they’re not. Like when production is behind, the sun is setting but damn that light is just perfect for the sundown gunfight.
It blows my mind how much ink will be spilled analyzing and picking this tragic event apart. How 'bout some effort at non having legal things on set? Or a lot of other places.
Not directed at you, @KathyPartdeux. You were just the nearest to the “Reply” button.
[quote=“csilvest, post:32, topic:209721”]
Not directed at you, @KathyPartdeux. You were just the nearest to the “Reply” button.
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you can just reply to a topic without replying to a specific person.
If the gun had a solid barrel the audience would be able to see it. The barrel would have to be blocked in a way that is not visible from outside.
CGI could deal with that. Even a painted bore could deal with it.
Given this is the first death since 1994, their current practices have had an incredible safety track record. Literally millions of blanks fired with no deaths.
The appearance of live ammo on the set is the most egregious violation of safety rules and is the main cause of this accident. In a criminally negligent way.
Not every feature has an effects budget, and done poorly, it looks fake. Especially with old black powder guns like that that one expects some smoke. Replicas like these are around $600 or so, and blanks aren’t very expensive.
At any rate, CGI is certainly a tool some film makers can use, but one accidental death doesn’t suddenly make their use unsafe. The danger isn’t zero, but it is incredibly easy to make the danger near zero. There are way more dangerous stunts in film today that don’t involve firearms.
And done right, two people are shot and somebody dies.
No, because on a set where gun handling is “done right” nobody will ever be given a loaded gun and told that it is “cold”.
Hmmm… it took me all of 3 seconds to think up a safe and cheap solution for that. Drill a hole ~25mm into the end of the barrel, but don’t go all the way through to the chamber end. And to be sure the audience isn’t disappointed, that hole could be the correct diameter for the weapon, and it could be rifled too.
IMHO, two COMPLETELY AVOIDABLE DEATHS in ~27 years in an industry that has NO NEED OF REAL WEAPONS is too two many.
ETA:
Except when they are. By having no functioning “hot” weapons anywhere other than on a shooting range is how this can be “done right”.
I was talking about the rules for handling guns that already exist. You are defining “done right” to mean your own rule that no real firearms are ever used.
With proper safety protocols, movies could use real nuclear weapons during filming. I mean, sure, if they aren’t handled correctly bad things can happen, but human beings never make mistakes. And you really need the real thing to get the heft right…
