Actor Alec Baldwin ignored the ‘golden rule’ of gun safety by pointing the prop pistol at the female cinematographer but the gun should have never been loaded with live ammunition to begin with, an expert says.
Speaking to Daily Mail, Zak Knight, a pyrotechnic and special effects engineer, said: “There should have never been live rounds on a movie set, that’s number one.
“Number two is every single person on a movie set has a right to inspect a weapon before it’s fired. And number three is, there is no reason to ever put a person in front of a weapon that’s firing.”
Knight, a member of Local 44, continued: “Anytime you see a movie where the barrel is pointed down the camera lens, there should not be an operator behind it.
“It’s obvious that the considerations of this resulted in that gun being pointed directly at two people.
“We would have additionally had a barrier between them. A large number of people failed to do our protocols… every accident is a cascade of events.”
Knight also said that the incident was caused by a ‘cascade of failures’ by multiple people.
“We have a hard and fast rule that no live ammunition ever goes into a prop truck or set at any time. We just don’t do it,” he said.
“If you see bullets on set they are complete dummy rounds and are in no way functional. This goes back to Brandon Lee. There’s protocol.”
Lee died while filming The Crow in 1993 after another actor shot him with a prop gun that was loaded with live ammunition.
Knight also said that different gun laws between California and New Mexico may have contributed to the tragic incident.
“You will find the best and most well-trained individuals in Los Angeles. You can’t guarantee that as you go across the country,” he said.
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