My sympathies go out to the family of the cinematographer who was accidentally shot on the set of the movie “Rust.” My sympathies also go out to Alec Baldwin. He fired the gun trusting that the special effects people had done their jobs correctly. As someone who had a well-known brother-in-law in special effects, I know how critical safety is to that profession.
Why my husband and I moved to North Carolina from Massachusetts, one of the first things I did was take a gun safety course. The gun culture of North Carolina was unfamiliar to me, and I felt that I needed to learn about gun safety. I learned some very basic rules about gun handling:
1. Treat every gun as if it were loaded.
2. Always be sure of your target and what’s behind it.
3. Visually and manually check to make sure the gun is not loaded–never assume anything.
4. Never aim at anything that you don’t intend to shoot.
I realize that some of those principles may not apply on a movie set, but had the special effects people followed these principles, I doubt the accident would have happened. What happened on the movie set of “Rust” was tragic, but steps can be taken to prevent future tragedies. The obvious first step would be to outlaw any live ammunition on movie sets.
My sympathies go out to the people impacted by this accident. I hope that everyone impacted can learn from the incident and be more aware of safety issues in the future.