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I have a little bit of a story in gun safety.
I haven’t touched a gun in a decade. When I did, it was an unloaded demo beretta used by the navy.
When commenting on the Internet about safe gun handling in regards to the Alec Baldwin trial, I professed “Well, safe gun handling is not always obvious for all firearms. For instance, the methods to safely handle and unload an old fashioned revolver, the kind often on TV, when it’s already loaded and its hammer is back, is ridiculously complicated. Only a professional should handle that.”
This comment resulted in a reply from a gun nut insisting I was a moron, and had no idea what I was talking about. Feeling 80% sure of my knowledge of revolvers, I looked it up on YouTube, and boosted it to 100%.
To explain: If a revolver’s hammer is cocked, the cylinder is locked and you can’t just open it to take out the bullets. Plus, any gentle trigger motion or even hard knock will loosen the hammer and fire the bullet (supposedly, some newer revolvers are safer, but these don’t show up on TV shows). The stupid thing is, there’s no special switch or motion to release the hammer in a clear, safe way. So, the only way to unload the gun starts with blocking the hammer with a finger, then pulling the trigger, releasing it. Then you can open the cylinder.
But the aggravating headline was me, a pure gun commenter who only knows about them from video games and internet debates, knowing more about their safety than a self-professed gun nut.
This is why you
A) Don’t have live ammo on set at all,
B) Don’t touch a real gun capable of firing real bullets unless you know how to (or have someone to instruct you on how to) do so safely with that firearm.
C) All guns are always loaded.
D) Never point your muzzle at anything you’re not willing to destroy.
E) Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot
F) Know what is in the foreground and background of your shot.
G) Don’t be the producer of the show letting all this unsafe shit happen
H) Don’t say “I’m just an actor, I can’t be expected to learn” as a piss poor excuse. I taught an 18yo kid (new employee) the safety rules last week and he got it, you telling me some kid is just smarter than any actor other than Keanu Reeves? No, Baldwin didn’t want to learn, and this is what happens. Guns aren’t toys and shouldn’t be treated as such even between shots on a set.
But most importantly, don’t hire scabs. The union armorer staff walked off the set of Rust due to repeated safety violations. Instead of fixing the issues, management hired unqualified scabs and continued.
