Alec Baldwin on Trial
What Went Wrong on the "Rust" Tragedy
by Dave Brown

"If an actor makes a mistake, they get another take. If the weapons handler makes a mistake, you will read about it in a thousand newspapers in the morning."

The morning of October 22, 2021 dawned like any other day in Manitoba, but that was about to change. It would end like no other, and that day would impact the careers of many of my friends and colleagues in the motion picture industry.

My phone began to light up and within an hour, my inbox was filled with hundreds of emails from media outlets around the world. A cinematographer on the film set of “Rust” in New Mexico had been shot and killed the previous day by a live bullet fired by actor Alec Baldwin. They were all looking for comments and asking how this could possibly happen.

I was incredulous. There are so many safety checks on a film set to ensure this never happens. As firearms instructor who helped write the book on firearms safety in Canada, and having also spent a career spanning over 35 years as film set armorer, I knew the entertainment industry in North America had an enviable safety record. We had never had a single fatality on a film set since the dawn of filmmaking, when firearms were handled by professionals. What could have caused this to fall apart?

It turned out to be a sad story of cost-cutting, doubling-up crew positions, running late to finish a scene after half their crew quit earlier that day and ignoring warnings about gross incompetence in the handling of the firearms. Most critically, it was the hiring of an amateur who should never have been allowed to touch a firearm, let alone work with actors.

The tragedy deepened as we learned more about what happened October 21, 2021. Halyna Hutchins, the young and talented cinematographer who died, was well known to us. Prior to leaving for New Mexico, she had worked with many of us on a film right here in Manitoba.

The worldwide media was looking for answers. In addition to a career training police, military and governments agencies on advanced firearms techniques, I had trained thousands of actors on firearms handling plus coordinated the safety of firearms on hundreds of film and theatre productions. As one of the most experienced firearms safety professionals in the business, some would say I had also written the book on firearms safety in the film industry. They wanted to talk to someone with this experience.

It soon became clear that the armorer on “Rust” was far from a professional. Early reports describe a chaotic set, beset with problems and numerous safety violations with the period guns used in this western-themed movie. Gunshots were fired without warning; guns were loaded with blanks and left sitting on a table; and, only a few days previous, the film’s Prop Master accidentally shot herself in the foot with a blank while carrying a loaded rifle to set.

Armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed should have known better. Stepdaughter to famous Hollywood armorer and world champion trick shooter Thell Reed, she had grown up surrounded by fast-draw artists and cowboys who routinely practiced with live ammunition. But she was not her father’s daughter. With a reputation as a bit of a party girl and a show-off, and given that the film set was a hundred miles into the desert, it was logical to suspect she was the one who brought live ammunition to the set.

There are very strict rules preventing live ammunition from ever being brought to a film set. We are primarily dealing with real firearms, capable of firing blank ammunition. While some firearms can be duplicated in plastic, real firearms have the look, weight and feel that add to the character and to the authenticity of a scene. Actors want the feel and the sound to help them act.

With our history of safety checks and industry-wide safety practices, we have never had a single fatality on set with a firearm when they were handled by experts. Every past situation involving a fatality with a firearm could be traced back to hiring an amateur or sending the expert home early and turning the weapons handling over to an unqualified crew member.

This is not the place for amateurs. When I wrote an article on firearms safety in the film industry for American Cinematographer Magazine two years prior to the "Rust" tragedy, I made the point that if an actor makes a mistake, they get another take. If the weapons handler makes a mistake, you will read about it in a thousand newspapers in the morning.

In retrospect, I probably should have said, "ten thousand newspapers in the morning."

So, what went wrong? Live ammunition is never allowed on set, and even blanks are potentially dangerous at close ranges. This would have taken a failure of our extensive safety practices, plus an utter disregard for industry safety procedures to lead to a tragedy of this magnitude.

On the Set of "Rust" the Afternoon of October 21 2021
This is exactly what happened. All those failures suddenly came to a head the day of the shooting. Tempers were running short and they were hours behind because their entire camera crew had quit that morning, citing all the gun safety violations in the preceding weeks, among other issues. They were worried about losing the light as the production scrambled to find students from a local college to replace the camera crew.

Actor Alec Baldwin, who was also Executive Producer and co-creator of the film with Director Joel Souza, was rehearsing for a close-up of a revolver, while Souza and Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins were behind the camera lining up the shot. Gutierrez-Reed was not on set, so First Assistant Director Dave Halls grabbed a revolver off the table, handed it to Baldwin, and said it was a ‘cold gun,’ meaning it was empty of blanks.

To line up the tight focus on the gun, Baldwin drew the single-action revolver, cocked the hammer back and pointed it at the camera. Then thinking the gun was empty, Baldwin pulled the trigger.

It wasn’t empty. It was loaded with a live cartridge. When it fired, the bullet fatally struck Hutchins and injured Souza.

The Trial of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed
Armorer Gutierrez-Reed and actor/producer Baldwin were both charged with involuntary manslaughter. Gutierrez-Reed was also charged with concealing evidence for attempting to get a crewmember to hide a baggy allegedly containing cocaine prior to her police interview. Investigators discovered multiple live rounds scattered throughout the set, on her props cart and loaded into belts worn by cast members. (Initial reports that she also took certain members of the cast and crew out into the desert at lunch to shoot at tin cans were never substantiated at trial.)

The jury returned a verdict within hours. She was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison. Regardless of how the ammunition made it to set and regardless of who pulled the trigger, the jury determined that she failed in her primary duty to ensure the safety of all the firearms on that set.

The Santa Fe District Attorney later dropped the charges against Baldwin, citing claims that as an actor, he was not responsible for the safety of the revolver.

The Trial of Alec Baldwin
On January 19, 2024, Baldwin was again indicted on charges of Involuntary Manslaughter, this time as producer. Whether he was directly in charge of hiring became irrelevant. As producer, he was there every day and he knew about the ongoing issues. He had the power to address the previous safety violations. He had the power and the knowledge to bring the issues to the attention of other producers. He chose not to.

During the early part of Baldwin’s trial, his defence tried to paint a picture of Baldwin as an unfortunate and unknowledgeable actor in almost his first film. On the contrary, Baldwin was not just a producer, he has acted in hundreds of films and handled firearms multiple times in many of them. This was not his first rodeo. As producer and co-creator of the film, he stood to directly gain monetarily by hiring a cheaper amateur and then doubling up her jobs to save even more money. Also, as an experienced actor with dozens of roles where he was handling firearms, he would also have known that shortcuts were being taken and safety procedures were being violated on a regular basis. Again, he chose to do nothing about it.

With half their crew walking off set earlier that day because of lackadaisical attitudes toward safety and all the previous gun safety violations, Baldwin knew or should have known this was not a time to be rushing to complete a scene where people were lining up a shot directly in the line of fire of a handgun that had not been safety checked in his presence.

Before cross-examination even started, the criminal charges against Baldwin were suddenly dismissed with prejudice. The defence charged that the investigation was bungled from the beginning and a key piece of evidence was mishandled and not properly disclosed to the defence.

The Future of Firearms in Film
Productions reacted swiftly. Because of what happened on “Rust,” productions became ‘gun shy’ over real firearms used on film sets despite an unblemished safety record going back 130 years. The transition became towards fake guns, and adding visual effects in post-production for the muzzle flashes. Plus, in a move that seems to defy common sense, producers no longer hired firearms professionals because “the guns aren’t real. They can’t hurt anyone.” (Tell that to the police who respond at high speed to what they think is an active shooter call, only to find out some amateur didn’t even know enough to notify police about a film shoot.)

There have been other close calls. With budgets already plunging from a pandemic, years of strikes and an industry slowdown, productions starting hiring more inexperienced newcomers. The film industry lost many of their highly experienced crew members. Qualified armorers and gun safety specialists were no exception. No one wanted to be the first person to hand Samuel L. Jackson a toy gun and say, “Here. Act.”

Recent reports from film sets are both sad and frightening. Props crew with zero experience or - even more insane - some completely untrained person from special effects, are now being thrust into situations where they don't know how, or even why, to give a safety briefing to cast and crew before guns are pointed at actors' heads. Bizarrely, they are simply handing out fake guns to performers and walking away. The professionals who never took their eyes off a gun in 35 years are being replaced by cheaper amateurs who don't understand that even fake firearms need to be treated as if they are real. So many productions seem to forget that old adage that says, "If you cannot afford the cost to hire a professional, you are going to be STAGGERED at the cost of hiring an amateur."

Baldwin and the other producers still face multiple civil lawsuits for negligence from the family of Halyna Hutchins and crew members who were there that day. Mathew Hutchins, husband of Halyna, was the first to settle for an undisclosed settlement and a producer credit for the soon-to-be-finished film. The filming of "Rust" was completed in Montana in 2024 but Baldwin's production company ultimately defaulted on the settlement payments earmarked for Halyna's 11-year-old son.

The finished film has yet to find a distributor.

In October 2024, Alec Baldwin appeared on Saturday Night Live; his first appearance since the criminal charges were dropped and almost three years to the day since Halyna Hutchins died. The mixed reception from the live audience perhaps proves that all the lives that were impacted that day could never be negated by a bit of polite applause.

I turned off the program.

"If you cannot afford the cost of hiring a professional, you are going to be staggered at the cost of hiring an amateur."


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Dave Brown is a well-known Firearms Safety Coordinator, firearms training specialist and coach. Based in Winnipeg Canada, Dave advised film and theatre productions on safety issues, trained cast on safety and handling techniques and supervised gun handling on set. Known for his calm approach and professional manner, he has worked with hundreds of talented cast and crew and been firearms trainer to many of the top names in Hollywood.

Dave has taught workshops in firearms safety for the film industry across Canada and in Los Angeles, written articles for both the Canadian Society of Cinematographers and the American Society of Cinematographers on firearms safety in the film industry and helped develop a safety training module for all IATSE film and theatre technicians across North America.

His tireless efforts towards greater safety awareness in the entertainment industry has been recognized around the world. Dave has been interviewed by numerous media outlets, been featured in an episode on the Discovery Channel and recently appeared on CNN to talk about firearms safety in the film industry. His work on safety hazards with blanks has resulted in a common sense approach to the relationship between distance, power and the hazard of blank gunfire, now known as "Brown's Law" in his honour.

For more tips on working with firearms on film sets, see THIS page.