When it comes to the horrible tragedy on the set of the film Rust, I suspect we’ll find out that there’s plenty of blame to go around. We already have reason to believe Alec Baldwin’s improper gun handling played a major role.

However, there are still a number of problems that don’t necessarily fall on Baldwin. For example, why was the weapon not checked before being handed to the actor?

Then there’s the question of live ammo being present in a prop gun in the first place.

For the man who supplied the weapons used, there’s only one person to blame.

For the first time, we are hearing from the man who supplied the movie ‘Rust’ with its guns and ammo.

“I wish she would just come forward. She thinks she’s going to get away with this,” Seth Kenney said to investigators at the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office.

Kenney owns PDQ Arm and Prop in Albuquerque

In his interview with investigators, he asks if anyone has mentioned if “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed fired live rounds on set.

“You know, and if she was shooting, I don’t know if you’ve actually been able to get any statements,” Kenney said.

…

After the investigator said no one has come forward, Kenney brings up an alleged text conversation he had with Gutierrez-Reed on Aug. 15, 2021.

“She wanted to shoot live ammo out of the guns, the TV movie guns. I said no f——- way obviously. And then she acknowledged. Down below, right, you did see where she said I’m going to shoot them out of mine now,” Kenny told the investigator.

Guitierrez-Reed’s lawyer claims that the first-time armorer asked the question as a means to make sure all the weapons were in proper working order. He says that when Kenny told her “no,” she dropped the subject and never fired live ammo out of those weapons.

Of course, we did hear reports that live ammo was shot out of them and done so on or near the set.

Whether Guitierrez-Reed “thinks she’s going to get away with this” or not, the truth of the matter is that live ammo was on the set. At least a single round was, and there’s no reason why there should have been. It’s a horrible safety violation.

Think about it like this, if you do dry-fire training, there’s a good chance you don’t even keep ammo in the same room you’re training in. Why? because there’s too much of a chance for an accident.

So on a busy movie set with dozens of guns and hundreds of people coming and going, why would you have a live round on the set at all? There’s no reason to do so.

I get Guitierrez-Reed wanting to make sure the guns functioned properly. Not having much experience with blanks myself, I’m not sure if they’d illustrate weapon problems sufficiently or not, so maybe live firing would have been beneficial.

Yet Kenney said no.

Now, she’s saying she listened when there’s reason to believe that’s simply not the case.

At the end of the day, there are still a ton of questions to be answered, but more and more this looks like a case of an inexperienced armorer, an actor not handling a firearm properly, and an assistant director handling a weapon when he shouldn’t have.

I don’t think anyone is blameless on this one, and a woman is dead because of it.