Stephen Gutowski  0:01  
Gun Rights group files are brief in the Texas abortion case and an interview with Hollywood owner Steve Wolf. That more on this episode of the weekly reload podcast

Unknown Speaker  0:14  
I gave him poison, just for fun.

Stephen Gutowski  0:17  
Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome another episode of the weekly reload podcast. I'm your host, Stephen Gutowski, I'm also the founder of the reload comm where you can go over and buy yourself a membership today, if you want to get this podcast today early. And you want to get exclusive access to dozens of posts on the website stories and analysis pieces from people like me and our contributing writer, Jake Fogelman. Who is here today with me Hi, Jake, how are you? Doing? Well? How are you Steve doing okay, I'm getting over a little bit of a cold actually think you are too. cold season is upon us is the season we both to COVID tests, and they're negative. So all the all the mitigation does not work against the cold. It seems we haven't gotten COVID. But we've both got the cold, even though you're in Colorado, and I'm here in Virginia. So it's just that time of the year, unfortunately for our voices. So maybe maybe fortunately for our voices I think maybe you get a little bit throat ear and deeper sound. Yeah, that might be beneficial for the podcast and

Jake Fogleman  1:23  
my voice. Yeah, should

Stephen Gutowski  1:24  
she get colds all the time. And maybe that will make our podcast ratings go up by the way, people you should be reviewing and rating the show if you want to help us grow. So that's something that you can personally do to help this channel. This podcast, do better, and reach more people. If you're so inclined. If you enjoy what we're doing here. Let us know. Give us a review. Leave a comment on YouTube, give us a thumbs up, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Subscribe on your app for your favorite podcasting app. All that stuff. But anyway, let's jump into the news of the week. First up, we have a piece from you, Jake, that describes something that I actually had kind of predicted would happen back when the Texas abortion law was passed, you know, a few months was a few months back. And now I guess where the tax the thing that's interesting about that law is not necessarily the the actual, you know, politics of abortion, you know, wherever you come down on that. It's the enforcement mechanism that they used was very is a novel idea. Very creative, I guess is one way of putting it right. Which is to use essentially civil cases to enforce that a ban on most abortions. That's right, basically make the practitioners Abortionists liable civilly for performing abortions, in most circumstances. And so that is actually enforced, not by the government, you know, you don't get charged in criminal court for performing an abortion, you would get charged in a civil court by private actor, so just a regular right. And that was the sort of unique thing about this law that made it very difficult to stop in the pre enforcement you know, time that, you know, after it passed, but before it was actually put into effect, courts effect the they basically couldn't block it because of this support mechanism, because the way that they went about doing this. And so, at the time, I wrote, essentially, that this was likely to be used by gun control activists as well in other parts of the country, trying to go after gun rights, maybe bang sale of guns in the same manner. I mean, you know, making people solely liable for selling guns or certain kinds of guns or, you know, whatever it might be, but that that core tactic, I think, could easily be exported to those issues by people who are equally dedicated to pursuing the you know, outlawing of firearms ownership, or at least some firearms ownership. You know, in the same way that Texas legislators are, their legislators are committed to pursuing outlawing abortion and a lot of circumstances. So now, the latest is that this case is against the abortion law in Texas has made it to the Supreme Court now. Initially, they rejected intervening because of this tactic, but now the case has made it back up there. And there's an interesting brief that came along he tell us a little bit about who filed it and why

Jake Fogleman  5:00  
Yeah, so the the Firearms Policy Coalition for those of you who don't know, so national gun rights group known for suing against gun control laws and things that they think are against the Second Amendment? Well, in this case, they filed an amicus brief for this case, the Whole Woman's Health First Jackson, basically arguing that the court should take the case and grant review, which, you know, as you mentioned, they have since decided they're going to hear the case, actually, the first day of the session November 1, they're gonna hear the case. Yeah, they basically laid out the argument that that you laid out in your analysis piece, basically saying, hey, if this law is allowed to stand, you know, what's to stop other parties from passing similar laws for guns or for any other constitutional right, that's been previously recognized by the court to just say, hey, you know, the government's not going to enforce it. We're going to kick this to private actors to sue in court. So we're not going to levy any civil, civil fines or threaten you with jail time. So you can't say the harm was done by a government actor. Right. And then thus, the law is allowed to stand. So basically, like FPC made that argument in the case. And and yeah, so we'll see how it plays out when the court hears

Stephen Gutowski  6:09  
the case. Yeah. And the idea there is that basically, it's much harder for a court to enjoin, essentially, every resident of Texas than it is to enjoin the Attorney General of Texas or, you know, whoever might bring a government case against an abortion provider. And so in the same vein, if California or Hawaii, or New York, or what, you know, a state that has a tendency to pass very strict gun laws that have their constitutionality questioned on a regular basis, right? I mean, New York's also going to be here, the subject of a Supreme Court challenge this term, over their gun carry laws, but that place like that, could certainly try to push the boundaries in the same way on guns, they could, you know, outlaw the sale of all, you know, AR fifteens in the state via this novel enforcement mechanism, where, you know, they empowered civilians to go and Sue gun dealers, or gun manufacturers in civil court, you've kind of seen that tactic tried to some degree already, in in regards to liability for criminal use of guns, you know, the states have tried to, to sue gun manufacturers, for criminal use of guns by by third parties, often decades after the gun was initially sold. And so you instead of trying to do that through, you know, a government agency, the Attorney General, right, I mean, New Jersey is currently pursuing this exact kind of lawsuit, in the case against Smith and Wesson, over claims that its advertising was violated New Jersey state law, and therefore, the federal law that protects gun makers from this sort of liability doesn't apply in this case. But you know, you could certainly see them instead, you know, if that case doesn't work out, that argument doesn't work out. And I think it's more likely than not that Smith, must Melinda winning that case. You could, you could see, certainly, them turning to this sort of enforcement mechanism instead, and just biting anyone in New Jersey, Sue Smith and Wesson in civil court, for selling any kind of gun that they don't approve of, and, sure, or any gun at all, really, I mean, you got that fault, which is more fitting for New Jersey, right? I mean, you could you could see that as someone attempting that and then having and then having the same sort of pre enforcement blocks that you see with a lot of other kinds of laws not being able to be put in place here by a court because of this tactic, because you can't like a court can't enjoin all of the residents of New Jersey or all of the residents of Texas or California against suits, it can only really do it on a as cases come up. Right. That's sort of the main issue with trying to go about blocking these types of laws pending judicial review, you have to have standing in order to initiate a case like that and it's much harder To Do When, before you have sort of a test case come up before there's because it's just more difficult for a court to issue that broad of a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the law like this. So anyway, that's that's the sort of dilemma here. And obviously, if you're starting pro life, you support what Texas is trying to accomplish, you know, you can make an argument for using these sorts of novel and

extreme, maybe I don't know, tactics, legally, you know, legal tactics. But everyone should be aware that it's not going to stop at that issue. And I guess that's what FPCs point is here that they don't want to see this tactic used, again, against the issue that they value, which is obviously gun rights. And so that's why they want the court to kind of nip this in the bud and not open up the door to more of these kinds of laws on a variety of different other issues. Exactly right. Yep. So we'll see. We'll see how that goes. But it's certainly interesting development to watch. And that Supreme Court case, I think is going to have repercussions while beyond just the abortion debate. Well, yeah. The other thing that we find this week is failed ATF nominee, David Chapman, which he was on CBS evening news, right. Just on Wednesday, I believe it was, yep. Yeah. Yeah. Sat

Jake Fogleman  11:42  
down with Norah O'Donnell.

Stephen Gutowski  11:45  
And he, he made a number of claims on there that were that are pretty hyperbolic, I guess, to say the least of putting it Yeah. Well, I mean, first off, I guess one of the first things that I would want to say about this is like Norah O'Donnell, just like the New York Times, who was the first one to interview Chapman after his his nomination failed, did not ask him a single question about the allegations that he won made racial spaces comments while working in the Detroit office where he is accused of saying that too many black people had passed the promotion assessment and that they must have cheated in order to do so. And then obviously, we broke the story, that we broke the story that there were so that there was a complaint filed against him over those comments, allegedly. And we were able to cooperate that that story is one that ATF agents had certainly been told at the time. What happened? So that, you know, that occurred in July, and then in August, we had a black ATF, former ATF agent, come forward and tell us that shipment had actually specifically accused him of cheating on a promotion assessment. Because Chipman believe that his answers were too good on the particular segment that he was sitting in on. So obviously, these are pretty serious revelations and pretty serious accusations that got a lot of attention in his nomination fight when they came out. In fact, they prompted the entire Republican caucus of the Senate Judiciary Committee to call for a second hearing. They prompted the Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to call for him to be pulled. And then eventually he was pulled by President Biden a few weeks later, after failing to get support from a number of key democratic holdouts. I mean, the entire Republican caucus publicly said they would not vote for him. But then you also had four big holdouts on the Democratic side as well, who never publicly supported him, never publicly declared their support for him. And was it who were the four it was? It's a mansion, mansion, cinema. Angus King and tester

Jake Fogleman  14:35  
tester. Yeah.

Stephen Gutowski  14:36  
So they were the real roadblocks is you only need 50 votes in order to get a nominee confirmed in this to a position like that. So obviously, Republican support was unanimous, but they didn't actually need any Republicans to get him through and confirm him Right. But Donald doesn't mention any of this in her interview with him, he doesn't question him once about any of these allegations, he has responded to them. In a USA Today interview that happened a few weeks ago, as well with with the trace, where they did directly ask him about this. And he claimed that, well, why didn't he confirm that it was black agent that he accused of cheating. And he denied that that had anything to do with racial animus he said that, obviously that his claim is that that had no part. Now the agent himself believes that it did play a role, sure that it played the direct role and the main role in what happened to him and the agent said he was exonerated of what Shipman accused him of, but that at the same time, it took two years to go through that investigation effectively sidelined him during that time. And he lost his desire to pursue further promotion in the agency after that. So it did have a serious effect on this agents career. So, you know, it's a fairly significant story. And it's remarkable to me, personally, that you could have someone like that who's faced those allegations on network news, show and not even asked him once about them. Instead, she focused on his opinion on basically rising murder rates in the United States. And his opinion on his own confirmation. Failing is a little bit sure

Jake Fogleman  16:47  
and to be on it is on and the fact that she doesn't bring it up. And like he said, The New York Times didn't either. It allows him to make some of those hyperbolic claims you were talking about where he says, Oh, I'm for gun safety. And the fact that they were against me means they're against gun safety. Well, actually, he

Stephen Gutowski  17:00  
was worse than that. He said, I'm, you know, he spent his whole career at the IETF. And then 10 years afterwards, where he was working directly for gun control organizations, which he still does. He works for Giffords as a senior policy analyst today, but he was saying that that his whole career was dedicated to stopping gun violence, and that the only reason to oppose him would be if you don't support stopping gun stop. Yeah. Which is crazy. Yeah. It's a pretty rash thing to say, Sure, of your opponents, but that was his claim as to why he didn't succeed in his nomination, but I just think it's a bit odd to have him on to to opine about, like, you know, guns in America. He's, he, he felt like his nomination didn't go through. It's kind of weird to have him on and kind of they kind of treated him like he was the director of the ATF, like, not that Norah O'Donnell never challenges him on anything, because she does in what's available online. But at the same time, she's like, asking him what the purpose of the ATF is, and what should be done at the ATF is kind of treating him like he is. Yeah, the ATF director, even though he's obviously not. And the other thing is said, you know, in addition to the reporting on the racism allegation, we also had direct quotes from for current and former ATF agents, who were concerned about his nomination of Chipman paints this opposition to him as purely being a political and purely being the result of the gun industry. When really, they're they're also the same concerns inside the ATF. People said that he because he's so antagonistic towards the gun industry, which he would be set up to regulate. That could harm the agency's ability to pursue criminal investigations, because oftentimes, gun dealers are the ones who help to provide tips for those investigations, that that the kind of cooperation between the industry and the agency. That kind of cooperation is key to how they actually perform their jobs, and that he shared with risk that this was a common theme that you heard from multiple agents, I think they were we spoke directly to four agents who all had the same concern. And then another seven agents, former agents came out and wrote a public letter stating the same concerns. Yeah, that was submitted to the Judiciary Committee as well nor Donald did not. Ask him about those concerns at all. and I just find that odd as well, like she's set up in this interview like he represents the ATF, even though he was not confirmed to be director and every public statement from a former ATF official during his confirmation, here, yo, this confirmation period was negative towards him, was opposed to his nomination. So like, I don't know how you could make it the case that he speaks to the ATF. And anyway, he hasn't worked there in over a decade. And even people who work directly with him said that they were concerned about him becoming director. So odd, sloppy interview, in my opinion. And obviously, he goes on to make a number of other very controversial statements that sort of give you insight into why he was a controversial nominee, even before the allegations of racism came out. Right? That

Jake Fogleman  20:58  
right, he said, he says the gun industry profits off death and violence, and he sees exactly the kind of things that they were concerned with. Right, going forward

Stephen Gutowski  21:06  
says that they intentionally sell guns to criminals and terrorists, profit off of that. And that's why there's opposition to what he wants to do. That was his explanation for it. And he also claimed that it's easier to buy a gun in the country than it is to buy a beer, which is just he claimed this without any evidence or explanation, right. How he could possibly say that because it's true. Even in areas like usually, yeah, this is a common talking point that you hear, obviously, in gun control circles. The president, President Obama made this a number of times I think even Biden has done this, too. He has Yeah, but the claim is, you know, they're usually trying to say like, in bad neighborhoods, you can go and buy a gun off the street, easily. And that may be true. But I mean, generally, that would be illegal, for one shows, in most circumstances that they're talking about here. Like if you're buying a gun from a street dealer, who's not doing a background check. It's probably illegal. Yes, you can buy a gun through a private sale. that's legal. without a background check in most states, Okay, fair enough. But like by you don't need a background check to buy a beer either.

Jake Fogleman  22:21  
I was gonna say, never had to fill out a 4470 baht,

Stephen Gutowski  22:24  
if you're talking about illegal sales, like, I'm pretty sure you could get a beer. That's like one of the classic things is to have somebody an adult, go and buy your beer if you're underage. Right. Like that's not it. So it's just like they make these bizarre comparisons. I mean, you know, they'll talk about a book, I think President Obama famously said, it was easier to get a gun than a book. In some parts of the catchy it's like, no, it's not. This is just, it's actually not just wine. Right? Same thing here, like, no, it is not easier to buy a gun than it is to buy beer, whatever your made up circumstances are gonna be. It's just not true in a way, like, how hard do you think it is? To get a beer in the next? It's just ridiculous. So I don't know.

Jake Fogleman  23:14  
It just shows the deficiency and covering firearms issues in the mainstream media, which is, you know, exactly why you guys should stay tuned to the reload. Come for that kind of insight.

Stephen Gutowski  23:23  
Yes, yes. Good. So that's good. You're learning. But yeah, I mean, it's just like, come on. And, you know, she challenges them on some of those more hyperbolic statements. You know, when he talks about how opposition to him is all because gun dealers want to sell guns to criminals. And, and, and terrorists. You know, he, she, she asked suppressors, and it was like he, we really think that lawful gun owners don't want to stop, you know, gun traffickers. And he says, not enough of them. Yeah, like he's attacking directly lawful gun owners saying that they don't care about gun crime, which is remarkable. I mean, he's and then he's like explicitly attacking Angus King and the other Democrats who didn't vote for him. Because he claims that they were concerned he wouldn't be friendly enough towards the gun industry. It was sort of the way that he put it like implying that they're all beholden to the gun industry. And that again comes that's where Norah O'Donnell should have mentioned. It's not just Angus King or, you know, Republican senators or tester or mansion or cinema who had these concerns about him and his relationship with the gun industry. Other ATF agents had these concerns like like we noted, so it's just wasn't a well prepared interview. It didn't cover really serious Allegations of wrongdoing against him. And I just don't. To me, I can't imagine that happening with a Trump nominee or a by a bush nominee accused of the same things. It's just it's not realistic that they would get a relatively softball interview on the nightly news are the evening news, in this case, on CBS. So I just think it's disappointing. It's not the worst interview I've ever seen. But it's certainly not up to the standards of what professional journalism should be what you should strive to do when you have like, I can't interview him, and they will not let me interview him. I would love to have him on this very podcast, uncut, unedited, let him say whatever he wants, but let me ask him questions. I'd love to do that. But that's not going to happen, because they won't make them available. And so people who do get interviews with Him ought to take their responsibility seriously to the public, to inform them and to get answers about what's happening. I mean, USA Today, and the trace to their credit asked him about this stuff. Yeah, they, they only put in two sentences from him on it, but at least they asked him, please. Yeah, I think more could be said, of work, though there could be a deeper inquiry than than just asking him and printing that he said, the brace wasn't involved. I mean, there's a lot of questions you could ask in there about the situation but but, you know, a lot of these places don't even do it. And they're just having them do this media tour. This is like his fourth major outlet now. I'm sure he'll probably be on more. It's seem feels like rehabilitation tour, or in spite tour at this point. I like how hard he's going against Biden administration and the Democrats in the Senate is kind of surprising, given that he's still, you know, associated with a major gun control group. I wonder how long that goes on before they start getting pushback about it? Sure. But, you know, we'll see. Anyway, well, the other big news of the week, obviously, has been the Alec Baldwin shooting. And so I've actually been able to book the other sort of expert who's been doing TV appearances to talk about this, as I like, I've done Entertainment Tonight, and cheddar and fox and a number of other platforms talking about this case, and what happened and how it can happen and what what should be done about it. But Steve Wolf is a Hollywood armor, who has also been doing a lot of the same media interviews that I have. And I thought, you know, he'd be a good guy to cap on and talk a little bit more in depth about what went on there. And so that's, that's what we have up next, here on the podcast. So stay tuned. Alright, I'm here with Steve wolf to discuss the Alec Baldwin shooting, the latest developments in that and some of the actual techniques used on movie and TV sets for overseeing firearms, because Steve has experienced with that, so I wanted to bring on somebody who can actually speak to it. From experience. It's Thank you give us just a little bit of background about yourself, for the audience.

Steve Wolf  28:25  
Sure, Steven. I've been doing movies since in special effects since the late 80s. Working initially as a set medic, seeing all the ways that people could get hurt. And then as I transitioned into stunt coordinating and special effects coordinating, No, I never forgot. People really do get hurt doing this stuff. So you have to work with a constant eye toward safety. But I've worked with Tom Cruise, James Cameron Robert De Niro, David Duchovny, you know, I've gotten a chance to work with, you know, really all the people that I really looked up to in the business and still do. And, you know, try to carry on the tradition of professionalism that I learned from them and their side of it, and bring that to what I do on my side of it. That's your constant vigilance.

Stephen Gutowski  29:08  
And you've, you've obviously been one of the top experts that a lot of media outlets have gone to other than that myself, actually, I feel like the two of us have done most of these, you know, an expert hits so far. So it's kind of great to have you on here. So we can talk about it maybe a little bit more in depth than what we can do on you know, a 10 minute hit on or five minute hit on Fox or, or Entertainment Tonight or whatever. Because I want to get a little more into how do these safety protocols really work on set versus how they would in a range? Right. Where, you know, I have a little more experience as a firearms safety instructor on the range side of things. You have some more experience on the set side. But we're just talking about several ranges.

Steve Wolf  29:52  
Right. And you know, there's always someone there watching what's going on. Yep, the range supposed to be even higher safety ratio on a movie set where you're supposed to have like one armor watching one guy with a gun? You know, just break down. Where was the armor?

Stephen Gutowski  30:09  
Yeah, I think that's a good question. Right? How did how did this break down? I think, for me, the number one thing I mean, for me, it's like there were multiple mistakes across multiple people that led to something like this happening, there wasn't just one thing to get to this sort of catastrophic mistake, or somebody's life is taken on a movie set by what should be a safe use of firearms that's overseen on multiple levels, you got to have multiple mistakes. It's not just one thing that one person did.

Steve Wolf  30:40  
Yeah, this chain of broken links, right. The thing is that the chain starts at the top with the producer, which was Alec Baldwin. And it ends at the bottom with the person who had the gun in their hands, which was Alec Baldwin. Right? So there's no, there's no escaping blame there. But I worry that he won't get any, there's enough for everyone.

Stephen Gutowski  31:00  
Yeah, that's my take on it too. Like, obviously, he's the one who pulled the trigger. He's the one who didn't check the gun himself to see if it was clear, he's the one who was pointing it in the direction of crew. Now, again, all of those things can only happen in a scenario on set where other people are also making mistakes, like allowing a shot to take place where a gun is pointed at a crew member writing the wrong ammunition into the gun, not checking the gun when you're handed it to give talyc bobbin. Right, this rice director, and the just general lack of safety in allowing live ammunition on set in the first place? Right?

Steve Wolf  31:39  
Would anyone say that the movie was any worse? If I use this gun or this gun? With I mean, would that affect how many people came in paid to watch that movie? Or how many people streamed the movie? I don't think so. Right? But this one is, is actually manufactured as a prop gun. And if you try to put live ammo into it, you know, you don't get very far because it won't accept it. The length of this cartridge is too great for the modified cylinder. And you can't fit it in there. Right? So when they say, oh, we can't use that gun, it doesn't look real way. Because this one looks more real. This one actually is a live one. And you know, you can take live ammo, you can put it in there. And then you can shoot and kill someone with it, or even kill one person and injure another person. Right. So, you know, no, I would think and in any case, where a prop gun that or a gun modified gun can be used, it should be. But to say that, you know, real guns can't be used safely on set really isn't true either. Because they're used on set all the time, you know, hundreds of times a week, I'm sure people are filming with real guns and no one gets hurt. Because they have someone there who knows what they're doing. And because they don't bring live ammo on the set, yes, you have to make so many mistakes, right? You have to be using an unnecessarily risky gun. You have to be using live ammo on the set. And you have to point the gun at somebody. And if you don't make any one of those mistakes, you don't have an accident. Yeah, you might scare people, you know, if you have live gun live ammo, and you point it off camera and shoot it. Pretty irresponsible. But nobody dies.

Stephen Gutowski  33:19  
Exactly. Yeah. And that's why gun safety rules are designed to be redundant. Right? Yeah, that's all idea.

Steve Wolf  33:26  
And simple, right? So what you know, and for Alec Baldwin to say, Oh, I'm I'm not an expert. I'm just an actor. You know, I mean, five year olds can learn these rules. And if part of you know if Robert De Niro can learn how to box so he could do Raging Bull, you know, and Tom Cruise can repel off of building and, you know, in Saudi Arabia, he learns how to do that. You know, there's no reason that if you're playing a cowboy in a western movie, that you can't learn how to use the firearms properly. Just I just don't buy it. I mean, when Alec Baldwin drives to the set, you know, he operates a motor vehicle, right? So what are the control inputs there, a steering wheel, a gear shift, a turn signal, a wiper indicator, you know, air conditioners thing, right? 20 different controls that he learned to use to drive his car. But he can't learn to use the single control on a gun, the trigger, it's the only piece that you have to give input to, to shoot. So there's really no reason that anyone can't have the amount of expertise in firearm safety to be able to look at a gun and know, you know, is there live ammo in there? Is it loaded?

Stephen Gutowski  34:34  
Right. Yeah. And that's, that's my take on it as well, in terms of Alec Baldwin's personal level of negligence in this incident, like, you know, movie sets seem to be a little bit different right than the range because you're because there's supposed to be somebody responsible professionally for everything that happens with a firearm on set the armor right, and you're supposed to have these several different lines. of safety involved with how such shots are set up, you know, and an actor is told to do something a certain way. Maybe the person telling them to do it that way is also responsible when it comes to pointing a gun at that crew. But at the end of the day, anyone who's handling a firearm on onset should know how to safely handle it, they should know how to check it, they should know what it looks like,

Steve Wolf  35:28  
a firearm anywhere should know how to handle it. Right. But especially on set, you know, because it's an occupational environment. If I go down in my basement, and I hire, you know, and I handle my guns unsafely, you know, so I blow a hole in my water heater or something. Not not the end of the world stupid, you know, but not fatal. But if I'm in a professional working environment, you know, then the maximum level of safety is what should be followed, not the minimum level of complacency.

Stephen Gutowski  35:58  
Yeah, absolutely. And so the latest reporting that we've seen and what we've seen in the the warrant applications, the first search warrants involved with this case. It sounds like what happened was there one they were using live ammunition on the set. I mean, obviously, live ammunition was mixed in which again, we've established is probably the top mistake in all of this that that live

Steve Wolf  36:23  
mistake mistake is when you're calculating exhibits, you forget to carry the one. Yeah, this is an act of of overt stupidity.

Stephen Gutowski  36:31  
Yes, yes, certainly. But that sort of sounds it sounds as though the scene was set up to be using dummy ammunition, right like so there's there's three I guess three main types of ammunition right. In this circumstance here. You got live ammunition, which is a fully live round that has the shell casing, the primer, the gunpowder and the bullet the projectile all on one that's that's your when you go to the range and you shoot ammunition that that's live ammunition that you write, then you have blanks, which you have an example of live and blanks over there on your side of things, but blanks are basically live ammunition with the bullet removed, there's no projectile,

Steve Wolf  37:10  
three primer powder in casing, but no bullet.

Stephen Gutowski  37:14  
Right. And that's that's used to simulate what gunfire looks like visibly on camera. Right? Right, because there aren't now there are other ways that you can do that with airsoft guns, CGI CGI. And maybe that's appropriate in certain circumstances, maybe it doesn't look as good on camera, you know, or it's more expensive. And that's why you still have a lot of people using,

Steve Wolf  37:36  
it doesn't look like anything on camera, because you don't see it on camera,

Stephen Gutowski  37:39  
right. And maybe the CGI is not doesn't really match up to what a blank can give you.

Steve Wolf  37:46  
Enough that, you know if we can suspend disbelief for all the other things that are happening in a movie, we could do the same thing for the you know, the muzzle blast.

Stephen Gutowski  37:55  
Sure. But the third type is, is a dummy round. Right? And so a dummy round right here. Yeah, that's where the you have a shell casing, and you have a bullet the projectile, but you don't have any gunpowder in there. So it does it can't fire. That's the idea. And you use that because if you're doing a shot, especially with a revolver, like the one that you have there, the two that you had, right? If you were to point a camera down the barrel of that revolver, and you didn't have a dummy round, and if you had blanks in there, it would look weird, it would look

Steve Wolf  38:29  
different right here, you're looking to see, is there a seat bullets down there? Right, they're not like air.

Stephen Gutowski  38:38  
And that's why they use this. Right? For the visual effect. Now, it sounds like from what we've what's been reported what the police have said that the gun was loaded with dummy rounds and a live round. And that's where you get to the point where it's, it's harder to tell those two apart than it is a blank and alive round. Except that there there should be visible indicators of a dummy round, like the removal of the primer or a dimpled primer. I should know.

Steve Wolf  39:09  
Right. So I often use a spent primer, you know, looks different. Right?

Stephen Gutowski  39:15  
So when your

Steve Wolf  39:17  
primer, you know, could have been the result of a misfire that on a second tap would then go off true. It's better to have no primer.

Stephen Gutowski  39:24  
Yeah, that's a good point. And I guess that's that gets into one point that I wanted to discuss a little bit with you about, I guess, standards on movie sets when it comes to armors. And things like dummy rounds, because I know what they're like the Brandon Lee shooting, you know, back in the 90s. Yeah, one of the explanations for how that happened was that the armor on set made their own custom dummy rounds, is that how it usually

Steve Wolf  39:51  
the bullet stayed there. And then they loaded a blank behind it and then the blank fired the bullet.

Stephen Gutowski  39:57  
Right. And so you could you could see how that happen, but I'm wondering like dummy rounds? Do you usually buy those? Or do you make them yourself? Because it sounds like people kind of make them myself. Yeah,

Steve Wolf  40:08  
you know, primer out. I mean, you start with live ammo, you shoot it off, then you knock out the primer. And then you see the bullet in? Yeah, BDS in it so that when you shake it, you know, those are the dummy rounds.

Stephen Gutowski  40:22  
Okay, so you can have an audio, like an audio different civil confirmation,

Steve Wolf  40:26  
you shake it here, the BB is bouncing around, you know, there's no gunpowder in there. And there's no primer.

Stephen Gutowski  40:31  
Right? And I guess, but I guess that leads me to, like wonder about the standards for this kind of thing. In that, like, if everybody's making their own dummy rounds. You know, it's just like reloads, right? Where you don't necessarily know if it's quality reloads that you're getting. And in this case, maybe the dummy rounds weren't marked very well. And so it wasn't that easy to tell the difference, because you got a new armor 24 years old, only your second movie from what has been reported? Right? Maybe, you know, maybe that also contributed to what happened here.

Steve Wolf  41:02  
Yeah, well, if you can't tell the difference between the dummy rounds and the live rounds, maybe you should assume that they're live rounds. Yeah.

Stephen Gutowski  41:10  
Yeah, I mean, this, this goes back to the idea of like, so many things had to been done wrong for this to happen. Yeah, it's really kind of astounding.

Steve Wolf  41:20  
Yeah. Comedy of tragedies without the comedy.

Stephen Gutowski  41:24  
Right. Right. Absolutely. And so I think one one thing I wanted to get out here is some some things that I've I've seen in terms of people, you know, discussing how actors should really interact with with firearms. So there's a video of another armour, who does, you know, some some western style. TVs and movies had experience, you know, working with with firearms on. And he was he was talking about how it's similar to stunt work, right. And you've also done stopped working a lot of stunt work, right. And so he was comparing this idea of having the actor personally check the chamber, have a revolver for the rounds, and having them you know, manipulate the rounds, take them out, put them back in and make sure that they're actually what they're supposed to be that that can actually that could cause problems to be similar in this person's analogy to an actor checking their own stunt rigging, and potentially screwing it up. What do you what do you think about that argument? In this case,

Steve Wolf  42:32  
I think all of this is physics. And physics can be broken down in pretty simple terms. If the stunt rigging means that the buckles are supposed to be set thusly, then you tell the actor I'm setting your buckle thusly, and you know that it's safe, because the webbing is covering the red, you know, part of the carabiner, that tells us that it's properly looped through, and then the actor could look and then they could know that they're safe, and they would feel comfortable. And there's no reason not to share that knowledge. You're not worried that the actors, once they have that knowledge, they're gonna steal your job or something, you know, you're just explaining what you're doing. You're showing them that they you know what you're doing, and you're letting them share in the safety process. So that, let's say you put the harness on wrong. If you've taught the actor what it's supposed to look like, the actor could then look down and say, Hey, Charlie, didn't you tell me that the red was supposed to be covered on here? Because it doesn't look like it to me, you're the expert, you come look, but I'm just, you know, it's just doesn't look like what you taught me was supposed to happen. Yeah, the more you share that knowledge, right, the more people can participate in the safety process.

Stephen Gutowski  43:39  
And this is what I thought about that was kind of mirrors. My thoughts on this particular critique, like I understand, you know, this person was saying, All right, well, we're only loading in rounds in the Certain Way. So we might need a one blank, and then for dummy rounds, in order for this particular shot, because we only want to, we only want them to take as many shots like this is a very controlled situation. I suppose. That's right. And so we only we don't want to mix. We don't have we don't want to have the actor mix them around, or whatever. Right. It seemed to me like, alright, that that makes sense. But then why not have the Why isn't the armor there,

Steve Wolf  44:16  
too. So we load everything up in the right order. You know, and then, based on that order, you know, this one here should be in this, this round should be in this position, right? So we put that in there. We make a little mark on the back of that. That way, if the actor handles it, if they want to look at it, you know, they will check it themselves, then we make sure that the right one ended up back in the right spot before we go,

Stephen Gutowski  44:39  
huh? Yeah, so it doesn't seem like that big of a hurdle.

Steve Wolf  44:43  
Yeah, no, there's there's no big hurdles and gun safety, which is, which is really why even though when these accidents happen, they are a tragedy. They don't happen all that often. relative to the amount of, you know, gun usage that happens on onsets.

Stephen Gutowski  44:57  
Right, right. Because there's I mean, There's like dozens of movies and film, TV shot every day in this country that that utilizes firearms in one way or another, the

Steve Wolf  45:08  
vast majority are done completely safely.

Stephen Gutowski  45:10  
Yeah, I mean, I'm only aware personally, from what I've, you know, read. Since this this news broke of three fatal accidents over the last, what, 40 years there was the

Steve Wolf  45:24  
John Hexam. Yeah.

Stephen Gutowski  45:25  
84, Brandon Lee. And then this is the third one, right. And this is the third right there. And others. In other parts, like he just had his

Steve Wolf  45:35  
ear shot off with a blank. There's a gentleman in Kansas City that had his face shot with a live shotgun during a Western reenactment, you know, earlier this year, because they, they used a live shotgun, live shotgun shells instead of blanks. So these things happen, you know, occasionally, but for the amount of filming that's done that uses firearms, you know, it's a rarity. It's a rarity, because you have to achieve such a high level of stupidity and carelessness that most people just can't get there.

Stephen Gutowski  46:11  
Yeah. And I guess, to that point, why the quiz should discuss a little more about how they got to that point on this particular senator, at least from what we can, what we can glean from what's been reported thus far. And it sounds a lot like it perhaps had to do with budget constraints and rushing production. That is a $6

Steve Wolf  46:33  
million movie. So how much more would it have cost to hire someone with a little bit more experience? And to make sure that they had prop guns instead of real guns? Right? Not, you know, yeah, very minor budgetary change to the cost of a life lost. And it's

Stephen Gutowski  46:53  
pretty foolish. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But it sounds like this production. I mean, obviously, they hired a green armor. We know that much. Well, they hired now she had her father and worked in the industry. But this is our father,

Steve Wolf  47:07  
Bill Reid is a real Mensch and knows his stuff, and has been doing this forever and has a perfect safety record.

Stephen Gutowski  47:16  
Hmm. Perhaps he should have also been hired alongside,

Steve Wolf  47:22  
honestly, I mean, everyone has to start somewhere in the business. You know, we all have our first gig, you know, but you should have that first. But the first time that you have all the responsibility should be after you've apprenticed under somebody for several years, who's really taught you the ropes properly. And, you know, you know that you know, what, they know that you know, what you're doing when you take that first job?

Stephen Gutowski  47:45  
Yeah. And then, well, I guess alongside that, so, you know, in your experience, from what I've heard reported, there, there's a possibility that maybe she was the only one on set, who had the responsibility for the guns, and maybe there's some suggestion that there should have been, she should have had a say, you know, assistant or something like that involved? What does that look like normally,

Steve Wolf  48:07  
she should have, maybe she should have had an assistant. More likely, she should have had a supervisor, you know, someone who'd been doing it a lot longer than she had. And she could have been the assessment. But someone there who's watching every step of what happens, making sure that she understands the rules, and make sure that she's comfortable enforcing them. If you get a you know, a newbie on set, you know, they're kind of timid, and they're just so happy to have the job. And then you have some kind of a bully ad, like, Come on, let's go, let's go. Let's go. Let's get those guns. They're here. I gotta get this shot. I got six more minutes that like, you know, what, what are you holding me up for? It's like, wait a minute, dude. Okay. Copernicus could have predicted 400 years ago what time sunset was going to be tonight, if you didn't account for that. That's your problem. I'm not going to rush the safety process here. I'm not going to endanger anyone. And if you feel that way, maybe you're the one who shouldn't be working here. Yeah, but it takes a lot. You know, it takes some balls to write to talk back to an ad like that, when you're afraid that you're gonna get fired. They're just gonna bring in somebody else.

Stephen Gutowski  49:06  
Yeah. And you see that in I mean, all over the place right in, in accidents, and when accidents happen, whether it's with guns or even something like airplane crashes, right?

Steve Wolf  49:16  
Shuttle, right, how many people knew that there was something wrong with the O rings? You know, nobody said anything. And then they set it up and it blows up in their face and people die. Right. Has is an obligation, you know, to speak up for safety? Yeah, anyone doesn't think that something is safe, you know, they have a right to raise their hand and, you know, get that concern voiced and addressed.

Stephen Gutowski  49:41  
Yeah, I remember one one plane crash that where the like the pilot and the assistant pilot, you know, there's two there's two pilots but one was more experienced than the other and then less experienced one notice something was wrong, but didn't assertively speak up because the the More experienced pilots said that there wasn't a problem. And then the plane ended up crashing and everyone died. But, you know, that sort of dynamic is a problem.

Steve Wolf  50:09  
Yeah, no intimidation through seniority, you know, is no way to promote safety.

Stephen Gutowski  50:14  
Now, what about this, this report that the assistant director is the one who gave Baldwin the gun and told him it was cold? Is it unusual that that the assistant director would be the one handing the gun to an actor and not the armor themselves? How does that feel only,

Steve Wolf  50:32  
you know, the more people you put between the gun and the actor, the less responsibility The and the more fragmented chain of safety you get. Only the armor should have loaded that gun. And Alec should have been told if anyone hands you the gun. That's not the armor, don't take it. Yeah. You know, I, I tell actors that don't take the gun from anyone want me because I have properly checked it. And I know what I'm doing. And not only do I do what I'm doing, but I've made sure that you know what you're doing, right? I know that, you know, not to take that gun, and do anything with it until we've made sure of its condition. And if we're not sure if it's dummies or, or live rounds in there, then we're just going to take a moment, we're going to unload the six cylinders to be done in six seconds. We're going to check those rounds. We're going to shake them. We're going to reload. Oh, boy, we cost the production company. 30 seconds, you know, but we saved someone's life.

Stephen Gutowski  51:27  
Yeah. I mean, I just feel like that's what it boils down to here. It's not that hard to properly carry out gun safety rules. On Saturday at the range, it doesn't take long. Anyone can be trained to do it. There's just like, no good excuse for any of this stuff happening. And there's so many people involved along the line that had to forget what they were supposed to do or not really forget, but never know. And yeah, and it's just

Steve Wolf  51:56  
never should have picked up that gun. He never should have handed it Alec Baldwin, he certainly shouldn't have yelled Cold Gun unless he's willing to take the murder app. And so

Stephen Gutowski  52:05  
yeah, and Baldwin shouldn't have trusted him on that point for him.

Steve Wolf  52:09  
Know how many, he is reported to have had previous onset safety violations with guns. And honestly, you know, a good ad often doesn't even need to be there. They could be setting up the next shot so the production can move along quickly. Right. They're, they're letting everyone know, like this is what we're doing next is we're doing next so that the crew can be ready. You know, and they're not supposed to take a minutia hands on role, unless they're trying to expedite things beyond the pace at which they can be done safely.

Stephen Gutowski  52:41  
Yeah. And I also want to know, who set up this shot in a way that a gun was pointed at somebody? Right? How did that happen? You can have a gun pointed at a camera, right? I mean, in your experience, right? They you can have a gun pointed at a camera. Even right, you know what you're doing right now,

Steve Wolf  52:59  
your camera, this gun, unless the internet is, you know, been mature to a point that I'm not aware of. Right? The only thing in dangerous, you know my camera.

Stephen Gutowski  53:09  
Exactly. But there's no one behind your camera when you're doing that in this race. There were people, at least two people behind that camera when he played or however, worked out like clearly they were in line of the where the gun was pointed, and it's just better ever be set up that way?

Steve Wolf  53:26  
Yeah, you know, guns that fire single bullets are extremely directional. They only endanger the person standing in line with the sights. So if you're if you're lining up a shot, where you're doing a cross draw and the cameras played, you know, the gun is played behind you. And you're sweeping across this whole 180 degree arc. And you're ending up here, with the possibility of slight over travel, maybe over here, you know, then you you clear this entire side of the set. You put everyone over here, you locked the camera off, you hit record, you step off camera, save to it to the safe zone where the gun is never pointed. You get your shot. You come back and turn the camera off. Yeah, yeah. So I bet you that so many people knew on that set that that's the way you're supposed to do it. But everyone's rushing through following other people's suggestions who don't know as well as they do. And people are like, You know what, why even raise my voice? No one's gonna listen to

Stephen Gutowski  54:21  
me. Yeah, it sounds like it was a culture problem on that set. I mean, you had you had to walk off by the union camera camera people. I mean, I don't know if that's connected or not, but it's sort of gives you this impression that they're complaining about being rushed. They're complaining about safety conditions of having to work long hours and then drive long distance back to their hotels, obviously a very different kind of safety issue. But that sucks

Steve Wolf  54:49  
and it can contribute to fatigue, which can contribute to accidents, but it was not a proximate cause of the accident. Right? Right. Nobody got killed because the food was crappy, where the drives were longer the hotel beds were too hard, they got killed because they pointed a gun at someone that had live ammo and press the trigger.

Stephen Gutowski  55:06  
Right, I just wonder if it if it gives some sort of indication about how the production was going and sort of priorities that they were that they were taking. And that speaks to

Steve Wolf  55:15  
a culture of disregard for the health and safety of the crew.

Stephen Gutowski  55:20  
Right? And that, then that's how you end up ultimately, with a horrible tragedy like this.

Steve Wolf  55:24  
Yeah, people get overworked, they get fatigued. And they, you know, they lose their safety edge. So what I have to blow up a car in the middle of the night, you know, I look at the production clock, and I say, Okay, well, you know, you guys are starting at the, at eight, you know, I normally go to bed at midnight. I feel like maybe I have a two hour window there. You know, I could blow up this car until two. But if you're not ready for that shot, I'm not going to do it any later. Because I'm not comfortable. Knowing that the further you move me away from my normal sleep pattern, the more likely I am to overlook something, and and cause an accident. So here's your window, you know, you've got between midnight and two to get this shot. Otherwise, we're just going to have to do it another time. And if you don't like that answer, you could go get somebody else.

Stephen Gutowski  56:14  
Right. And that's, and that's sort of the rub too, is like you get when you're in that position, and you're responsible for the safety. You have to stand up for yourself, because if you don't someone could get hurt.

Steve Wolf  56:24  
Yeah, you have to stand up for the crew. Yes, yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry, Dave. I'm sorry, Dave. But what you're proposing is not safe. And I won't do it. Because I don't want to kill anyone. And you know, that I'm washed up in this business and someone is washed up from their life forever. Because you didn't get your shot, or you wanted to save 50 bucks on not getting the right guns here. You didn't want to pay the FedEx fees from LA to get prop gun sent in. You know, whatever your problem is, that's your problem. Don't make your problem, my problem.

Stephen Gutowski  56:52  
Right. And

Steve Wolf  56:55  
I was hired to make sure that the set is safe. Yeah, so don't interfere with my job.

Stephen Gutowski  57:00  
And that's the ultimate tragedy here is that someone lost their life, somebody who's a mother or wife, you know, rising star in the industry, from what everyone said. It's a hard, it's a horrifying thing. And, you know, I think it's easy to get caught up in like, oh, Alec Baldwin's a big star. A lot of people don't like him. You know, is he gonna? Is he gonna face criminal charges? I mean, maybe he will? I don't? I don't know. We'll see what happens with that. But the more important thing here is not whether Alec Bob, you know, sort of ranking blame for who who did what wrong. There were so many people that deserve blame. Yeah, you know, obviously Baldwin's the one who ultimately pulled the trigger and had a gun pointed at somebody, and that ended in someone's life being taken. But what matters more to me when I look at it is the person's life who was taken in, in this way that was the result of such awful negligence on so many people's part?

Steve Wolf  57:51  
Yes, I'm not I'm not afraid for either of us to throw around the term gross negligence. Yeah. Because the departure from the safety norms was was so huge. That, you know, your negligence is, you know, his, he made a little mistake. All right, we weren't paying attention. But to get all three of these things wrong, and have it end up with someone being killed, you know, gross negligence, you know, wanton disregard for human life.

Stephen Gutowski  58:18  
Right. And so, I guess one last thing for you here, what, what's your takeaway? What do you want to see change? I know, you've talked a little bit about in the past on other interviews about, you know, maybe removing real guns altogether, some people have started petitioner and I'm interested in your

Steve Wolf  58:37  
27,000 People signed that petition. And that will make anyone safer, who's standing behind those 27,000 pages. But otherwise, it's not going to do anything, you know, people don't follow the rules. And it's not that we need new rules, it's we need to follow the simple rules that we already have. Now, given a choice, when there is the availability, you know, of using a prop gun rather than a real gun, here's the prop gun, you know, and if it costs you 200 bucks to have the, the barrel, you know, the cylinder modified, you know, spend the money, don't bring live ammo on set, and don't point guns at people. When I think you know, as a firearms instructor, I think, well, if you had a real gun, and you loaded it with live ammo, and you pointed it at someone, you press the trigger, and a whole ended up in the person that everything worked, right. Right, that that's actually what these guns are designed to do. They're designed to fire projectiles that make holes in people. So if that's what the equipment does, is unmodified format. You have to do everything different you have to use a modified gun you have to use modified ammo that we that we call blanks, and you have to not point the guns at me. If you do those things, nobody's gonna get hurt.

Stephen Gutowski  59:48  
Yeah, I mean, I think largely the same way I got to me I don't see the necessity of like banning all guns especially since There's this is such a rare event it is horrific event, but it should never be able to happen. Because people should be following the safety rules. That's what that was the problem here. That's

Steve Wolf  1:00:12  
right. That's right. It's, you know, if you have a one of the set drivers that drives people back and forth to the hotel, and you and you kept them up for 24 hours, because, you know, after guests because they've got to spend five hours ferrying people to the set, and five hours, at the end of the day, ferrying people to set and they're exhausted, and they happen to run someone over on a movie set, you're not going to say we shouldn't allow live cars on set anymore. You know, we're gonna say, we should ensure that conditions to make sure that everyone has enough sleep, to make sure that the drivers are, you know, have licenses that to make sure that they've received sufficient training, to make sure that the conditions are optimized for them to perform well. But to blame it on a piece of equipment is really putting the responsibility in the wrong place.

Stephen Gutowski  1:00:54  
Absolutely. But I'm with you, as far as you know, everywhere that it makes sense, try to mitigate the risks. And one of the ways to mitigate risks is using blank firing guns instead of real guns using airsoft guns and CGI, in circumstances where you can using rubber guns in shots where it's far enough away that you can't tell the difference, right, using shooting techniques so that the guns never pointed at another person, but it looks like it is on camera. There's all kinds of things you can do and should do. But, but yeah, well, we appreciate you coming on. having me here. Yeah, given given us. It's been really,

Steve Wolf  1:01:33  
if your viewers are interested. Normally I sell this for quite a lot of money. But I put my entire slide deck for my handgun safety class, on my website, it's at Steve wolf dot info. It's also on my LinkedIn page. And you can download the whole you know, 400 slide presentation, you know, that walks people through any of this stuff, you know, any of the instructors in your audience, you're welcome to download that presentation. And, and use it because, you know, I break it down so simply that it's really hard to get it wrong after you've seen it that way.

Stephen Gutowski  1:02:05  
Yeah, super important to get that kind of thing. And then also, if people are perhaps interested in having you consult for their movie, or stunt or whatever, you know, they're your normal job. Hopefully they can contact you through the website, as well as

Steve Wolf  1:02:18  
the website or just text me, you know, I made my phone number 512 old wolf, because I set my sights on one thing, get old, you get old, it means you've you've beat the odds on everything that could have taken you out. Yeah.

Stephen Gutowski  1:02:32  
Wonderful. All right. Well, thanks for coming on. Maybe we'll have you on again in the future to talk a little bit.

Steve Wolf  1:02:38  
It's a great service, you have your really great, great podcast.

Stephen Gutowski  1:02:41  
Thanks. Thanks. Appreciate it. Alright. Alright, that's all I've got for you guys this episode. Join me again next week for another one. And if you're in the mood, go on over to the reload.com and pick out a membership today. We've got monthly we got yearly we even have lifetime although I think I'm gonna, that one's gonna be pulled off soon, here in a little bit. But go ahead and check those out. While they're available. You will get the podcast today early, you will also get exclusive access to a dozen dozens, dozens of exclusive pieces of content, including stories that you can't get anywhere else and analysis pieces you can't get anywhere else, from me from Jake and from others. So head on over there. And if you're so inclined, please take a moment to rate the podcast. Let us know what you think. Let us know how you think we're doing we try to incorporate any feedback we get to try and improve things I tried it not to say I'm as much because of warming reviewer is not easy though. I'll tell you that much. But go ahead. That helps us a lot to review to rate this podcast to get it out to more people. We will be back with you again. Next week. See you guys then

Unknown Speaker  1:04:13  
gave him poison just for fun. I had one friend. Now there's none. I'm a the devil broke so many bones. But none of them were on me. I was alone. I broke so many balls.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai