ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – In the wake of the deadly shooting on the ‘Rust’ film set, a New Mexico lawmaker wants more gun safety on movie and TV sets around the state.
New Mexico State Senator Cliff Pirtle is introducing a bill that would require all film set personnel who handle firearms to undergo New Mexico’s firearm education course.
“We just want to ensure that everyone that’s going to be working around firearms on movie sets and television sets have proper safety training,” said Pirtle. “We want to make sure that everybody has some type of education or training that maybe they can see something and say, ‘Woah, I’ve been trained, no that was not proper, the way that it was handled.'”
The Roswell Republican said the training is centered around gun-safety basics, like how to properly handle a firearm and make sure it’s not loaded.
Senate Bill 188 comes in response to the fatal shooting on the Santa Fe movie set of “Rust,” where a prop gun being used by Alec Baldwin discharged a live round, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza. Pirtle said he believes the death could’ve been avoided if this law was in place and if everyone on set knew how to handle a gun and understood the difference between live ammunition and blanks.
“If there was some type of training, somebody would’ve caught that, somebody would’ve seen it, somebody would’ve opened it and checked for themselves saying, ‘I’m not going to trust from somebody that it’s a cold gun, I’m going to open it up for myself and make sure that it is completely safe.’ So, I think it would’ve absolutely prevented this tragedy,” said Pirtle.
Pirtle said he doesn’t think the law would negatively impact the state’s film industry by adding a new requirement for workers but said it would make people feel safe on set.
Nexstar’s KRQE reached out for comment from the New Mexico film industry and the state’s local IATSE chapter but did not hear back from either. A filmmaker and friend of Hutchins, Brandar Albuliwi, is pushing for federal legislation that would ban the use of real firearms on movie and television sets nationwide.