‘Rust’ Gun Could Not Fire Without Trigger Pull, FBI Report States

deadline.com:

Contradicting Alec Baldwin’s prior claims, the FBI forensic report in the case claims that the gun from the fatal shooting on the set of the film Rust could not have been fired without pulling the trigger.Baldwin, the film’s producer and lead actor, shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set.

He said he believed he was handling a “cold gun” without live ammunition. However, when the gunshot fied, a live bullet struck Hutchins, killing her.

The film’s director, Joel Souza, was also wounded in the shooting.The FBI’s accidental discharge testing determined that .45 Colt (.45 Long Colt) caliber F.lli Pietta single-action revolver needed a trigger pull to fire.With the hammer in the quarter- and half-cock positions, the gun “could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger,” the report stated.It added that the gun could not detonate “without a pull of the trigger when the hammer was struck directly.” Such response is normal for this type of revolver, the report stated.The report, first carried by ABC-TV, contradicts what Baldwin claimed in a December interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

Baldwin said then he didn’t pull the trigger on the gun.“The trigger wasn’t pulled,” he said. “I didn’t pull the trigger.”Representatives for Baldwin and Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who controlled weapons on the set, have not responded to the report.Santa Fe County Sheriff’s investigators say that they received the FBI’s completed forensic reports August 2, which were then sent to New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator for review. “The OMI had advised the Sheriff’s Office that they required these forensic reports to finalize their investigation,” reads a release from the Sheriff’s Office, which received the reports