Actors and other personnel who handle firearms on film sets in New Mexico would be required to take a gun safety course from the state Department of Game and Fish before the cameras start rolling under a bill introduced Monday.
A film production company with workers who fail to comply with the requirement of obtaining a “valid certificate of competency in the safe handling of firearms” would be ineligible for the state’s film credits under Senate Bill 188.
The legislation was born out of the Oct. 21 fatal shooting on the Rust film set at Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe. Authorities have said actor and co-producer Alec Baldwin’s prop revolver discharged a live round during a rehearsal, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
I am on record against state mandatory requirements for training since you never know the kind of moron behind the laws and the probable ignorance on guns. But this is rubbing the face of the puppy in the big turd left in the living room and I kind of enjoyed the idea for a brief second or two.
I think that what they need to do is to force actors to make an action movie with Michael Mann and donate their monies to the NSSF’s Project ChildSafe. That way they get to train under real professionals and fund the distribution of gun locks and other safety device to reduce accidental killings of children by guns left unsafe.
Hat Tip AWA
I’d like to see a state law that states persons prohibited from owning a firearm cannot handle one simply because they’re filming a movie or tv show.
I’m not exactly sure how you’d frame the legalese or if it could survive a First Amendment challenge… Heck, I’m also normally strongly opposed to the underlying notion that a previous felony conviction means your right to bear arms is revoked.
But, like you said, sometimes you gotta rub the puppy’s nose in it.
I believe that this is already the case. A prohibited person can not posses a firearm. And the law says that if you are holding it, you posses it.
A friend of mine even had issues with having a gun in her home because her husband is a prohibited person. The police considered him having possession even if it was in a gun safe with a combination lock. Because she *could* have given him the combination.
They considered him in possession, even if the gun was in a gun safe with a keyed lock, because she couldn’t prove he couldn’t get access to the key.
I think in this case it’s simply a matter of removing the exemptions from gun laws granted to film and television, which makes it more constitutional since you’re applying the equal protection clause. Plus imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth when the universal background checks and mandatory waiting periods kick in. Making Hollywood follow every California gun law to the letter would be awesome.
Point of Order:
Just exactly who do you think it is who fills the campaign coffers of Califrutopian elected officials, since ever, for a century and more?
Take your time there.
Removing production rules in CA will happen when Hell freezes over, and the movie/TV industry is the last cash-cow industry in the state that they haven’t driven out of business hereabouts. The state would go bankrupt in about a minute, and the overhaul and political massacre of elected officials would be biblical if they even whispered that idea out loud.
I have no idea if there are even any similar carve-outs in NM or other states, but I’d be interested to hear about it.
But the supreme idiocy of this whole tempest-in-a-teacup, which underlines the basic insanity of one faction, is that people openly want to have nominally 2A “free” states institute CA-style weapons restrictions, and think that’s a good idea, and will stomach that rather than just simply admit that the incompetent PropTwat fucked up massively, and owns this whole disasterpiece entirely, and leave that reality alone just where it is.
When anyone has more in common with Chuck Schumer than Ted Nugent, they ought to consider thoughtfully how they got there.
And probably put the bong down.
That’ll work: to move the tiny movie industry in NM to AZ and Texas.
As if there’s a shortage of desert in the Southwest.
Well played.
As if there’s a literal explosion of shootings and firearms injuries and deaths on movie sets.
(Let’s re-visit this this when one hunting death causes them to require a master’s degree in weapons engineering to get a NM hunting license. Stir the toilet, enjoy the stew, right?)
If they wanted to pass a law that, instead of getting hired because daddy once knew something about firearms, all prop masters and weapons handlers had to take a basic class on firearms on their own before being allowed to work on productions like every propmaster and weapons handler has to do to join the prop union in Hollywood, that would have actually saved at least one life on movie sets in the last 28 years.
But we can’t expect politicians to bother to pay attention to the actual causes of and solutions for real problems.
Actually, a reasonable requirement for firearms prop masters would be current certification as an NRA instructor and RSO. If you’re not at least that well trained you’re obviously unfit for the job.
(And yes, I know that would rule me out, even though I’m more qualified than the turnip who worked that job at Rust.)
Interesting thought. Those certifications aren’t that hard to get. Whether the training would sink in, is another question.
You owe an apology to actual turnips.
“That’ll work: to move the tiny movie industry in NM to AZ and Texas.”
Tiny? Nope. The film industry in New Mexico is huge, both relative to the state’s overall economic production, and to the industry as a whole in the US.
Ranking states leading film production by spending, as of 2020 [1]:
1. Georgia
2. New Mexico
3. Louisiana
4. California <== you are here
5. New York
Kindly note that neither Arizona nor Texas are in the top 5.
And it's continuing to grow in NM. New studios are opening up once every couple of years; the most recent, at least in the Albuquerque / Santa Fe area, is conversion of a former Indian casino. (They built a new casino and were looking for something to do with the old property.)
[1] https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2020/aug/03/georgino-1-film-production/528958/?bcsubid=84c7f258-160e-4bbf-8835-f86c7304c607&pbdialog=reg-wall-login-created-tfp
Nice try.
That was funny. Almost.
So, maybe look up a year not impacted just a wee bit by COVID, in a year when pretty much all film and television production in SoCal and NYFS was suspended for the duration.
But from your intense knowledge of The Biz, you thought of that wrinkle before your posted it, right?
…Right…?
I mean, since it was the opening line in the story, and all:
“Despite film production shutdowns in Georgia and around the world during COVID-19…”
GIGO
Cherry picking irrelevant data: Forfeiture of possession, and wearing clown shoes and red nose for one quarter of play.
Strong work.
IRL, NM is a pimple on the ass of production, and always will be.
Especially with the quality of folks like Hannah Gutierrez-Reed representative of the hacks available in the local talent pool.
They’ll spend more just on coffee, muffins, and bagels for the Writer’s rooms in Hollywood between now and Labor Day than the entire production budget of everything in NM, in any 12 years out of 10, since ever.
Here, let me help you out with some relevant data a teensy bit more representative of, y’know, reality:
Top 10 States, Film & TV Productions, 2017-18
Rank State Productions
1 California 1,335 <== CA is HERE
2 New York 573
3 Georgia 263
4 Louisiana 79
T5 New Jersey 70
T5 Illinois 70
7 Texas 68
8 Nevada 52
9 New Mexico 49 <== NM is HERE
10 Mass 45
Source: Motion Picture Association
https://siteselection.com/issues/2020/mar/how-new-mexico-became-a-to-10-film-state.cfm
IOW, CA is the Sun in that table, and NM is, well, Uranus.
Astronomy imitates cinematic reality. What can I say.
Wherein we see that NM captured almost 1.9% of film and TV production from that period, compared to CA only having 51%, a paltry 27 times more than production powerhouse NM over the same time span. Thanks for playing.
Perhaps selecting a publication a bit more media-savvy than the Chattanogga Times Free Press might be advisable to inform future contributions. Just saying.
You’ll know when production in BFEgypt actually surpasses LaLaLand (which won’t be a bad thing).
For openers, movies and TV will stop being a cesspit, and more of them will be worth seeing, again.
So, apropos of the day, “Did you want to talk about the weather, or were you just making chit-chat?“
“As if there’s a shortage of desert in the Southwest.”
Nice stereotype. Clearly you’ve never visited New Mexico, or you’d know about the wetlands, alpine forests, prairie-like areas, volcanic springs, et cetera.
I’ve travelled extensively through NM on several occasions.
Never had occasion to stop for anything but gas to continue the transit.
Too much beach with no ocean.
If you like it, and live there because of that, good for you.
Everyone should appreciate their home turf, and I have nothing against the state, per se.
(Just factual quibble with any contention that it’s a mecca of film production. Which is only true if we compare it to Arkansas or North Dakota.)
Unfortunately for production purposes, SoCal alone supplies all that you describe and more, most within an hour or three of Hollyweird. You could look it up.
So now, having gotten that out of the way, tell the class where the brokedick low-budget film lot where Rust was filmed is located, and what the immediate surrounding terrain is? There are six towns like that within the Thirty Mile Zone (TMZ), just for L.A., before we talk about the actual Tombstone movie location town in NM, or Tucson Movie Ranch in AZ.
When I first read the article I had an instant “this isn’t good” moment. If you read a bit further, the proposed bill requires a safety course in order to qualify for movie tax breaks and credits. If you want the state to give you money or tax breaks, run your people through a safety course.
If the course is to painful, I’m sure the movie company will move elsewhere. But all in all it might be a step in the right direction.
I’m pretty sure that there will be an industry that pops up to teach these courses.
Heck, we already have this sort of requirement in my state. Before I can go hunting on somebody else’s property I have to take an approved gun safety course. If I want to hunt on my property? No such requirement.
It took me many many years before I took that safety course. I didn’t need a hunting license so didn’t need the safety course. And it allows me to apply for a CCW in a different state. Again, I didn’t need the safety course for CCW in my state.
The movie industry will move to Africa to save a dollar. Literally.
This is NM pointing a gun at its own head, and saying “Do what we say, or we’ll shoot!”
To people who re-write best-selling Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, just because they can.
States trying to out-legislate Califrutopia (which doesn’t even get this stupid – which should tell you something) just drives production back home to Tinseltown.
By all means, do that.
They have a big book. Everything they want is listed in it. They will simply scratch NM out of it, and 49 other states will fall all over themselves to fill the void, without any onerous restrictions. Like they do already, right this minute.
And then, when the puny NM film industry collapses, the locals will bitch about how “Californians” ruined things in their state.
This is pure comedy, and it writes itself.