The head armorer of 'Rust' once gave an 11-year-old actress a gun without checking it properly, The Daily Beast reports

• The head armorer of the film "Rust" was a "bit careless" with guns, production sources told The Daily Beast.
• On the set of her last project, the head armorer allegedly gave a gun to a child actress without properly checking it.

The head armorer on Alec Baldwin's film "Rust" was a "bit careless" with guns and, according to The Daily Beast, once gave a weapon to a child actress without thoroughly checking it.

Two production sources who worked alongside Hannah Gutierrez-Reed on "The Old Way," starring Clint Howard and Nicolas Cage, said that filming had to briefly stop after an incident with child actress Ryan Kiera Armstrong.

The Daily Beast reported that Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer on set when Baldwin discharged a prop gun that fatally struck 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, allegedly loaded a weapon on the ground in an area filled with pebbles. Then, per the media outlet, she handed it to the 11-year-old girl without adequately checking for barrel obstruction.

Two sources said crew members intervened and called for a pause on filming until Gutierrez-Reed had properly checked the firearm.

"She was reloading the gun on the ground, where there were pebbles and stuff. We didn't see her check it. We didn't know if something got in the barrel or not," one source said, per The Daily Beast.

A source suggested to the media outlet that "she was a bit careless with the guns, waving it around every now and again," they told The Daily Beast. "There were a couple of times she was loading the blanks and doing it in a fashion that we thought was unsafe."

As Insider previously reported, Gutierrez-Reed said last month that she had concerns about her experience level. The 24-year-old told a podcast that she almost didn't take her job on "The Old Way," her first job as head armorer because she wasn't sure if she was "ready" for it.

Gutierrez-Reed was unavailable for comment.

On the set of "Rust," her second film as a head gun handler, according to reports, crew members had safety concerns before the incident that killed Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza.

Some crew members highlighted previous accidental prop gun discharges that had occurred the weekend before the fatal shooting, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau is investigating the accidental shooting and could impose civil penalties, according to Deadline.