Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins’ tragic on-set death has once again sparked a debate on how guns should be used while filming, and Eliza Hutton — who lost her fiancé in a similar accident almost three decades ago — is now weighing in.

For those who don’t know, Brandon Lee was killed on the final week of filming the movie The Crow in March 1993, when another actor shot him using a gun that was loaded with blanks — but also part of a dummy bullet from a previous scene. To make matters even more tragic, Lee was set to marry Hutton just a few weeks later, on April 17.

So it’s no surprise that Eliza is urging the powers that be to make changes when it comes to using guns on set in the wake of the “avoidable tragedy” on the set of Alec Baldwin’s film last week. Breaking her 28-year silence, the 57-year-old told People:

“Twenty eight years ago, I was shattered by the shock and grief of losing the love of my life, Brandon Lee, so senselessly. My heart aches again now for Halyna Hutchins’ husband and son, and for all those left in the wake of this avoidable tragedy. I urge those in positions to make change to consider alternatives to real guns on sets.”

Hutton seemingly referenced the accident that killed Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza earlier this week by taking to her private Instagram account to post a pic of herself with Brandon, who was the son of martial arts star Bruce Lee, in Venice, Italy, when they got engaged in October 1992. She wrote in the caption:

“There’s no such thing as a prop gun.”

What she means is, “prop gun” is widely used as a term for any gun used as a prop in a film or TV production and does NOT refer to whether it’s still a deadly weapon.

Moreover, Brandon’s sister Shannon Lee broke her silence on the Rust shooting on Friday. She wrote on her brother’s Twitter page, where she tweets on behalf of his legacy:

“Our hearts go out to the family of Halyna Hutchins and to Joel Souza and all involved in the incident on Rust. No one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set. Period “

As authorities continue to investigate what happened on the Rust set, and industry professionals point the blame at who they think was responsible for the accident, a Change.org petition has been launched calling for the ban of all real firearms on film and TV productions.

The petition was created by director Bandar Albuliwi, an alumnus from the American Film Institute Conservatory, where Hutchins also graduated from. The page reads:

“Halyna was a talented cinematographer and a good friend whose life was taken tragically due to a real firearm being used on set. We need to make sure this never happens again. There is no excuse for something like this to happen in the 21st century. Real guns are no longer needed on film production sets. Change needs to happen before additional talented lives are lost.”

As of this writing, the petition has been signed by over 53,000 people out of the 75,000 requested signatures.

While that’s definitely one solution, others are focusing on the fact that accidents like these wouldn’t happen if crew members didn’t neglect and ignore safety regulations, which seemed to be the case for the Rust shooting — just like it was on the set of The Crow.

What do YOU think should be done to keep film and TV sets safer??

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