'Rust' Armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed Blames Producers for Fatal Shooting

The head armorer for "Rust" is pointing fingers, claiming the real culprit is the person who introduced live rounds on the set ... she says unbeknownst to her.

The lawyers for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed say in a statement, Hannah "is devastated and completely beside herself over the events that have transpired."

The attorneys go on to say, "Safety is Hannah's number one priority on the set. Ultimately this set would never have been compromised if live ammo were not introduced. Hannah has no idea where the live rounds came from."

Her lawyers went on to echo what she told authorities ... that the guns were locked up at night and during lunch.

And, the lawyers cast blame on producers for overloading her with work, saying, "Hannah was hired on two positions on this film, which made it extremely difficult to focus on her job as an armorer." This is an interesting statement because it almost assumes she didn't do her job properly because she had too much else to do. We are told her other job on set was as the key assistant for props.

The lawyers say, "She fought for training, days to maintain weapons and proper time to prepare for gunfire but ultimately was overruled by production and her department. The whole production set became unsafe due to various factors, including lack of safety meetings."

The statement seems to acknowledge there were at least 2 misfires of the weapon in the days prior to the fatal shooting ... "The first one on this set was the prop master and the second was a stunt man after Hannah informed him his gun was hot with blanks."

Authorities have already said there were lapses on the set, but they have not played their hand on whether criminal charges will be filed. What is clear ... a real gun should not have been used, there should not have been live ammo on the set and the crew should have cleared everyone in the line of fire to move away during the rehearsal.