Alec Baldwin Shouldn't Spend 5 Years in Prison for an Accident

The actor is a polarizing figure. That shouldn't matter when evaluating the criminal case against him.

Whether or not you agree with the two counts of involuntary manslaughter recently levied against actor Alec Baldwin may depend on your personal feelings toward him—and by extension your feelings toward the Hollywood elite. Baldwin has made no secret of his left-leaning views; his most memorable role of the last several years was arguably his impersonation lampooning former President Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live. He's not a conservative hero.

Baldwin is also guilty of some pretty unsavory things. As chronicled in 2021 by S.E. Cupp in the New York Daily News, the actor has had a series of high-profile incidents that call into question his, er, judgment, which include using slurs against gay people and assaulting a man over a parking spot.

But having a loathsome past doesn't render someone guilty of manslaughter. Even the most distasteful defendants deserve the same level of fairness—to have their charges evaluated based solely on the facts at hand. And the charges here are dubious at best, political theater at worst.

In October 2021, Baldwin was on the set of Rust when he shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins with a prop gun. The death was ruled an accident, which no one in the case disputes. The prosecution says that shouldn't matter. "Just because it's an accident doesn't mean that it's not criminal," said New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies. "Unintentional…means they didn't mean to do it. They didn't have the intent to kill. But it happened anyway….They didn't exercise due caution or circumspection and that's what happened here."

If convicted of the first involuntary manslaughter charge, Baldwin faces up to 18 months behind bars. If convicted of the second—to which prosecutors tacked on a firearm enhancement—he faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison.

Carmack-Altwies makes her case sound like a slam dunk. It is anything but.

The case comes down to what the word negligence means under the law. It doesn't refer to a careless, airheaded moment with deadly consequences. That negligence has to be criminal, which under the New Mexico statute requires "that the defendant must possess subjective knowledge 'of the danger or risk to others posed by his or her actions.'"

Does that mean that Baldwin is blameless? No. Does that mean that the prosecution will have an easy time convincing a jury that he is criminally culpable? Also no. "The prosecution would have to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he was subjectively aware of the danger: that he actually thought about the possibility that the gun might be loaded, and proceeded to point it and pull the trigger despite that," writes Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at UCLA. "That's much harder than just to show carelessness, or even gross carelessness."

It reminded me of the case against Kyle Rittenhouse, who was prosecuted for shooting three men and killing two during the 2020 riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin. If you watched his trial in full, it was abundantly clear that he acted in self-defense, despite being an objectionable character to many people. But Rittenhouse was a symbol, his prosecution almost a foregone conclusion demanded by the political moment. And juries aren't supposed to deliver convictions based on how popular a defendant is.

So why bring the case against Baldwin? I'd venture to guess it's not because the government thinks that the actor, unpalatable as he may be, needs to spend five years in prison to protect public safety. Andrea Reeb, a special prosecutor helping on the case, provided a clue during the national press tour she did alongside Carmack-Altwies. "We're trying to definitely make it clear that everybody's equal under the law, including A-list actors like Alec Baldwin," she said. Ironically, one wonders if these charges would have materialized had no one famous been involved and had it not attracted the attention of the world.

Comments

[Chumby]

It was Alec’s responsibility to check the firearm he was handling and subsequently intentionally discharged before pulling the trigger. If he didn’t know how this “gun thingy” operated, he had no business touching it. His gross negligence resulted in the death of another person and he should be held criminally responsible. The charge of involuntary manslaughter seems appropriate.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Absolutely! A 2-year old who finds a gun and accidentally kills someone probably has no experience with them or knowledge of them. A grown ass adult should be held accountable for killing someone accidentally.

Isn't Baldwin also one of those elite gun banners who know better than the rest of us how dangerous guns are? That just makes it worse. But I don't know for sure that he is a gun control freak, it is just a vague memory.

I'm really tired of elites telling us to do as they say, not as they do. All those Davos attendees are just more of the same, St Greta, Mann, all of them.

[Kungpowderfinger]

It was Alec’s responsibility to check the firearm he was handling

Luckily for Baldwin, actors are known to be dumb as rocks, which will no doubt work in his favor during the trial.

[mad.casual]

But Kyle Rittenhouse should've been smart enough to know that he's not allowed across state lines and just hang out and serve the community where his Dad lives.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Baldwin crossed state lines too.

[Chumby]

He definitely crossed the line with his negligence.

[mad.casual]

But *did he know* he shouldn't have been crossing state lines because, uh, borders are, uh, a figment of our collective imagination... until they, uh, aren't?

I don't have enough depth for the utterly disgusting duplicity Binion displays here.

[Agammamon]

Only national borders are irrelevant. State borders, despite 250 years of cultural and legal precedent to prevent them from being impediments to travel, are sacrosanct.

[jimc5499]

Are you really that stupid?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Your sarcasm meter needs calibration.

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[ravenshrike]

Except for the fact that he's been working in the industry since before the Lee firearm reforms were instituted. He has been on multiple sets with guns since where they would have been explained to him, and as producer on this pic, a personal passion project of his, I guarantee his signature is somewhere on a document bypassing those reforms due to COVID protocols.

[Nardz]

He killed someone, and Reason is bitching that 5 years is too much.

[Chumby]

It isn’t like he peacefully protested on public property or anything.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Baldwin is flat out guilty. But I’ll be shocked if he even gets a year. Also, this article is stupid, Binion is an idiot.

[BYODB]

I can't stand the Baldwin family, but he didn't load the gun and had no reason to believe it was loaded with anything other than blanks.

Perhaps he should be liable for hiring a dumbass to handle the firearms on set, but it seems an excessive punishment to me.

It's sad and tragic that someone was killed, and it seems to me that perhaps the girl they hired for this specific purpose is more at fault in this particular case. How many years is she getting for handing someone a loaded gun and telling them it's safe?

[Chumby]

When it is your hand, it is your responsibility to operate it safely. Visually verifying whether the firearm is loaded is an absolute must.

I don’t like his politics but do like some of his movies. Hunt for Red October is a film I enjoy quite a lot and Beetlejuice was great. None of those affect this incident.

[IceTrey]

Can you visually tell a dummy from a live round? By dummy I mean a loaded cartridge without powder.

[Chumby]

A blank that can fire would not have a projectile. It potentially would still be deadly at contact distances, especially with a partial powder charge (instead of just a primer). One seeing a projectile (bullet) and primer would understand that this is a live round and should be treated with full respect.

[Roberta]

But you'd have to unload it to see that. Then it would have to be reloaded. You do not want to have the actor second-guessing the armorer by unloading and reloading rounds.

[A Thinking Mind]

You absolutely do. If experts were incapable of fuck-ups, then perhaps it would irresponsible for other people to examine what they’re doing, but experts are still human beings who make mistakes. When the cost of a mistake is “this kills someone,” everyone who touches the gun has to bear responsibility.

[Roberta]

Then they should let go of the hired expert and save the money.

When the prop is handed to the actor it's in a certain condition of safety. If the actor then takes the prop apart, it is no longer in that condition of safety. The more people you have unloading and reloading guns — as with any other dangerous prop — the more chance of error, hence the more you compromise safety. The actor should not be unloading and reloading, which is what would have to be done to check the rounds.

[jimc5499]

The "hired expert" wasn't allowed to be on the set.

[A Thinking Mind]

The actor should not be unloading and reloading, which is what would have to be done to check the rounds.

You're clearly not aware of this but you don't know what you're talking about. This is blatantly untrue. This is why you're getting so much pushback-you're wrong and don't have a clue about this. It takes a tiny bit of humility to be aware that you might not know enough about a topic; for your own sake, accept that this is where your limits are.

[Roberta]

I discussed it with a lawyer last night, very knowledgeable about guns, and she agreed with me. She thought prosecuting Baldwin was ridiculous. She said she would herself have checked the rounds, but that's because she knows as much as she does about them, and does not think Baldwin would have that type of facility with them.

[Chumby]

LOL

[Hank Ferrous]

Roberta, you're wrong, and your lawyer is clearly not 'very knowledgeable about guns.' The arguments you, and others are advancing in parallel to baldwin not being responsible for his own actions because of silly bullshit, is that safety is either too complicated, takes too long, or would somehow degrade the working environment on the set. None of these hold water. Hutchins is dead, another was wounded. When I take a pistol from someone, I check it, or they demonstrate that it is clear. This isn't complicated, but you cannot get past your inane arguments. In the case of the Pietta .45, the time it takes to quickly unload, if loaded, a weapon that is supposed to be 'cold,' is a matter of less than a minute. The issue isn't your interpretation or the opinion of some lawyer you spoke to. The issue is that baldwin thought he knew best, failed to treat a dangerous tool with respect, and killed someone. Having done this, he has done nothing but deny he is to blame, and place the fault on other people. I don't suppose you've noticed, but this site purports to be about individual rights -those rights come with responsibilities, not with passing the damned back to other people when we fuck up.

[Chumby]

Baldwin was the responsible party once he took the firearm in his hand. I will second guess anyone when handling a firearm to ensure my safety and that of those around me.

[mad.casual]

You do not want to have the actor second-guessing the armorer by unloading and reloading rounds.

Because someone might end up getting shot and then we'd know precisely who's responsible?

You're pretty directly stating that you don't care if Hutchins got shot as long as Baldwin can merely speak the words "I didn't do it."

[Krenn]

The best version of a possible "SOP" I've ever heard proposed for these sort of situations is that the Actor, as the person who will be holding the firearm, should have an absolute right to request, at any time, that the ARMORER unload, inspect, demonstrate safety status, and re-load the weapon in question.... on set, where the actor can see them.

When you're dealing with the possibility of a movie using really strange blackpowder designs from 200 years ago that stopped being produced for perfectly good reasons because the firearm was just that difficult to learn how to safely handle, that seems like a reasonable compromise.

it's a bit much to expect an actor to know how to safely field-strip EVERY firearm which has ever been invented, plus all the customized replicas intended only for use on-stage.

On the other hand, until the actor has SEEN the firearm safely dis-assembled, re-assembled, and heard a clear and succinct explanation for how each element of the safety inspection is being conducted, right in front of them, it's not really a known safe weapon yet.

[jimc5499]

To do that the "ARMORER" would have to be allowed on the set.

[Krenn]

yep. and banning the armorer from being on the set is pretty good evidence of negligence.

[Roberta]

In those days everyone was about keeping everyone apart to prevent transmission of this supposedly so-deadly virus that they thought having such a person on site would be negligence. Remember, people were postponing surgeries because of their estimation of this threat.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

So? It’s still criminally negligent. Let Baldwin lay the price.

[Hank Ferrous]

It's a single action revolver, not a fucking multi-barrel cannon. As for 'stopped being produced,' you're dead wrong, in that one, there was a new version on the set, and two, you can buy the same pistol now. Your assertion that firearms need to be field-stripped or disassembled in order to confirm whether or not they are 'known safe' is risible. If someone hands you a firearm and doesn't go through the courtesy of clearing/unloading it -rendering it safe, then it is on you, or in this case, the actor to ask how to do so. Not to assume, for obvious reasons. You know nothing about firearms or their handling, stick to writing about something you know about.

[epsilon given]

On yet the other hand -- and this is the one thing that's driving me nuts about all this discussion, that's being overlooked -- is that it's standard practice to point a gun away from people when aiming it, even with blanks, even with an armorer saying it's safe.

If the gun needs to be pointed at a camera, the camera is supposed to be operated via remote control. If a shot requires a person to point a gun at someone, the cameraman is supposed to use perspective tricks so that the actors are pointing the gun off to the side.

While the guns are supposed to have blanks, if someone slips up (and there are a multitude of ways to slip up), this is the one last safety that's supposed to keep people from getting shot!

[SIV]

Yes and weapon safety rules in a theatrical setting long predate motion picture era. More magicians were shot and killed performing the "bullet catching act" than have been shot and killed than on movie and television production sets and locations.

[Gozer the Gozarian]

I work on movie sets and, yes, I unload and reload every time. I am a firearms expert and every firearm I handle, even a training one, I ALWAYS check. Not checking is the definition of negligence.

[Social Justice is neither]

For his purposes that day ANY round of any type would be unnecessary. He was found a self-directed walk through of a scene they were not shooting so even a blank would be unnecessary.

[markm23]

So he was playing with a gun that he had not checked when he pointed it at someone and "accidentally" pulled the trigger. He's responsible for that. He's responsible for not checking it was empty (and elsewhere Baldwin has claimed to be fairly knowledgeable about guns, so he can't pretend he didn't know how to clear a gun.)

Besides that, he is one of the producers. That means he is partly responsible for the armorer not being on the set and for crew members being allowed to load live rounds in the prop guns and go plinking after hours. IMHO, should never have been a live round on the set, but now there was. Some others had already filed complaints about a general disregard for safety on the set. Baldwin isn't responsible for what the other producers did, but if the star of the show had demanded they get serious about safety, they would have.

[Ben of Houston]

Except yes you do. Basic gun safety is that there can never be too many double checks.

[IceTrey]

I specifically told you what I meant and you still screwed it up.

[Jeb Kerman]

A dummy is most often painted and has no primer.

A blank has a primer but no projectile. The casing is compressed to contain the powder charge and is very, visibly apparent.

If you know their purpose and how firearms work, these things are very easy to spot.

[jimc5499]

They don't paint dummies that are used in revolvers. They drill out the primer cup. Lee was killed, because they made their own dummy rounds. They pulled the slug and dumped out the powder. In one scene with dummy rounds, the primer fired and had enough energy to push the slug into the barrel. When they fired a blank in the later scene the slug was still in the barrel and the blank had enough power to push it out of the barrel with enough force to kill Lee.

[ragebot]

This raises multiple red flags for me.

Not saying it is untrue just that it seems unlikely. If there is a bullet stuck in the barrel and later a round is fired, even a blank as you suggest I have problems understanding how it would have enough power for the stuck round to get enough muzzle velocity to do much damage, especially with a revolver where there is a gap between the cylinder and the barrel which would reduce the power of the charge in the casing.

Maybe more to the point failing to notice a slug in the barrel between scenes really shows incompetence at a level hard for me to understand. Checking for obstructions in the barrel is so basic even an actor, not to mention others on set, should have no problem doing it. Same goes for the malfunction when the slug was first lodged in the barrel; the sound itself should alert everyone there was a problem.

But the bottom line is (even if you are paying actors big bucks) responsibility for what happens when you pull the trigger falls on the guy pulling the trigger; even if it takes a couple of minutes to make sure the weapon is safe.

[Roberta]

Was it a black powder round? I work with black powder and have seen that the charge blows the projectile in a wind the charge produces. The projectile is designed not to be tightly obturated, and yet will achieve almost its designed speed by the time it gets to the muzzle, even if it was considerably offset from the blowing charge.

[Hank Ferrous]

That revolver isn't only black powder. It comes in modern cartridge SA, and I am pretty sure -not looking at the report, that this is the piece baldwin used to kill and injure crew members.

[A Thinking Mind]

Yes. It's quite easy. You can also tell them auditorily if you shake them and hear them rattle. If it doesn't rattle, it's got powder and will fire the bullet. But usually you see the hole/stamp on the cartridge so you don't even need to do that.

A 12 year old could check your weapon to see if it's safe. Baldwin is not 12 and has been around weapons frequently in his life.

[Nardz]

You can not point the gun at a person and pull the trigger...

[IceTrey]

I see that in the movies all the time.

[mulched]

You don't.

You either see the scene cut back and forth between the shooter and the target, or you see someone pointing slightly away from the target and the camera angle makes it look like it's pointed at them.

[Roberta]

What about live shows, where there's no ability to cut? At Wild West City the action occurs in the street, and audience is on both sides of the street.

[mulched]

That's for confirming you're an idiot. The question was about movies.

[Roberta]

If it's true in any type of employment situation, it's true in all of them. Doesn't matter if it's movies or even entertainment generally. I brought up live shows because they're the most frequent example of this type of accident.

[Ben of Houston]

In a live show, you aim to the side so that if you did have a bullet, you would hit the wall next to them. If you are doing a point-blank shot, you use forced perspective and shoot behind them (from the audience's perspective) You NEVER aim directly at someone and pull the trigger, EVEN with a blank.

[Hank Ferrous]

Thanks, I meant to bring this up, but thought that it would fall on deaf ears given how she responds to facts. Roberta is really stuck on her cowboy action/live western act fantasy. Combined w/ her 'trust the experts' insistence that her speaking to a lawyer who is 'very knowledgeable' -appeal to authority, insisting that their is no individual need to be responsible for dangerous equipment -because experts, and insisting that basic safety rules are not enhanced when working with or around dangerous equipment, she is mired in her viewpoint. Laughably, she's been accusing folks who point out basic safety as being stuck. It's as rich as binion suggesting that folks who want someone who negligently causes another's death to be convicted of manslaughter are biased, based in his own ideological biases.

[Roberta]

So you never have a shot like in the grandaddy of them all, "The Great Train Robbery"?

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Roberta. Stop. You are woefully ignorant, and your premise is bad.

This is not the hill you want to die on.

[SIV]

No you don't.

[Roberta]

That's not true. You hire a mechanic to work on your brakes. He does something wrong. As you drive out of the garage, the brakes seem to be working OK, but then you get out on the street and run someone over because they really weren't. Were you supposed to do some procedure to check on the mechnic's work? No, you're just the driver. There is no fault in you.

Visually verifying whether the revolver was loaded with a live round? You can't see the round that's chambered. You'd have to unload it and reload it. You do not want actors to have to do such things, for, not being the experts in charge, they could only increase the danger by doing so.

[Chumby]

The analogy does not apply here. Had the gun malfunctioned, it would have been germane. But in Baldwin’s case, the firearm functioned as it should.

If a person is not proficient in the operation and safe handling of a firearm, they should not touch it. Checking load status is tantamount to safe handling and use. Baldwin is an adult. If he was incapable of understanding this basic activity, it further supports his negligence that resulted in a person being killed.

[Roberta]

Then why even have props people, if the actors are going to disassemble and reassemble the props? If there were a way the actor could check the rounds without unloading and reloading the revolver, there'd be no problem. Having the actor unload and reload? That's a problem.

And the analogy does apply, because everything handled by the mechanic functioned as it was supposed to; the mechanic just had it set wrong.

[CindyF]

You don't have to disassemble the gun to see if it is loaded.

[Roberta]

Taking moving parts out and putting them back in is not disassembly? It would be so with any other piece of equipment.

When the prop arrives on set it's in its ready state. If there's any danger involved, actors should not be removing it from its ready state. Doing so voids the warranty. If you kill someone or yourself with it, it's not your fault, it's the warrantor's. They hired people whose job it was to be that warrantor.

[Chumby]

Loading/unloading and checking that status ≠ disassembly. In a semi auto handgun, ejecting a magazine (removing a part!) and racking the slide three times ≠ disassembly. Rotating a revolver cylinder “out of battery” is not disassembly nor is removing any loaded cartridges.
The only entity that can warranty that a firearm is being safely handled is the person currently handling it.

[Hank Ferrous]

No. Is taking the keys out of the ignition of a vehicle disassembly? This is the silliest talking point that the left has come up with in some time -not saying that you are a leftist, or even that leftists are all ignorant.

[Chumby]

I give Roberta points for not giving up on her protecting Alec.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

She’s definitely stuck on stupid.

[mad.casual]

Then why even have props people, if the actors are going to disassemble and reassemble the props?

Why? Why are you being this retarded? Even 4 yr. olds understand the basics of division of labor, responsibility, and transfer of control/ownership better than this. Do you think you're teaching the 3 yr. olds perusing the Reason comments section something? Are you white knighting for Alec Baldwin in the hopes he'll sleep with you? Do you just want to make sure people get shot on set? Intentionally sabotaging Baldwin's defense in the court of public opinion by projecting yourself as an absolute retard? What?

[Chumby]

I don’t give a rat’s ass about pontifications regarding movie making. Baldwin was obligated to provide a safe standard of care once he touched that firearm and he failed to do so. If he was ignorant of its basic functions, which must include the ability to safely check that the firearm was unloaded as well as safely returning the gun into a functional condition, then he needed to get educated on that prior to proceeding. A person was killed due to his negligence.
The analogy is a strawman. The gun functioned as intended. The problem was user error due to carelessness on the user’s part.
Your analogy would apply to the allegations some are making in a (class action?) lawsuit regarding the Sig P320 but not here.

[epsilon given]

Suppose you hire a mechanic, but then you do the work yourself?

In this case, the "mechanic" -- the armorer -- wasn't even in the same room -- and the reason she wasn't, was because of cost-cutting and COVID policies implemented by, among other people, Alec Baldwin, the director.

A director who also pushed against the armorer's insistence that they have more safety meetings.

Rule 1. That's all he had to do -- and he had no reason not to follow it, because they weren't even filming at the time -- and no one would have been shot that day. Sure, a lot of people would have been frightened by an unexpected "BANG!", but everyone would have gone home that night.

[JeremyR]

A more accurate analogy is if you steered the car at a person, gunned the engine and expected to be able to stop in time to not run them over and then not be able to stop

He wasn't filming. He had no reason to point a gun at a person, much less cock it and fire it.

[Ben of Houston]

I have to agree. If it had occurred during filming, it would be negligence, but not necessarily criminal negligence. However, it being just a random prank turns it into a much more serious incident.

[Krenn]

yes, but what if you're NOT the driver? or not JUST the driver?

If you own the repair shop in question, and do the hiring and accounting for the repair shop in question, and ensure regulatory compliance and industry standard compliance for the repair shop in question....

And you know that the mechanic in question has previously been shown to have willingly violated basic safety standards about working on automobile brakes...

And you know that the messenger in question has also previously been shown to have willingly violated basic safety standards about automobile brakes...

And you know that the procedures you, yourself, have written for final sign-off on any brake-work jobs have ALSO been previously shown not to work perfectly when used by the less-than-stellar staff that you yourself have hired....

And you know that several much more responsible employees JUST QUIT, LAST NIGHT, because they don't trust their own co-workers or the procedures those co-workers have to follow, to provide an appropriate level of safety...

and then, that morning, an unreliable messenger, from an unreliable armorer, using unreliable procedures, in a workplace suffering from complaints about unreliability...

Hands you the keys to a car and says "the brake repairs are good to go, boss, go ahead and drive down that really steep hill which intersects with a very high-traffic road at the bottom, with almost zero defensive features built into the road in case of a brake failure...

under the circumstances, you should probably have some QUESTIONS.

And if you don't ask ANY questions, despite it CLEARLY being your job to know about all the PROBLEMS.... charges of reckless endangerment might be entirely warranted.

[CaptainJack]

The analogy would work if you were told up front that not every brake job was perfect and you should double check the effectivness of the brakes every time you got in the car, so you promptly leave the break shop head to a crosswalk at a school zone doing 100MPH and see if the brakes stop you in time to not kill anyone.

In the case of handling guns on set Baldwin has been around long enough to know the rules that every boy scout knows. And he violated at least three of them in order for this event to have happened. It is gross negligence.

[markm23]

The thing is, they weren't filming a scene with shooting. There was no reason to have any kind of round in the gun at all. There was no reason for Baldwin to point the gun at a person.

The more I hear about this, the more it sounds like Baldwin was playing with a gun that he thought was empty but had not checked. There are multiple levels of negligence here, in what seems to have been a general disregard of safety. (Others on the crew had complained about it.) As the star of the show (as well as one of the producers), Baldwin could have stopped it by refusing to get out of his chair until all safety rules had been enforced, but it sounds like instead Baldwin was setting an example of unsafe behavior.

5 years might be too long of a sentence, but this shooting was not an unavoidable accident but the result of negligence (at least) by Baldwin as well as others,

[Nemo Aequalis]

When it is your hand, it is your responsibility to operate it safely. Visually verifying whether the firearm is loaded is an absolute must.

The problem here is you're assuming a competence in handling firearms, which, as an actor, we have no reason to assume Baldwin had, nor should he be expected to have.

He had no reason to believe he was handling anything other than a harmless stage prop. If there was negligence, it was on the part of the party who prepared the prop. It was their job to ensure it was, in fact, a harmless prop.

Now, I can't stand Baldwin, and if there was a way to hang him, I'd jump on it. But I'm not seeing it here. Competence in handling firearms isn't a prerequisite to being an actor.

[Roberta]

This is what people don't remember: Acting is fake. They think that because guns are commonplace to some people that they're commonplace to anyone and therefore no outside expert need be relied on.

If it were an electric chair scene, and the actor was told to turn the switch on, but the props people fucked up and connected it to actual electricity, would they blame the actor for not checking the circuit? The actor doesn't have to really know anything about electric circuits, or guns, or anything, but just to fake it.

[mad.casual]

If it were an electric chair scene, and the actor was told to turn the switch on, but the props people fucked up and connected it to actual electricity, would they blame the actor for not checking the circuit?

First, blame is for the jury to decide. Charging them is how you get them to the jury for the decision.

Second, yes. Again, a fucking 6-yr.-old understands "Wires not connected, no electricity." and frequently, they got from not knowing that to knowing that by trying it out on shit that didn't fucking kill people. *Maybe* there is/was a conspiracy to frame Alec Baldwin or the armorer, maybe somebody put a bullet with a radio-activated primer into the gun and Baldwin was just holding it when the radio signal went out, maybe one armorer was trying to frame another, but without evidence, those are theories. And it's for the jury to decide the likelihood of any given theory because, again absent evidence, we've got Alec Baldwin, with the gun in hand, on the set.

[damikesc]

"This is what people don’t remember: Acting is fake. They think that because guns are commonplace to some people that they’re commonplace to anyone and therefore no outside expert need be relied on."

Why was he pointing a gun at somebody, which should never be done? Why did he even HAVE a gun while shooting a scene that did not require one? Why did he pull the trigger which he also was never to do?

Negligence is more than justified as a charge. And he killed her. Kyle Rittenhouse got dramatically worse for rather clear self-defense while this we have the executive producer of a movie having as dispute with the crew who were about to walk off set shooting one of them.

[Roberta]

They weren't shooting a scene, they were rehearsing it. He's supposed to point the gun and shoot it at someone, since that was the act.

Maybe you people are unfamiliar with it, but this whole scenario is a hoary classic of mystery drama and fiction: the gun that the actor shoots turns out to be loaded, and then the whole mystery about it is who loaded it. Never in one of these mysteries is the actor under suspicion for anything but deliberately reloading it with a live round. When that's ruled out, the actor is not even a suspect.

If what you people seem to think about the actor's responsibility were true, how would you ever have live action gun play on stage or in wild west shows? The scene would always have to be interrupted for the actor to check the loads. Movie sets just carry on the established protocol from live shows, where a prop master is in charge of such items.

[damikesc]

"If what you people seem to think about the actor’s responsibility were true, how would you ever have live action gun play on stage or in wild west shows?"

Seems to fall under "not my problem". If you cannot do something without killing somebody...then do not do it. When you ignore the precautions that have been the case on sets for years, that is on you (especially when you are the boss, which Alec was)

Alec possessed live rounds on his person. There were additional rounds on set. There were issues involving the guns on set. The producer (Baldwin) had
COVID rules that kept the person in charge of the guns off-set that day. It is, in the end, Baldwin's responsibility. He is being charged with negligence which he undeniably was being negligent.

"The scene would always have to be interrupted for the actor to check the loads."

Gun safety is a bitch. This is what, mind you, normal gun owners do as a rule regularly, so empathy is incredibly low here. Perhaps Hollywood can live up to its professed morals and have zero guns on set from now on?

"Movie sets just carry on the established protocol from live shows, where a prop master is in charge of such items."

Alec's COVID regulations kept the armorer off-set that day.

And, like it or not, the person holding the gun is ultimately responsible. No ifs, ands, or buts. It is on them specifically. If you are not ready to shoot somebody, you do not ever, for any reason, aim at them. I could give two shits if the script says you must. Scripts can be --- and regularly are --- re-written.

Gun rights supporters have zero problem with this expectation of personal responsibility. and, in fact, are rather stiff sticklers for that. There is not a firearms safety taught anywhere that would not call what Alec did unbelievably dangerous.

[Bruce Hayden]

Not our problem. There is no movie set exception to homicide laws. If you pull the trigger on a gun, you are responsible for the bullet that comes out of it, even if you thought it unloaded. Finger should never be on the bang switch until you are ready to shoot, and the gun should never point at anyone if you aren’t ready to shoot them. You sweep your muzzle over someone at a range, the range master will have you out of there so fast your head will spin. Baldwin not thinking it loaded is why the charges are manslaughter, and not 2nd Degree murder.

[Roberta]

What about live shows?

[Krenn]

you use custom replicas which have been altered to the point that they couldn't possibly contain live rounds even if someone wanted them too.

[damikesc]

Not sure a "live show" exception to the concept of negligence is really beneficial to much of anybody.

Again, if you do not know what you are doing, then do not do it. Don't do shit you don't know how to do.

[Ben of Houston]

And even then, you STILL don't point them directly at people. Layers of protection exist for a reason, so even if one thing goes wrong, you don't have a catastrophe

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Keep on digging, baby, Keep on, digging.

[epsilon given]

"Never in one of these mysteries is the actor under suspicion for anything but deliberately reloading it with a live round. When that’s ruled out, the actor is not even a suspect."

I find this claim to be very suspect: at the very least, when the question of "who put the live round in the chamber?" comes up, the actor really is one of the suspects, and thus needs to go through the being ruled out, just like everyone else.

What's more, every so often there's a conclusion where yes, the actor really did put a live round in the chamber -- and then made a screw-up in their attempt to cover their tracks.

As for "live action Wild West shows" -- how many of them involve performers pointing guns at people -- whether it be fellow performers or the audience? If these performers aren't shooting at each other, it's no trouble at all to point their guns just to the right or left of the "target".

Indeed, this has been standard procedure ever since Bruce Lee died of a squib load -- precisely because they decided that pointing even a gun with blanks is a very bad idea.

[John Rohan]

But complicating matters is that Baldwin wasn't just an actor. He was also a producer on this film.

[jimc5499]

"He had no reason to believe he was handling anything other than a harmless stage prop. If there was negligence, it was on the part of the party who prepared the prop. It was their job to ensure it was, in fact, a harmless prop."

I agree with you, but, you don't go far enough.

The "party who prepared the prop" would normally maintain control of the prop until it was placed in the actor's hand. This didn't happen, because, that "party" wasn't allowed to be there to do their job. The "party" had to hand the prop off to another "party", who may not have been knowledgeable.

[Krenn]

As I understand it, there wasn't even an actual hand-off. The firearm in question was left UNATTENDED until the assistant director came to get it, WHILE NO-ONE WAS THERE, and thus there was no witness who could talk to the assistant director and affirmatively state that the gun had not been altered since being 'loaded' with 'dummy' rounds.

[Hank Ferrous]

Based on your 'SOP' above, your 'understanding' is likely little more than ideological bias and rehashed anti-gun talking points.

[Hank Ferrous]

Strike my comment. Your SOP comment, and disassembly comment are dumb, but this one is spot on.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

The dummy rounds (not "blanks") used on movie sets contain no powder, but a single "BB" that can be heard and felt when the round is held and shaken, so it can easily be distinguished from a live round.

So, yes...he could have told the difference had he bothered to check.

[epsilon given]

Even if he didn't know it was loaded, he should have known -- indeed, this is now a standard way to make movies -- that he shouldn't have pointed the gun at someone and pulled the trigger.

For safety, shots that require it to look like a gun is being pointed at someone are supposed to be shot using perspective tricks, so that the guns are pointed off to the side -- even if the guns "only" have blanks.

This one fundamental rule, had it been followed, would have guaranteed that no one would have died when Alec Baldwin pulled that trigger.

[A Thinking Mind]

but he didn’t load the gun and had no reason to believe it was loaded with anything other than blanks.

Except for the fact that it's a fucking gun and if you don't respect it, it kills people. You ALWAYS have reason to suspect a gun is loaded with live ammunition by virtue of what the thing is.

[epsilon given]

It's possible that Alec Baldwin would have remembered this, had not the producer of the movie cancelled some of the daily safety meetings the armorer wanted to conduct!

[ravenshrike]

There was no chain of custody to the armorer because COVID protocols specifically broke it. The armorer was not on set at all. Instead, at the direction of the producers and directors, she left the day's scheduled weapons to be used in a cabinet outside the set. Dumbass or not, the charges against her are pretty specious.

[mad.casual]

3 ADs and at least one complaint prior. If I left my (un)loaded guns out and my kids committed 3 ADs, someone filed a complaint, and then somebody wound up dead, sure as shit I’d be sitting in a 6×9 awaiting trial.

[ravenshrike]

And if it were an underage actor we were discussing you would have a good point. These were all, purportedly, mentally competent adults. Baldwin is a veteran actor who was in the game when the Lee firearm reforms were instituted, and knew damn well what he should have been doing.

[Bruce Hayden]

And guess what? Baldwin controlled the funding, and determined, at least indirectly, not to hire these people.

[damikesc]

"I can’t stand the Baldwin family, but he didn’t load the gun and had no reason to believe it was loaded with anything other than blanks"

He had live rounds on his person. Not just in the gun.

And you are to NEVER point a gun, even a fake one, at a person unless you intend to shoot them. Period and end of story. He is not being charged with premeditation. He is being charged with being negligent. which he was, and that led to somebody dying, which it did.

[Bubba Jones]

What would Baldwin say about an accidental death caused by a gun owner?

[jimc5499]

Maybe the "dumbass" should have been allowed to do her job. She was not "permitted" to be on the set due to COVID restrictions put in place by Baldwin's production company.

She was instructed to leave the weapon on a stand out side of the set. An Assistant was responsible for bringing the weapon on to the set. Once that weapon left her possession, she's no longer responsible for it. Several years ago I worked as a security guard and was assigned to a Production Company that was filming a movie in our area. My assignment was to guard the "weapons trailer". I noticed that when the Armorers came in, they would punch a timeclock. When they were called to the set, they would punch out and punch in on a different card. They did the opposite when they came back. I asked why and was told that they were paid more when they were on set. Baldwin's company was having financial difficulties and I have to ask if that was why the armorer wasn't permitted to be on the set?
They never did determine how a "live" round ended up in the weapon.

[MasterThief]

That's kinda the biggest question, isn't it? Of course the public hasn't been offered enough details to understand the full situation and I actually doubt the court will be presented with satisfactory answers to these pertinent questions.
We need to know how live rounds ended up being intermixed with the dummy rounds on set. We need to know how aware Baldwin was of this issue. I want to know if he had pulled the trigger while aiming at another person before. Was this live round the only one in his weapon at the time? If that was the only live round, then that is a coincindence if he only fired once and managed to have that round chambered.
Until there is significant testimony and details presented to prove these were dumb errors, I'm going to assume he murdered her. He cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger on a single action revolver while pointing the barrel towards someone for whom he held malice. Even if extreme negligence existed, I believe the malice and motive side of this requires that it be investigated and charged as murder first with some expectation that homicide is more accurate.

[Fetterman's Hump]

"He cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger on a single action revolver while pointing the barrel towards someone..."

This can't be emphasized enough. He had to perform TWO conscious actions: Cock the hammer, then pull the trigger. I don't know about the "malice" part, but it was at least carelessness that resulted in a dead person.

Should he go to prison? Assuming he is convicted, I will leave that to the justice system.

[Hank Ferrous]

Four actions. He shot and killed one person, shot and wounded another. Unless it was w/ a single round, which I suppose is quite possible w/ 45 LC.

[markm23]

One shot, passed through one person and hit another. So Baldwin didn't just point the gun at one person, he pointed it at a group. And nothing I have seen indicates that any gun pointing was part of the script that he was rehearsing, so I have to assume he was playing with the gun. And he knew this gun was not a toy or inoperative replica, but a fully functional original or replica Old West style gun.

[mpercy]

The 4 universal rules of gun safety are:

Treat all guns as if they are always loaded.

Never let the muzzle point at anything that you are not willing to destroy.
Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target and you have made the decision to shoot.
Be sure of your target and what is behind it.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Nope. He deserves prison. He’s legally and contractually responsible.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

but he didn’t load the gun and had no reason to believe it was loaded with anything other than blanks

Except for rule #1, which is to treat ALL firearms as if they are loaded...with the possible addition of "unless/until you verify that it is not" (for purposes of working on the firearm, or in this case...pointing it at someone and pulling the trigger).

Your argument is moronic.

[Ben of Houston]

I was taught that the gun is always loaded unless you can see daylight through the barrel. Even if you verify it, treat it as loaded unless it is fully disassembled.

[Fetterman's Hump]

Blanks are dangerous too so that is not a persuasive argument. Don't point a firearm at anything you don't want to destroy. Keep your finger off the trigger.

I am on the fence about Baldwin. I don't like him at all, but as Binion says that is no reason to send him to jail. My guess is he will get 6 months.

[In Canis Credimus]

It really depends on what the professional/industry standard is. I did a laborious 5 minutes of research and found a ton of hits on "I always checked" and "I never checked". It really lies in the armorer I think and if she actually had qualifications and if not how did the film producers miss it.

[Navy CWO]

It was his personal responsibility to determine if the firearm was loaded and also his responsibility to properly handle it. Taking someone else's word is simply a cop-out!

[MasterThief]

I think there's a lot of information here that points to it being first degree murder. The manslaughter charges are letting him off easy. Compare how Binion covered Rittenhouse to Baldwin. His opinion is entirely political.
I think the way the justice system has handled this shows that they aren't interested in finding him guilty.

[Bruce Hayden]

Not 1st, but 2nd degree murder. The required premeditation seems to be missing for 1st. But 2nd degree Depraved Heart/Mind Murder could be viable. In the eyes of gun owners, it was an act that was wantonly and grossly negligent. You don’t point a gun at anyone, intentionally or negligently, unless you are willing to kill them, and you don’t put your finger on the bang switch until you are ready to do so.

[MasterThief]

We don't have an accounting of the chain of custody on that live round. It could very well be premeditated.

[epsilon given]

Perhaps this is, indeed, premeditated, and Alec Baldwin is merely playing dumb. But we don't live in a world where we can charge and convict people based on what may very well have been -- we base our convictions on what is reasonable.

Thus, it is appropriate to charge Alec Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

I seriously would like to know who thought bringing live rounds on to a movie set was a great idea.

These fuckers are supposed be playing pretend, and most of them hate guns so they are clueless about gun safety. There was no need to have live rounds of any kind on that set in the first place.

[Jeb Kerman]

That's on the armorer who is also charged.

[Overt]

And my understanding is that there had been incidents on set with this armorer previously.

In normal situations, if a armorer who is paid for her expertise leads you astray, I would agree that you are not responsible and you do not get a manslaughter charge.

However, this is an abnormal situation. Again, my understanding is that there were incidents on set previous to this that indicated she was not competent. And this is Baldwin's fault. He was the producer, and therefore he was responsible for firing this woman, and he ultimately holds liability for what she did. Now, maybe this liability doesn't extend to full on manslaughter, but it certainly should include reckless endangerment and a high probability that arrogant prick gets taken to the cleaners in civil court.

[Roberta]

He could well be civilly liable for that reason, but not criminally.

[A Thinking Mind]

There's plenty of other things he's criminally guilty of here. Pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger without knowing the gun is safe is reckless behavior, and that recklessness got someone killed. I'm sure he didn't mean to kill her, but he was half-assed about handling a firearm and that's a huge no-no. It wasn't bad luck or happenstance, it was negligent behavior on his behalf that caused a person's death.

[Roberta]

But he did know the gun was safe. The person whose sole job was to assure its safety assured them so.

[Chumby]

The person holding the gun is the one that must ensure its safe use. Full stop.
I encourage you to sign up for and take a basic firearms safety course.

[Jeb Kerman]

No. I was watching a video on a ferry accident in South Korea where a bunch of students drowned. The ferry crew had turned the craft too sharply and through a series of stupid errors, tilted the ship too far and capsized it.

One of the crew put a recording on a loop on the speaker system that told everyone to stay in their cabins and wait for help. There was never any help coming.

Everyone who listened to that authority died.

Everyone who took personal responsibility for their survival and got off the boat (there was plenty of time) survived. Harsh lesson to learn before you are 18 but life offers no Mulligans.

The sole responsibility for your life is you. Period. This never changes no matter what anyone ever tells you.

No one has any authority over a weapon in your hand or a vehicle you are piloting but yourself. This includes you own body.

We build constructs and insurances to mitigate this one fact but they never pay.

You are the captain of your fate. You are the master of your soul. None other.

[Roberta]

Then how do you do a live show with real guns? Do you stop the action for each actor to check their loads before resuming?

I live near Wild West City, where during the season they do 2 shows a day. Not once have they suspended the show for all the players to check their own props in front of the audience, or to go into a room somewhere to do it and re-emerge at their marks.

[Krenn]

https://www.njherald.com/story/news/2012/04/12/wild-west-city-owner-pleads/3982874007/

After the last negligent shooting at Wild West City, they are now required to use customized prop guns which can ONLY fire blanks. presumably by altering the internal shape of the chamber so that normal, non-custom rounds can't physically fit.

[Nemo Aequalis]

How many rounds of blanks have Hollywood actors fired at each other over the last hundred years? Probably millions, and probably most of them by actors who barely know which side of the gun to hold.

Even this particular actor has had thousands of rounds of blanks shot at him, and shot them at other actors, over the course of his career, previously with no consequence. This can usually be done safely because they can rely on the expert to ensure the state of the props.

While I doubt this is the first time something like this has happened, it's rare enough that this is the only time I've heard of an incident like this.

The actors can't be assumed to know about anything except acting (and you're frequently lucky to get even that). That's why they have technical experts onsite to manage the sharp tools. It's the expert's job to vet the props for safety before the actor even gets hold of them, because you can't assume the actor will have the expertise to ensure handling them safely. Actors aren't usually the sharpest tools in the shed.

[Roberta]

But nobody suggested that the actor should have checked the ammunition in the Wild West City case. The legal issue was illegal possession of a handgun, interpreting the carriage of it on the "street" of the park (private property) as requiring a carry permit, which the actor, at 17 years old, would probably not have even been eligible for. No criminal liability was imputed in the owner of the park for the shooting, only for violation of the NJ gun law.

[Krenn]

yes, but more importantly, the plea deal set the precedent that fully functional handguns would no longer be allowed on set, regardless of what they might be loaded with.

because doing it any other way under those circumstances was a pretty clear safety violation.

[Jeb Kerman]

I don't know how to put on a show.

I know how to shoot and store weapons and ammo, fly, fix my own ride, grow my own food, and live my own life without shooting anyone who didn't need shooting.

[Roberta]

Then maybe they shouldn't use fully functional firearms in movie shows either. But given that they were using them, it was not the actor's responsibility.

[Chumby]

Roberta, a person handling a firearm is the one responsible for what happens when they pull the trigger. Always.

[Roberta]

No, Chumby, on the job if there's someone in charge of the safety of a piece of equipment, that's who's responsible, always. Doesn't matter what you do with guns, or any piece of equipment, off the job, occupational safety law is controlling.

[Chumby]

Roberta, yes it does matter. A woman is dead because Baldwin failed at doing this and he is rightfully facing involuntary manslaughter charges. There are no exemptions to safe firearm handling. When people believe there should be, bad things like this happen.

[epsilon given]

Roberta, there are movie protocols to prevent things like this from happening. One of the major protocols is also called the "Second Rule of Gun Safety" -- "Never point a gun at something you are ready to destroy."

For making movies, this usually means that if the script calls for you to point a gun at an actor and pull the trigger, you point it off to the side and then use camera angles to make it look like the gun is pointed at the actor.

This is a policy written in blood -- it's the result of Bruce Lee being killed by a blank charge following a squib shot -- something that destroyed any confidence that blanks are "safe".

[Pear Satirical]

You watched Razorfist didn't you?

[Jeb Kerman]

Razor for president.

[Bruce Hayden]

It wasn’t safe, so he couldn’t know that it was. This comes up all the time. Someone hands someone a gun, and assures them that it is unloaded. It goes off in their hands. Whoops. Just committed a crime. That’s why you see the first thing that prudent people do when handed a gun is to check if it is loaded. Every time. Even if the party handing it to them has just shown them that it is unloaded.

[Roberta]

You can know things that aren't so.

Anyway, you think the 17-year-old actor in the Wild West City case committed a crime? He wasn't even charged, because everyone knew it wasn't his fault someone had given him live rounds. What they did was go after the park owner for violation of NJ gun laws by allowing an unpermitted person to carry a gun on what was interpreted as a public street. (It's a simulated street on private property.)

OK, so you think child acting should be allowed? That actors should be allowed to handle guns? So child actors should be responsible for checking their ammunition?

[Hank Ferrous]

You can know things that aren't so?

'But he did know the gun was safe. The person whose sole job was to assure its safety assured them so.' His 'knowing' and negligent handling killed Hutchins. There are other people who share the blame, but in the end, baldwin pointed the pistol, cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger.

[Roberta]

Knowing is not a function of truth, only of certainty.

[Hank Ferrous]

That is absolutely false, but I am certain you 'know' it to be true. Being certain of something is not the same thing as knowing something. You, for instance remain certain that your side excursions into live action SASS are somehow relevant, I know they are irrelevant. The only things that are relevant are SAG policies/guidelines, site/set specific policies, chain of custody, whether the pistol was cleared by the last person to handle it, and who pulled the trigger.

[ravenshrike]

The armorer did no such thing because she was explicitly directed not to be on set and leave the guns in an unlocked cabinet. Unless you are referring to the assistant director?

[In Canis Credimus]

I think she will ultimately be the only one serving time and producers will get off with a hefty fine.

[Roberta]

No, it's not the actor's responsibility. An expert was in charge of the loads, and there was an established chain of possession procedure. Do you want the non-expert then to unload the revolver, check each round, and reload it? That could only increase the danger. The actor is just to mechanically operate whatever devices are being simulated, and needs only to pretend to know something about them.

This is consistent with many other situations in life where an operator of potentially deadly equipment is supposed to trust the experts who've previously handled the equipment: vehicles (land, sea, air), medical equipment, factory equipment. The operator is the operator, not the mechanic.

[A Thinking Mind]

An expert was in charge of the loads, and there was an established chain of possession procedure.

And we have to trust the experts. I'm sure the expert was right even in this case, where the gun was actually loaded and did kill someone.

[Nemo Aequalis]

No, the expert was wrong, hence the fatality. But the fact remains, that's why the expert is on the payroll. Because you can't assume the actors have any competence in handling firearms.

[Bruce Hayden]

No. They are handling firearms. They are assumed to know basic firearm safety rules. There is no Hollywood movie set or retard exceptions to this.

[Krenn]

Yep. When you're a paid actor who spends hours upon hours researching your character and memorizing a script.... You'd better also devote the one or two hours it actually takes to learn enough gun safety to, you know, not kill people while practicing your trade of being an actor.

[Roberta]

And if you're playing a surgeon, you should study medicine? How about at least being made to learn CPR, in case the actor playing the patient has hir heart stop? If you're playing a boxer, do you need to study boxing, so you can defend yourself if the other actor accidentally swings at you?

[Krenn]

you need to learn enough about what you're doing that you aren't going to accidently kill someone, yes.

If you're throwing full-strength punches, you need to know what it would take to accidently kill somebody with a badly aimed punch.

If you're holding real scalpels, you need to understand exactly how dangerous those are, and what you can't do with them.

An actor needs to know enough about acting to prevent himself from accidently killing anyone. same as any other profession.

[epsilon given]

The armorer was prevented by the producer and director from having as many gun safety meetings as she wanted to have.

Maybe, if the producer laid down the law and said "No, we have to have these daily meetings, and Alec Baldwin is no exception to that!" this wouldn't have happened.

[ravenshrike]

In point of fact, there was no intact chain of custody because COVID protocols broke it. At the direction of the producers and directors, the armorer left the day's guns in a cabinet outside the set unattended.

[damikesc]

"No, it’s not the actor’s responsibility. An expert was in charge of the loads, and there was an established chain of possession procedure."

He hired said expert.

[Roberta]

But if someone represents themselves to you as expert, and their expertise checks out by your research (or that of an agency), you are not criminally responsible for a fatal mistake (let alone deliberate action) by that person. Think of all the situations that comes up in — surgery, professional drivers, airline pilots — and you'll see what an absurdity it would be to have criminal liability inhere in the person doing the hiring.

[Krenn]

That’s not a perfect defense when it comes to your own actions, though.

If you hire a lawyer, to tell you whether or not it is legal for you to do something, and he says yes…

And then you go and commit something which is totally a crime, because you hired a bad lawyer…..

“But my lawyer told me it was ok!” only works as a defense SOME of the time. and it’s usually a better defense in civil litigation than in criminal.

Same logic in hiring someone else to give you a “safely not-loaded” gun. you’re still expected to exercise some private, individual judgement as to whether or not you’re REALLY holding a “safely not-loaded” gun, or if you just paid someone else to TELL you that.

if the person who handed you the gun ISN’T THE ARMORER who you hired, and no safety testing occurred where you can see it, and there has been a past history of the armorer making mistakes, and lots of other warning signs… you are responsible for verifying that you hired a GOOD armorer, and for CHECKING that it really is a “safe” gun.

by, for example, summoning the armorer to the set to actually inspect the firearm a second time, while describing each step to you. in detail.

[damikesc]

"But if someone represents themselves to you as expert, and their expertise checks out by your research (or that of an agency), you are not criminally responsible for a fatal mistake"

Multiple accidental discharges on set. The armorer not being on set in the first place. That is the producer --- Mr. Baldwin's --- issue. There were known issues and severe dissent with the crew, to the point they were ready to walk off the set. He ran an unsafe set. Holding him responsible is more than fair.

"Think of all the situations that comes up in — surgery, professional drivers, airline pilots — and you’ll see what an absurdity it would be to have criminal liability inhere in the person doing the hiring."

You hire a surgeon with a record of poor performance and, rest assured, the hospital will have serious issues as will the people hiring him/her and not supervising him/her at all. Hell, hire a surgeon and they suddenly start maiming patients, irrelevant whether they had issues or not beforehand, and you're responsible for keeping him/her on the job.

Fuck, we hold bartenders more responsible for the actions of drunks than you are holding Alec here for more direct cause of the problems.

[Krenn]

Yep. make a list of all the actors who DID walk of set when evidence of an unsafe situation emerged, and then ask "Why didn't Baldwin walk of set?"

And the answer is probably going to be.... because Baldwin was negligent.

Nicolas Cage walked of set when Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the future Rust Armorer, discharged a firearm without warning next to HIM, during filming of "The Old Way"

Dave Halls, the Assistant Director on Rust, was responsible for a negligent discharge on set during filming of "Freedoms Path".... and all activity on set instantly froze while he was being fired on the spot and escorted off of the premises. Didn't resume until he was gone.

Alec Baldwin was the producer and star actor of a movie where THREE accidental or negligent discharges had already occurred.... and he DIDN'T walk of set. and production WASN'T halted. And nobody WAS fired. and several other people DID quit, because of safety concerns under those circumstances, but Alec Baldwin KEPT GOING. without receiving any reassurances at all.

That sounds an awful lot like negligence. We now that under very similar circumstances, an awful lot of people DID walk of the set, or quit, or insist that someone be fired, or wait to hear about remedial safety measures having been taken.... but Baldwin DIDN'T. and then he kept handling guns he hadn't personally checked ANYWAY. without taking any additional safety precautions of any kind after receiving the gun from people he clearly should have known were highly suspect.

[John Rohan]

Baldwin wasn't just an actor. He was also a producer on this film.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

No, it’s not the actor’s responsibility.

The ultimate responsibility for ensuring that a firearm is in a safe state for a given activity lies with the individual holding/using that firearm. That was Baldwin, and he had the responsibility of observing the 4 simple (even for an idiot like him) rules of safe firearms handling.

An expert was in charge of the loads, and there was an established chain of possession procedure.

You have a child's understanding of the concept of responsibility. It's not a zero-sum game, or an either/or proposition. Multiple individuals can share responsibility for something. Just because someone else on the set had a responsibility for implementing some aspects of some protocols for firearms safety, that doesn't make the responsibilities borne by those handling those firearms magically disappear.

Do you want the non-expert then to unload the revolver, check each round, and reload it?

You're damned right I do.

That could only increase the danger.

If you're suggesting that Baldwin is such a moron that he can't even put back into a gun the same dummy rounds he just took out of it without somehow substituting live rounds in the process (how exactly would he do that?) then he shouldn't even be in the same room with a real gun.

The actor is just to mechanically operate whatever devices are being simulated, and needs only to pretend to know something about them.

First off, you're flat wrong about that. ANYONE who EVER handles a real firearm should know at least the same basics of safety that many of us routinely teach to children. Secondly, Baldwin is a (allegedly) a grown-ass man, with decades of experience on movie sets around and handling firearms, as well as interacting with and hearing from professional armorers. Anyone who has done that and has somehow managed to no learn a damned thing in the process should be wearing diapers in an assisted living facility, not handling firearms...for any reason.

[AnnEvans]

Google pay 200$ per hour my last pay check was $8500 working 1o hours a week online. My younger brother friend has been averaging 12000 for months now and he works about 22 hours a week. I cant believe how easy it was once I tried it outit.. ???? AND GOOD LUCK.:)
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[Robert Smith]

Ask the question, why was he pointing the gun at another person?

Why didn't he check to see if the gun was loaded?

Why did he lie about pulling the trigger?

[Roberta]

Because he was pretending to point the gun at another person in the act.

Because he's an actor, not the props master.

Who cares why he lied, trigger action was irrelevant. Maybe he legitimately couldn't remember, but it's not an issue, because he was supposed to shoot the gun at the person standing there in the act they were rehearsing.

[Krenn]

no, that particular scene only called for him to show the camera the act of cross-drawing a pistol. The pistol wasn't supposed to be fired during that scene. and the camera was looking directly at him, so there wasn't another actor on stage, either.

he wasn't supposed to pull the trigger, because he was supposed to be holding a gun that (allegedly) wouldn't actually do anything if he DID pull the trigger.

And then he didn't check if the gun actually was safe.

if it really HAD been loaded with dummy bullets, he should have been able to point the weapon into a Weapon Clearing Box, pull the trigger six times, and have nothing happen. thus VERIFYING that it was a safe weapon.

But he didn't do that.

And since it was only about showing something TO THE CAMERA, which was on a stationary mount, no-one else needed to be on the line of fire between him and the camera.... but two people were anyway.

and instead of asking them to move, he drew a gun he hadn't tested, and pointed it in their general direction anyway.

And then he cocked the hammer, while his finger was likely touching the trigger, which it probably shouldn't have been....

and then what probably happened is that the way he was (incorrectly) holding the gun led him to depress the trigger accidently.... which caused the gun to fire, killing one person and injuring another.

And then he lied, and insisted that he couldn't POSSIBLY have pulled the trigger, that he would NEVER pull the trigger, that he DIDN'T pull the trigger, and the gun must have magically fired ITSELF, even though any sane, responsible witness would have actually said that "I don't REMEMBER pulling the trigger, but under the circumstances, it's pretty obvious that must have been what happened, I just don't remember it. probably trauma from the shock."

and then he went on to blame pretty much everyone EXCEPT himself for ALL of the responsibility.... in what was obviously a SHARED responsibility situation.

[ravenshrike]

More likely he ended up pulling the trigger without realizing it while just holding the weapon, pulled back the hammer and let go.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

trigger action was irrelevant.

The fact that he killed one person and wounded another because he actuated that trigger it seems pretty fucking relevant.

[Hank Ferrous]

Completely relevant to a manslaughter charge. But not to binion, roberta, trueman, etc.

[Social Justice is neither]

You're just out to justify murder no matter what it takes.

[Carlsbadip]

Baldwin was a producer of the film. He was a control person responsible for the business involved in producing the film. Business owners are responsible for the negligence that causes harm in running their businesses. Baldwin has to be held accountable for the negligently run business enterprise. I missed the part that libertarianism absolves personal responsibility.

[Tiger]

Even if he is found guilty, he will not have to serve any time behind bars. He's a rich white guy!

[Legend1984]

Baldwin in his interview with Stephanopolous said his “training” has shown him to never point a gun nor put your finger on the trigger.
His responsibility was to check the gun.
It doesn’t help that he is a nasty, mean spirited and arrogant POS.

[Legend1984]

Baldwin in his interview with Stephanopolous said his “training” has shown him to never point a gun nor put your finger on the trigger.
His responsibility was to check the gun.
It doesn’t help that he is a nasty, mean spirited and arrogant POS. Yep

[Agammamon]

No, no it really wasn't. This is a film shoot and the normal rules of firearms handling don't apply.

This is why they have an armorer and someone on set who's responsibility it is to ensure the guns are safed.

In addition, Baldwin wouldn't know the difference between a live round, a blank, or an inert round because he's a complete doofus when it comes to firearms. You can't leave complete doofus' to check their own gear for safety.

[Social Justice is neither]

Except they weren't doing that scene so, yea it's entirely on him that he chose to disregard all safety protocols and fire an unchecked, loaded gun at someone

[Agammamon]

They were practicing a scene.

[Hank Ferrous]

If they were filming, your argument would have more merit. That said, there are no exceptions for safety simply because there's a camera or an audience present. If the situation were, for instance, mountaineering rescue, would there be an expectation that the actors learn the basics for equipment safety to protect themselves and others? Or would they, and too large a portion of folks here, insist that other people must provide for their safety, that there is no individual responsibility for one's actions or for the safety of people around one? This latter isn't an argument made from an individual rights standpoint, but a surrender of rights and responsibilities, and denial of accountability. It's an argument taking from the individual.

[Chumby]

That was some intense method acting.

[epsilon given]

There's a gun safety rule that always applies: "Never point a gun at something you aren't willing to destroy."

Ever since Bruce Lee died of a squib, Hollywood policy has been to always point guns off to the side, and then use trick shots to make it seem like the gun was pointed at the person.

The other three rules of gun safety also apply, at least somewhat -- but then, it requires all four to be violated for someone to die.

[Jere Krischel]

Rich liberals don't have responsibilities.

[PRussell]

Chumby, that would be true basically anywhere except where he was.

The responsibility on movie sets is entirely up to the armorer. The actors aren't allowed to do anything at all with the firearms except point and shoot.
The idea is that one person who is ostensibly an expert has full control over all weapons on set. Anyone else fiddling with the guns adds a layer of uncertainty. Uncertainty leads to accidents and sometimes deaths.
That is why Alec (as an actor) is absolutely not guilty of any crime in this case. The armorer blew it and it got one person killed and another wounded. Alec (as a producer) is guilty of hiring the armorer, so he is responsible from that standpoint.
Lastly, Alec is an a$$hole. But that doesn't mean he is at fault here.

[epsilon given]

The actor still has responsibility of understanding and applying the Four Rules of gun safety. There's no reason, and especially not during rehersals, to point a gun at another person.

[docduracoat]

Who wrote this drivel?
Billy Bunion has no grasp of law or firearms

It’s a revolver.
Baldwin has a responsibility to personally check it even if an armorer has checked it first.
He is guilty of criminal negligence for not checking the gun.
And again for pointing it at a person.
And a third time for pulling the trigger.
He gave an interview where he stated he knew the difference between blanks, dummy rounds and live rounds.
He also said in that interview that he did not check the gun because he did want to embarrass the armorer.

So because he did want to embarrass an employee, a young mother is dead.
That does not look good

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Single Action Army [Colt, 1873] revolver. I suspect, in his ignorance, he had his finger on the trigger and pulled back the hammer and let it drop. When you do that it goes "BOOM." It is how the weapon was designed.

If ignorance is no excuse for the law, neither is stupidity. Negligent homicide should stick to him like shit.

[Don't look at me!]

The first thing you do when handed a gun is to see if it is loaded.
He pulled the trigger. Not an accident.

[SQRLSY One]

So far, the commenters seem to be missing the basic points, which are, Alex Baldwin is NOT a hazard to life and limb! He is NOT seemly likely to "get loose" and kill you or me, or anyone else!

Y'all seem to believe in the "revenge" theory of justice, and NOT in the "protect society" theory of justice! As MLK said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, will leave us all toothless and blind!

"You accidentally killed my father, prepare to die!" This is just another flavor of the endless cycle of violence!

Go READ the last paragraph of the article above, please! "Alex is richer than I am, and pisses me off, and now here is an excuse for us to take REVENGE" is just frickin' EVIL, people! It will NOT improve our world!

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

That's fine, give him probation if the trial finds him guilty. But he fired a gun and killed someone. Why do you think that merits no charges, no trial, no accountability? It wasn't self-defense. He didn't shoot to stop a felony in progress.

[SQRLSY One]

"That’s fine, give him probation if the trial finds him guilty."

I have no argument with you, then. Thank you for NOT having a large and ugly "punishment boner"!

[StanleyLees]

I am making $92 an hour working from home. I never imagined that it was honest to goodness yet my closest companion is earning $16,000 a month by working on a laptop, that was truly astounding for me, she prescribed for me to attempt it simply. Everybody must try this job now by just using this website. http://Www.workstar24.com

[Jeb Kerman]

Alex Baldwin did kill someone and he did so out of negligence.

Therefore I cannot say that he is not a hazard. Evidence shows that he is negligent and that IMO demonstrates him to be hazardous to be around.

I do not hand firearms to people who I believe to be negligent.

It is not an accident to point a firearm at a human. It does not matter if the firearm is fake, or unloaded, or loaded with blanks. Nobody dies if Baldwin does not point the firearm. That was his choice and his responsibility alone.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Therefore I cannot say that he is not a hazard.

Baldwin is possessed of pompous arrogance coupled with pants-on-head stupidity. There are very few types of people who are more dangerous.

[CE]

There's also a deterrent theory of justice. If that actor got 5 to 7 years for accidentally killing someone, the next actor might be more careful about checking the weapon the movie director asks him to fire.

[SQRLSY One]

Good point! I've not read up on that one in detail lately, but...

The certainty of being caught is a vastly more powerful deterrent than the punishment. Research shows clearly that the chance of being caught is a vastly more effective deterrent than even draconian punishment.

from https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/247350.pdf (above and below)

2. Sending an individual convicted of a crime to prison
isn’t a very effective way to deter crime.

4. Increasing the severity of punishment does little to
deter crime.

5. There is no proof that the death penalty deters
criminals.

Etc. ... A worthy read or skim-read...

[Don't look at me!]

: 5. There is no proof that the death penalty deters
criminals.

It prevents repeat offenders.

[JFree]

So does the death penalty for every crime or non-criminal offense

[IceTrey]

But that doesn't balance the scales of justice. Taking your car isn't equivalent to taking your life.

[Jeb Kerman]

If my car is worth $50k that theft is $50k worth of the time of my life to replace it.

For a lot of people, that's a year's salary with all the commuting and laundry and time away from your family that goes with it.

You can never fully recover a year of lost lifetime.

Theft is devastating and should be deterred with lethal force.

[Chumby]

A carjacking is a violent event where some jurisdictions accept using deadly force to resist. Basically the castle law for one’s vehicle.
I’m not sure there is anywhere in the US that has the death penalty as a possible sentence for auto theft including if it had been a carjacking.

[Jeb Kerman]

Car jackings and horse thievery aren't supposed to go to court.

[Jeb Kerman]

There is good data that armed people deter criminals.

Criminals tend to avoid people they think can and will shoot them.

[JeremyR]

No proof, but one of the reasons Richard Spoek (sp?) killed the women where he did (Illinois) is because they didn't have a death penalty.

[markm23]

Like about 42 states, Illinois did have a death penalty in 1967, and Speck was convicted of 8 murders and sentenced to death. But the next year, the Supreme Court decided that Illinois was unconstitutionally stacking the jury in death penalty cases (Witherspoon v. Illinois), in 1971 it overturned Speck's death penalty, and in 1972 it overturned all death penalties nationwide and required the states to come up with better trial procedures (Furman v. Georgia). In 1976, the SC approved Georgia's new process (Gregg v. Georgia) and the federal government and most of the states adopted similar rules. But they couldn't be applied ex post facto, so the death penalty was off the table for anyone convicted before these changes.

Speck was resentenced to 400 to 1200 years. He came up for parole 7 times, but it was always denied, and he only got out of prison when they took him to a hospital to die.

[JFree]

The deterrent theory of justice does not even require that Baldwin actually is guilty before being found guilty. Only that punishing someone will deter someone else.

As CS Lewis wrote many decades ago when he blasted both the deterrent and rehabilitation theories of punishment

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

The deterrent theory of justice does not even require that Baldwin actually is guilty before being found guilty. Only that punishing someone will deter someone else.

Your premise it based on ignorance of the subject. "Deterrence Theory" is not a theory of justice. It's a theory regarding punishment for a crime for which one has presumably already been justly found guilty of. There is no generally recognized theory of deterrence that holds that guilt is irrelevant.

[Roberta]

And nobody would be any safer for it, and safety might even be compromised by what you suggest. There are procedures to be followed, and the actor should not be checking the props that have already been gone over by the experts in their safety. You don’t want the last person to adjust the item to be less of an expert in it than the previous person who checked it.

[A Thinking Mind]

You’re required to treat a gun as a lethal object in all circumstances, regardless what an expert tells you. Because experts can be wrong. Hey look, this case is an example of that!

It also doesn’t require any magic powers to check a gun. Just the willingness to spend 15-30 seconds every time you’re handed one. And unless the actor is carrying live ammo for some reason, he’s not going to make an unloaded gun into a deadly accident by double checking it.

[Roberta]

Then you don't know about the various combinations that've been accidentally loaded in revolvers.

[Roberta]

You want a very plausible example? You know the bullet catch trick?

Suppose you're doing it with a revolver. It's loaded with two successive rounds. The first is a real bullet load. The magician is to fire it at a target to assure the audience the gun is real and that the loads are real. The second is a blank. What if the performer decides to check, and reloads them in the wrong order?

[A Thinking Mind]

If you’re doing something like that and don’t know how guns work, you should be in jail. that is dangerous as fuck. You’d better be very proficient and very careful if you want to do that. If you’re not, nobody should hand you that gun. You’re putting everyone around you in danger.

Sorry, your examples are asinine. You’re expecting people who don’t know shit about guns to pull off gun-specific stunts. You’re fucked in the head.

[Don't look at me!]

There is no question about that.

[Roberta]

It's not a stunt, it's a magic trick, no physical skill involved. The performer is not called on to be an expert on shooting, but only to stand here and do this.

A commoner way to do it has the magician palm the live round seemingly being inserted in a rifle or muzzle-loader. But what if the props man has put a live round into the rifle already, instead of a blank? Do you really want the magician to check it in front of the audience, since that'd be when he takes hold of it? Way to bust the illusion, huh?

[Nardz]

Jesus fucking christ

[Don't look at me!]

Hopeless.

[Roberta]

You don't have an answer, do you?

[Hank Ferrous]

The answer is personal accountability. Baldwin is at fault. Your arguments do nothing to change this.

[epsilon given]

You're talking about tricks that have literally resulted in death, and you're expecting us to say "Well, ok, I guess Alec Baldwin was right to reject well-established Hollywood protocols, because it was more important to get that one shot perfect -- even when it isn't even being filmed -- than it is to make sure no one dies".

Instead, we look on horror, and ask "People really did those kinds of tricks? From a safety standpoint alone, these tricks should be banned."

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Suppose you’re doing it with a revolver. It’s loaded with two successive rounds. The first is a real bullet load. The magician is to fire it at a target to assure the audience the gun is real and that the loads are real. The second is a blank. What if the performer decides to check, and reloads them in the wrong order?

Your analogy sucks, like every other argument you've tried to make here. The rule in question requires that one check to be sure that a firearm is not loaded with ANY live rounds, not to ensure that it is loaded with some combination of live and inert rounds. Except for the extremely oddball situation you describe (where what everyone here with more than 2 brain cells is advocating would not even apply), there is NO situation in which safe firearms handling requires one to ensure that a firearm be rendered similarly unsafe.

[Chumby]

There is no adjusting. There is just safe, responsible use and Baldwin failed to provide that standard of care. If Baldwin was incapable of performing a necessary step that every single person handling a firearm must perform, then he should not have touched the firearm.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

“There are procedures to be followed, and the actor should not be checking the props that have already been gone over by the experts in their safety”

Wrong. It’s in their SAG membership documents that they’re individually responsible for checking firearms props themselves. I heard someone wrote this verbatim from SAG documents yesterday.

Baldwin should have known better. Now he should pay the price.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Exactly. The VERY FIRST mention of firearms/weapons in that document (https://www.sagaftra.org/files/safety_bulletins_amptp_part_1_9_3_0.pdf) contains this as the VERY FIRST line:

“Treat all weapons as though they are loaded and/or ready to use. ”

The 2nd line?

“Do not play with weapons and never point one at anyone, including yourself.”

Other pertinent statements include (among several others):

“AS AN ACTOR, YOU ARE ULTIMATELY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY AND THE SAFETY OF YOUR FELLOW CAST MEMBERS.

Production management and crew are responsible for creating and maintaining safe conditions, but it is your right and responsibility to double check the set up to ensure your own Safety.”

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Thank you, I was too lazy to dig that out myself.

[ragebot]

Not to make too fine a point but it is important to note that while SAG regs are all good and fine this production was on a shoestring budget and not all the crew and cast were SAG members and SAG regs were not in force. In fact there were other problems with hotel rooms for the crew being 50 miles from the shooting locations and not all of the crew being on location as they would be in a SAG shoot. Kinda like a non union shop so to speak.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

not all the crew and cast were SAG members

Baldwin is, and has been for a long time.

[epsilon given]

So you're saying it's ok to throw standard safety procedures out the window because you're strapped for cash?

I'll have to remember that for the next time I hear a gun range is in danger of going under, due to financial problems. I'm sure the suggestion will go over very well.

[Vernon Depner]

That's not what SAG says:

https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-statement-rust-charges

[Krenn]

Notice what SAG DIDN'T SAY.

Alec Baldwin KNEW that gun in question was NOT under active supervision by an Armorer, because the Armorer was NOT present, and he should have known that the industry standard was that she totally should have been there...

Under the circumstances.... either Alec Baldwin, or the Armorer, needed to have checked that weapon ON SET, prior to use.... and the Armorer wasn't there, so either Alec Baldwin should have checked it himself, or, if he was not confident in his ability to do so, he should not have picked up the gun AT ALL.

And yet, he chose to use that gun in that scene ANYWAY, despite the fact that NOBODY had checked it specifically prior to use. and then someone died.

[Vernon Depner]

"The prosecutor's contention that an actor has a duty to ensure the functional and mechanical operation of a firearm on a production set is wrong and uninformed."

That sounds very clear to me.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Their own safety bulletins say the spokesman is full of shit:

https://www.sagaftra.org/files/safety_bulletins_amptp_part_1_9_3_0.pdf

[NOYB2]

What the SAG says is legally irrelevant.

[Vernon Depner]

Oh really? I'll be surprised if an SAG rep doesn't testify at the trial as a expert witness.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

It's damned relevant to the claims made, like the one that started this sub-thread, that there is/are some sort of film industry norms that magically relieve the bearer/operator of a firearm on set of any responsibility for the safe use of that firearm. And all of this is legally relevant to the question of whether or not Baldwin was negligent.

[Roberta]

It's not about film industry norms, it's about all occupational safety law in the case of any equipment that may be dangerous. Guns are not special. "Rules of guns" don't supersede general law on workplace safety, it's vice versa.

[Chumby]

Rules on safe firearm handling always apply. It is incidents such as this that you continue to defend are evidence why those rules exist. A woman was killed by Alec Baldwin due to his negligent handling of a firearm for which had 100% of the responsibility.

[Vernon Depner]

Your folkloric "rules on safe firearm handling" are not legally relevant to Baldwin's criminal responsibility unless they have been codified in New Mexico laws or regulations. What your Grandpa told you when you were plinking behind the barn, or what the instructor said at Boy Scout camp are not legally binding on anyone. What the SAG has to say about it might be relevant, but they have already stated clearly that performers should not be held criminally liable in such situations.

[Vernon Depner]

there is/are some sort of film industry norms that magically relieve the bearer/operator of a firearm on set of any responsibility

You've got it backwards. What many are asserting here is that there is some Code of Divine Wisdom about firearms that magically holds people responsible for firearms accidents on the job, overruling usual and codified occupational safety standards and practices.

[NOYB2]

Any expert would testify (under oath) as an individual, not as a "representative of the SAG". Furthermore, the closer their ties to the SAG, the less credible they would be, since the SAG is explicitly on the side of actors.

What the SAG puts on their website is irrelevant, the SAG is highly biased, and as this discussion shows, their statements aren't even consistent. That's why you can't settle the issue by pointing to stuff on the SAG web pages.

[epsilon given]

"Your folkloric “rules on safe firearm handling” are not legally relevant to Baldwin’s criminal responsibility unless they have been codified in New Mexico laws or regulations."

I can't believe someone is actually saying this with a straight face (or absent a /sarc font -- maybe you just forgot the tag).

The entire point of negligent manslaughter is "There are standard safety procedures that any reasonable person follows, this person negligently ignored them, and now someone is dead as a result".

Considering that we have an example not of "folkloric" rules of safe gun handling -- which is something that every gun owner knows very well, because they are well-written and well-established, but we have in this thread an example of how these rules are hard-coded into the very standards Hollywood actors use to ensure the safety of everyone using gun props on set.

What's more, how much are you willing to bet that these standards are re-iterated by the armorer in daily safety meetings? Or rather, would-be daily, except that the producer is worried about time and money constraints, so the armorer can't have them as much as desired meetings the armorer tried to hold?

[Chumby]

VD, those rules are provided in basic firearms safety training classes, included in firearm owners manuals and reviewed by a retailer with a purchaser of a firearm. The relevant authorities disagree with you. A dead woman does too.

[docduracoat]

To Roberta,
That is completely wrong.
To check a revolver you can be complete moron and still swing the cylinder out to see if anything is in there.
This gun was being used to practice drawing from the holster.

It was not to have blanks or dummy rounds.
Anyone of any level of experience could see something was in the cylinders.
Then an armorer could examine it and see live rounds were present

[Pear Satirical]

"...an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, will leave us all toothless and blind!"

How? If you take my eye and I take one of yours in response, then we both have one eye left. That was the point, to restrict punishment to a similar degree.

“You accidentally killed my father, prepare to die!”

“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die”

[epsilon given]

"An eye for an eye" is a horrible way for everyone to run their lives -- everyone ends up in rounds of revenge, and everyone ends up blind and toothless.

"An eye for an eye" is a pretty decent standard for a system of justice, though.

[Brandybuck]

Alec Baldwin is not at fault. The dumbass producers are at fault. The gun misfired with live rounds before, including on the same day of the accident. "Yuk yuk, whoops! let's try that scene again!" with a firearm is a case of gross negligence against the guys in charge of that firearm, not the actor who was told it was a safe movie prop. Doesn't matter if the actor is a dick or not, it's not his fault.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

He pulled the trigger. He did not check it when given it. He violated one of the most basic rules of gun safety.

He is responsible. Others may also be responsible, but that shared responsibility is still shared.

[BYODB]

Last I checked, 'blanks' use brass casings so even if he did pop the cylinder to 'check it' it would have looked fine to an actor with no clue what a gun is supposed to even look like.

[SQRLSY One]

Well ya gotta take the ammo-cartridge-round OUT and look at the "business end" or tip, yeah... Bullet v/s no bullet protruding from the "business end" ... That does take a wee tad of extra time...

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-blank-rounds-of-bullet-and-live-rounds has a nice photo...

[IceTrey]

Some movie cartridges have bullets but no powder so they look real in the camera.

[Jeb Kerman]

Those won't have primers or will have a visibly dented primer.

[Brandybuck]

Wasn't that the kind of "bullet" that killed Brandon Lee? No powder but neglectfully still had a primer.

[Don't look at me!]

That does take a wee tad of extra time…

Would have been time well spent.

[A Thinking Mind]

It wasn't supposed to have blanks, it was supposed to have dummy rounds. And dummies are obvious to even a dummy, if they care to know anything about what they're holding. But treat it like a toy and don't respect that you're holding an object that can kill people and you're playing with fire.

I have to ask, do you think Baldwin would have been so quick to point the gun at his own head and pull the trigger? But he was fine pointing it at another person.

[Jere Krischel]

They need to write that scene into the movie Rust.

[Dan S.]

He insists that he didn't pull the trigger. The prosecution says he must have, the gun would not have fired otherwise. I expect that this will be a major issue, perhaps the major issue, at the trial. Too bad there is no video record of his handling of the gun. Perhaps it should be standard practice going forward that all handling of firearms on film sets be, well, filmed.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Baldwin is full of shit. If there was some mechanical deficiency that would allow that pistol to discharge without a trigger pull, then that would have come out by now. As Both prosecutors and Baldwin’s attorneys have had their own experts examine it. It’s just more lies form him because he is arrogant and unaccountable. Like he has been for decades.

This time an innocent person was needlessly killed because of that. Let Baldwin burn for it.

[Brandybuck]

He's an actor. Meaning he doesn't have a brain. This is also a movie set and the film involved pulling a trigger. Fake guns and stuff are commonplace. He should have been investigated, but the ultimate responsibility is the production team. Not the guy who's job was to pull the trigger on a gun loaded with a blank.

Then again, I'm not on the jury, so I don't have all the facts in front of me. But what I have read of this incident, it was the gross negligence on part of the production team.

[markm23]

The _film_ involved pulling the trigger, but the _scene_ that Baldwin was rehearsing did not involve pulling the trigger, nor pointing the gun at anyone. He played with the gun.

The gun should not have been loaded with live rounds. There was no reason to even have a live round on the set. The gun should not have been loaded at all, and you don't need much gun expertise to check whether the chambers in a revolver are empty, whether or not you can tell dummy rounds from blanks from live rounds. So other people are responsible for the gun being loaded, but as a producer Baldwin shared that responsibility, and as an actor he was certainly responsible for pointing the gun at someone and pulling the trigger.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

And if you are correct, that the same gun "misfired" with live ammo, and everyone knew it ... well, Baldwin is a producer and also knew about it, and bears even more responsibility for his carelessness as a producer. Why did he not do anything about that previous incident?

[Jeb Kerman]

Nope.

You do not point a weapon at anything you do not intend to destroy.
You do not handle a weapon you do not understand.
When you receive a weapon it is your first duty to ensure that it is clear and unloaded.

Never hand off or receive a loaded weapon. If the person who is to fire is not capable of operating the weapon or does not know how, they are not allowed to handle it.

Yes, the person who handed Baldwin the weapon is to blame as well. But ultimately, Baldwin pointed the weapon at a human. At that point, he took responsibility and it's on him.

[SQRLSY One]

“You do not point a weapon at anything you do not intend to destroy.”

This leaves ZERO room for the making of movies, or even for military or police training! It is totally perfectionist-idealistic to the point of utter unreality! If a person is threatening me with a knife, am I allowed to point a (loaded or unloaded) gun at him or her, as a WARNING, without me having the intent to destroy? Or shall I be PUNISHED for merely pointing that gun? Pointing a gun does NOT have very much to do with “intent to destroy” in the real world!

(I do wonder, though, WHY are live rounds even ALLOWED to be on movie sets in the first place? OK, live rounds can create shattering glass and other "cool" effects to be caught on camera. So what?!?! In the days of computer graphics effects, WHY do we need live rounds any more, on movie sets? Sounds like a top-level MANAGEMENT problem, not a director-or-actors problem!)

[Jeb Kerman]

Live ammo on the set IMO is on the armorer. Proper storage of a firearm means it is not loaded and the ammo is secured in another location.

I don’t how to make movies. I do know how to shoot and how to store my firearms. I won’t point a firearm at anything I do not intend to destroy.

I have never seen a Police/SWAT/Military training where a real firearm was supposed to be pointed at a human. At any range or training I have ever seen, such conduct is terms for immediate stoppage of the training.

If someone threatens me with a knife, I am not going to pull my firearm and back away. I am going to back away, pull my firearm and end them. Open carry is a tactical error. If you see my firearm, we are beyond warnings.

If you point a firearm at someone, it gives that person, and anyone else in the area, the impression that you intend to do harm. There is no time for debate in the real world. Bad things happen very fast. You may be punished instantly and on the spot, whether or not your intentions are just.

Blue on Blue happens. So only handle firearms if you understand the rules. If you don’t know high ready from low ready from holstered, stay off the field.

[Minadin]

Armorer is also charged.

[SQRLSY One]

"Open carry is a tactical error. If you see my firearm, we are beyond warnings."

All police, guards, border guards, and military should carry only CONCEALED weapons, then! Is that really what you mean to say?

[Jeb Kerman]

No.

I promoted myself to civilian and have the full rights of a citizen of my state.

LEOs wear firearms when they are in uniform. It's part of the LEO uniform. On duty, un-uniformed police have limited if any place in a civilized society.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Lt. Columbo was pretty useful as an ununiformed LEO. He could pester and annoy diabolical murderers into confessing just so Columbo would leave them alone.

I posted an example below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W1TDnSITaQ

[Jeb Kerman]

I made an error.

I forgot MILES training. You do point rifles at people. The rifles have blank adaptors that block the barrel and the recoil of the blank fires a laser. If the laser hits any worn MILES sensors on the "enemy", the harness that carries the sensors emits a loud, high-pitched ringing.

To turn off the ringing, you must remove a key from the laser on your rifle and insert it into the vest, thus rendering your firearm useless.

No live ammo was ever present during MILES training. The inspections were rigorous to ensure compliance. While I am certain someone has tried to shoot off a blank adaptor, I doubt it went well for them.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

We used those for FTX in the army. For good reason.

[NOYB2]

Open carry vs concealed carry and its meaning is a cultural convention, not a universal rule.

[Quicktown Brix]

Agreed. All this is what every country boy is taught by his father...at least in my day (well mostly)...but it's not law. It was stupid, but it was an accident, not criminal.

[Jeb Kerman]

As I understand it, manslaughter is gross negligence that results in death. It indicates a carelessness about another's life that ended with a very preventable tragedy.

Intent to kill is not required for manslaughter, as I understand it.

IMO, Baldwin took on the responsibility to ensure that the weapon was safe the instant he took possession of it.

Also IMO, the armorer needed to be sure Baldwin understood his personal responsibility to practice safe firearm handling on set. She is also charged.

If Mr. Baldwin is too stupid to understand the proper handling of a firearm then as a producer of the film, he is responsible for having procured the firearm he was given.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

You are correct. Intent is a not a component of manslaughter. Which is a reckless/negligent action resulting in the death of another. Intent would elevate the action to murder.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

It was stupid, but it was an accident, not criminal.

Tell us you don't understand the concept of criminal negligence without telling us that.

"His driving drunk was stupid, but him causing that MVA and killing someone was an accident, not criminal."

[JesseAz]

Lol. What a joke you are.

He fired the gun. Actors are given safe handling training. He did not follow his instruction. Then he lied and claimed a misfire.

[Fats of Fury]

Alex Baldwin IS the dumbass producer of this film.

[Chumby]

Is production still halted or have they started shooting again?

[Krenn]

As of this month, January, 2023, they are currently recruiting staff to resume shooting in Febuary, 2023.

Although allegedly, they won't use guns on the set anymore. on a western. on a shoestring budget. with less than half of the filming completed.

[damikesc]

"Alec Baldwin is not at fault. The dumbass producers are at fault."

Alec was one of the producers. Just sayin'.

[John Rohan]

Baldwin was one of the producers on this film.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Baldwin IS a producer for this project. He IS responsible. He belongs in prison for what he did.

[mpercy]

Baldwin was the producer, or at least a producer.

[Dr. Shanks]

Brandybuck:
"Alec Baldwin is not at fault. The dumbass producers are at fault."

Hey dumbass. Alec Baldwin WAS THE CO-PRODUCER of "Rust."

He was ultimately responsible for hiring, firing, and setting policies on the film set. Including hiring a grossly incompetent armorer who failed to enforce standard industry firearm safety protocols. Protocols breached by having someone other than the armorer hand him a weapon and declare that it was "cold" (safe) when clearly it was not. Baldwin was either stupidly ignorant of how firearms were supposed to be handled on a film set (despite years in the industry and his own union (SAG) having published regulations on the subject) or he was heedlessly reckless to the fact that those rules were there to protect the members of the cast and crew and ignored them. Either way, someone else paid in blood for this.

[epsilon given]

I am convinced that Baldwin hired the armorer precisely because of her inexperience -- and then took advantage of that inexperience to overwork her, and to cut back on normal safety procedures.

I'm not sure if I'd hold the armorer to blame for this, but I'm not surprised she's charged, too.

[Jeb Kerman]

Both the armorer and Baldwin should do time.

You don't hand a firearm to an imbecile. It was the armorers duty to ensure the firearm was safe AND that anyone who is issued a firearm is trained in it's safe use and handling.

It was Baldwin's duty to ensure the weapon was safe AND was never pointed at anything or anyone he did not intend to destroy.

Personally, I think they should share a cell so they can scream blame at each other until they both rot.

[BYODB]

This is probably the fairest reading of this that I've seen. The issue to me is that Baldwin was also the armorers boss which creates perverse incentives on set. Something tells me the armorer will do time and he'll skate, but we'll see.

[Roberta]

What perverse incentives? Like, you want to see your boss killed?

[Krenn]

Like, it's easy for an armorer to tell an actor that shooting must be paused, because the armorer won't give the actor the gun until the armorer is satisified that the actor will treat it with respect.

It's really, really hard for the armorer to tell the guy in charge of hiring her, and who is also paying for the entire shooting schedule, and who approved the current safety standards....

that the shooting must stop, because the armorer won't hand the producer the gun until the armorer is certain the producer will handle it with the respect it deserves.

Same thing with the armorer insisting on altering the safety procedures, or on hiring more staff, or ordering all shooting to shut down for a day so that the armorer can sweep the entire area for live rounds...

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

It’s really, really hard for the armorer to tell the guy in charge of hiring her, and who is also paying for the entire shooting schedule, and who approved the current safety standards….

that the shooting must stop, because the armorer won’t hand the producer the gun until the armorer is certain the producer will handle it with the respect it deserves.

Especially when the armorer isn't even allowed on the set due to Covid protocols put in place by...the producers.

[epsilon given]

This, more than anything else, causes me to think that the armorer shouldn't be convicted of manslaughter. I'm not even sure she should have been charged.

I am confident that she should have quit the job, though, when she found that her call for daily safety training was denied.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

If so, I hope the husband uses a portion of his civil settlement to ‘settle things’ with Baldwin. If it had been my wife I certainly would.

[Chumby]

He could just invite Baldwin to a YouTube video he was filming then…blame it on the armorer.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Perhaps they could go duck hunting and Dick Cheney could join them. The ache eye’s are popular with the democrats now, so Baldwin shouldn’t object.

Then let nature take it’s course.

[ravenshrike]

There was no intact chain of custody to the armorer. COVID protocols instituted by the producers and directors had her leaving the day's guns in a wheeled cabinet outside the set.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

If Baldwin wasn’t such an arrogant asshole he would have worked out a plea deal that would likely hav whim serve little or no time. If for nothing else than to bring closure for his victim’s family.

[ravenshrike]

The armorer was not on set due to COVID protocols instituted by the producers and directors.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

As Baldwin is a producer, that makes this further his fault.

[epsilon given]

I can't help but suspect this may absolve the armorer of responsibility, too.

[mad.casual]

It reminded me of the case against Kyle Rittenhouse, … Ironically, one wonders if these charges would have materialized had no one famous been involved and had it not attracted the attention of the world.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

“The Rule of Goats applies. Slightly paraphrased — for this family newspaper — the rule states: If you kiss a goat, even if you say you’re doing it ironically, you’re still a goat-kisser.”

You don’t get off scott-free just because you say “I was only being ironic“.

If you thought, “Excuse me, but I have trouble seeing an essential difference between what [Chris] Kyle did in Iraq and what Adam Lanza did at Sandy Hook Elementary School.” was peak retard, you thought wrong.

[mad.casual]

So why bring the case against Baldwin?

Because the Red SUV didn't run over any Xmas paraders any more than the Silver Dodge Challenger ran over any Unite The Right counter-protesters you. fucking. dimwit.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

How about for being a narcissistic, arrogant asshole?

[Gaear Grimsrud]

He should be executed for that. With old drugs. In Alabama. For as long as it takes.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Awesome. Could turn it into a documentary and Baldwin could show it (posthumously) at Sundance.

[JesseAz]

By the way. How did Alec fucking Baldwin get an article about jail time before non violent J6 paraders? What the fuck. Only 900 of them now. Less than a quarter cited for any violence.

[Don't look at me!]

So dreamy.

[Chumby]

But but but there could have been assault style fire extinguishers.

[damikesc]

No joke. It makes me not take their complaints about others being held like that less seriously. If Reason only cares if they politically do not disagree with the victim, then their condemnation is pointless.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Yeah, it’s pretty disgusting how Reason will take up for arrogant unaccountable pukes like Baldwin, tranny aggravated murderers in death row, etc., but not say a word about people detained for over two years without trial who committed no acts of violence.

Reason is an ersatz Marxist organ anymore.

[Pear Satirical]

Well that's cause unlike J6 protestors, Baldwin goes to cocktail parties.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

"The prosecution would have to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he was subjectively aware of the danger: that he actually thought about the possibility that the gun might be loaded, and proceeded to point it and pull the trigger despite that,"
The guy is a professional actor who I assume has handled prop guns on many occasions. Part of his job is being aware of everything listed above. That shouldn't be a hard sell to a jury. He also did a TV interview claiming that he did not pull the trigger and the gun magically fired itself. The prosecutors will have no problem convincing a jury that he was lying. And frankly I think the prosecutors observation about who is above the law is appropriate. Would a non celebrity under these circumstances be charged? I think the answer is probably yes.

[mad.casual]

Doesn't matter if Alec knows how a (prop) gun works or not, there were plenty of people raising plenty of commotion about the issue that he could've listened to entirely absent any understanding of how firearms work beyond his unequivocal knowledge that they sometimes kill people:

"Three crew members who were present at the Bonanza Creek Ranch set on Saturday said they were particularly concerned about two accidental prop gun discharges.

Baldwin’s stunt double accidentally fired two rounds Saturday after being told that the gun was “cold” — lingo for a weapon that doesn’t have any ammunition, including blanks — two crew members who witnessed the episode told the Los Angeles Times.

“There should have been an investigation into what happened,” a crew member said. “There were no safety meetings. There was no assurance that it wouldn’t happen again. All they wanted to do was rush, rush, rush.”
...
A colleague was so alarmed by the prop gun misfires that he sent a text message to the unit production manager. “We’ve now had 3 accidental discharges. This is super unsafe,” according to a copy of the message reviewed by The Times.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-10-22/alec-baldwin-rust-camera-crew-walked-off-set

[Brian]

Everyone loves a show trial. This one will have an actual celebrity. Sorry, Alec: the justice show must go on.

[mad.casual]

Out of curiosity, how many women did Harvey Weinstein accidentally discharge into and kill? Bill Cosby? R. Kelly? Clarence Thomas? Brett Kavanaugh? Anthony Broadwater?

[M L]

Perhaps but if so, what about the mom who accidentally left their kid in a hot car for 20 minutes? What about the guy who got behind the wheel after 4 beers, drove onto black ice and hit and killed someone?

Are those worse than intentionally pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger while mistakenly believing that it was not loaded? There are a lot of people in jail for a very long time for things that might seem less reckless.

Or at the risk of veering in a different direction, what about a police officer who uses a textbook restraining method expressly authorized in the department manual and then the arrestee dies of a drug overdose?

[Don't look at me!]

That’s different. Those people aren’t movie stars.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Turley from 12/21
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/12/02/the-gun-did-it-baldwin-denies-pulling-the-trigger-in-fatal-rust-shooting/

[Spiritus Mundi]

Reason’s Libertarian principles:
Don’t hurt people
Or take their stuff

[SQRLSY One]

How about "Don't punish people when evidence says punishment doesn't do any real good"? Punishment costs the taxpayers MONEY, ya know! I have MANY good ideas about how I could use my own money, instead of punishing Alec B., if the punishment will do no good, anyway, ya know! I can see the libertarian aspect of things here, as above, can you?

The certainty of being caught is a vastly more powerful deterrent than the punishment. Research shows clearly that the chance of being caught is a vastly more effective deterrent than even draconian punishment.

from https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/247350.pdf (above and below)

2. Sending an individual convicted of a crime to prison
isn’t a very effective way to deter crime.

4. Increasing the severity of punishment does little to
deter crime.

5. There is no proof that the death penalty deters
criminals.

Etc. … A worthy read or skim-read…

[Jeb Kerman]

While the severity may not matter, the consistency in which punishment is applied most soundly does.

IMO this indicates a profound lack of self respect on the part of Mr. Baldwin. I believe the charge fits and I believe some narcissistic injury would do the man some good.

But, he still gets his day in court so it's a tad early to talk about frying his toeses.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

This is definitely a reasonable prosecution. They’re not overcharging him. Involuntary manslaughter is exactly what he did.

[Eric VonSalzen]

When I was in high school, I acted in a play in which my character shot someone. The director, who was my English teacher, insisted on safety in handling the pistol and being sure it was loaded with blanks. Off stage, my father, who had served in the Army in WWII, had for years stressed to me the importance of fire arms safety. So, the director and I both checked the revolver carefully before each performance, "just to be sure" it was loaded with blanks, and when I "shot" the other actor, I aimed the pistol away from him, "just in case".
A couple of years later, when I was in a summer stock theater, I was supposed to shoot a drunk in a bar scene. In that case, I used my own .22 revolver, that I had personally loaded with blanks, and yet I aimed the pistol at the floor, just in case.
I have nothing against Alec Baldwin -- I'm sure I disagree with his politics (so what? he's an actor) -- but if he took less care to avoid injury ot others than I did at 16-18 years old, maybe a few months in the slammer would do him so good.

[SQRLSY One]

Thanks! All good points…

(A few months at most, yes. "Proportional" justice. Very subjective, to be sure.)

[Jeb Kerman]

Yep.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Even SAG requires that actors are individually responsible for the condition of their props in these cases.

[Kerr Mudgeon]

The issue is not whether Alec Baldwin is a good person or a bad one. Neither that nor his politics matter. The relevant fact is that he obviously violated three basic safe gun handling rules:
1. Every gun always must be treated as loaded. That has to be the default assumption unless and until the person handling it personally takes every one of the multiple steps necessary to ascertain and confirm that it is not. Being told by any other person or persons that a firearm is unloaded won't cut it or excuse a violation of this rule.
2. No gun ever should be pointed at any portion of one's own body or at any other person who does not pose an immediate dangerous threat that must be neutralized.
3. No gun holder ever should place a finger inside the trigger guard unless and until the gun is aimed at a target at which the gun holder has decided to shoot.
Anyone who picks up a gun and fails to comply with each of these fundamental common sense rules must be held accountable -- legally, financially, and morally -- for the consequences of any such failure . . . and this is particularly true when all three rules are violated with fatal consequences. A celebrity exemption from these rules cannot and must not be tolerated.

[Jeb Kerman]

Yep

[Roberta]

These rules should not apply in a show. You hire someone to act, to pretend — not to have real knowledge of the equipment, just to be able to fake it.

You hire someone else to check safety — to assure the knife has a rubber blade, that the gun has a blank round, that the pretend live wire isn’t actually electrified. Once you have the technical person on the job, you do not want the non-technical person second-guessing it. The actor should not be unloading and reloading the revolver on the set.

Someone pretending to shoot someone absolutely points the gun at the person. In this case they were rehearsing a scene. The person who got shot was saying the other actor would be where she was, and that he should point the gun that way. Are you going to say she asked for it? Everybody on set did their job right. The problem was with people who came before them.

[Chumby]

They apply with all firearms always.

[A Thinking Mind]

Some people just understand how this works because they’re too coddled.

In almost all circumstances in you daily life, you can safely assume you’re not creating a lethal threat unless you have a reason to think otherwise. When you’re dealing with a firearm, those presumptions get flipped. It is presumed lethal until you are 100% certain it is safe. You do not take anyone’s word for it at any moment. Even if you don’t load the gun, you make them load it in front of you.

[Roberta]

Then why do they have people doing that job? Looks like it's an unnecessary job, since the next person to handle the gun has to undo it and start from scratch. Obviously people whose business it is have decided yes, the rules are different in a show. These people are not in the business of losing money (though they often do), so they have decided the way you think everyone should deal with firearms is not the way to do it in their business.

[Chumby]

You cannot cede the responsibility of safe firearm use to another. Attempting to do so is irresponsible, negligent, dangerous and in this case deadly.

[Roberta]

No, in this case you must cede that responsibility. Wild west shows would be impossible under your conditions, unless the actors were actual gunslingers and brought their own weapons. Airliners could never get off the ground, because the operators would have to go back over all the mechanics' work personally. Surgeons and anesthesiologists could not work together. How about the people who operate ICBMs?

[Bruce Hayden]

Find your Hollywood movie set exception in the statutes. CA may have one. Most states do not. As one poster above pointed out, you can always point the gun off target, as he did in his acting roles. The people watching can’t tell, and if they could, it can be handled by camera angles.

But here, the scene wasn’t live. Instead, it was Baldwin sitting around practicing while waiting for his scene. Pointing his gun at someone, and pulling the trigger.

[Chumby]

The firearm and cartridge worked as designed; your analogies still fail to be metaphors for this particular situation. There was no issue with the mechanical functioning of the gun or an issue with a poorly seated bullet or powder overcharge that resulted in excessive pressure.
Baldwin violated the three most important firearm safety rules of pointing a firearm at something he did not wish to shoot, failing to personally verify the load status of the firearm and putting his finger on the trigger before the first two items had been addressed.
Again, you are encouraged to sign up for and attend an in-person basic firearms safety course.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

You have no idea what you’re talking about, and are 100% wrong.

[A Thinking Mind]

Wild west shows would be impossible under your conditions, unless the actors were actual gunslingers and brought their own weapons.

They have to know a baseline level about firearms. A lot of people who act in these Wild West shows actually are firearms enthusiasts, and the ones who don't are surrounded by them and forced to adhere to safe firearms handling.

Airliners could never get off the ground, because the operators would have to go back over all the mechanics’ work personally.

It doesn't happen often, but the pilot absolutely has final say on maintenance of the aircraft and if they have a concern, they will delay the flight and make the maintenance personnel look at it. Sometimes those delays at the airport are the results of pilots turning the plane around because they aren't comfortable that the plane is in operable condition.

You are shockingly unaware of how things actually work in the world to use those as examples.

[Roberta]

But the pilot has only indications via an instrument panel. The pilot can check that without disassembling the vehicle. The pilot is not supposed to do the mechanic's work.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Checking to see if a firearm is loaded with live rounds doesn't require any "disassembling" either, you half-wit.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

They still do safety checks. And this isn’t a. Good analogy anyway.

Baldwin is guilty of manslaughter and is appropriately charged. Period.

[Roberta]

In workplace safety rules, it doesn't matter if the alteration of the equipment qualifies as what you consider "disassembly" or otherwise. It's still the worker changing the condition of the equipment after it's been gone over by the person in charge of its safety. It's best to forbid that in the protocol. Doesn't matter whether it's a gun, a vehicle, a power saw, or whatever.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

In workplace safety rules, it doesn’t matter if the alteration of the equipment qualifies as what you consider “disassembly” or otherwise.

It has nothing to do with what I consider it. It has to do with what the word means.

It’s still the worker changing the condition of the equipment after it’s been gone over by the person in charge of its safety. It’s best to forbid that in the protocol.

The dead woman in this case (and anyone with a brain) would disagree.

That said, he pulled back the hammer (and likely pulled the trigger), thus changing the condition of the equipment. So much for your protocol.

[Chumby]

Roberta, the firearm functioned as intended. There are instances where a “gunsmithed” or dangerously manufactured firearm discharged without the possessor squeezing the trigger. This is not one of those cases. Your analogies continue to not fit what occurred here. No amount of pontification will change that Baldwin was obligated to provide a standard of care that includes checking the firearms load status, only pointing in a safe direction and never squeezing the trigger unless the target and what is behind that is safe. Baldwin failed where he ended up killing a woman.

[Roberta]

We're at an impasse, but we'll see in court. I'm sure workplace safety will be controlling there, not general rules about guns.

[Chumby]

Baldwin has a decent chance of not doing time but not due to law but because he will have great legal representation going up against lawyers that were not capable enough of making it in the private sector. For reference, OJ Simpson.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Wild west shows would be impossible under your conditions, unless the actors were actual gunslingers and brought their own weapons.

You appear to have the IQ of a rock (with my apologies to rocks). Wild west shows don't start out by prop masters walking out onto the scene and handing the actors their guns. That is done before hand, giving the actors ample opportunity to perform safety checks before they walk out onto the set.

[Roberta]

That's true only if they walk out with the guns. What if it's the classic Chekov scenario of a gun laying on a table onstage?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

What if you tried making a half-way intelligent...or at least reality-based...argument?

I guess we'll never know.

[Roberta]

You're not familiar with that common saying from theater?

[Chumby]

Then the production would be violating safe firearm absolutes. Heaven forbid safety be adhered to in the name of theatre or film! If an actor in that play shot and killed someone else, then the authorities could again chekov the “involuntary manslaughter” box for the person that discharged the firearm.

[Roberta]

So the classic Chekov saying that if there's a gun on the table in Act 1, it better get picked up and used by Act 3, can't be fulfilled?

[Chumby]

Are you intimating that a theatrical performance somehow trumps safe firearm handling? Alec Baldwin shot and killed a woman due to his irresponsibility. She’s dead. But the response is to focus on art? Yikes.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

When it comes to firearm safety, a redundancy system is just good practice.

[Roberta]

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. After the expert has checked the safety of the equipment, you should not add a weaker link in the chain. If the worker can check its safety without removing any pieces, that's OK, but if you have to take parts out and put them back, you've weakened the chain.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

As I already explained previously, your argument is simple-minded bullshit. It's not getting any less simple-minded (or bullshit) for you repeating it.

[Roberta]

Your writing that something is bullshit over and over doesn't make it any more so.

[Chumby]

Roberta, follow your own advice. Also, please take a basic firearms safety course. Not something online but with an in-person instructor.

[Roberta]

Doesn't matter what the firearms safety course says. You need to take a course in occupational safety law.

[Chumby]

For this incident where Alec Baldwin shot and killed a woman, no. I have had the 40 hour HAZWOPER training and later was a safety officer in charge of conducting annual refreshers on topics including trench, confined spaces and LOTO.
This is a personal responsibility incident that Baldwin failed resulting in him shooting and killing a woman.

[epsilon given]

The weakest leak, ultimately, is the actor. That's why actors aren't supposed to point their guns at people!!!!

Have we learned nothing since the death of Bruce Lee?

[Jeb Kerman]

If you weigh 600lbs and your Dr tells you to eat more Krispy Kream donughts and it kills you, who is to blame, you or your doctor?

Doctors used to prescribe smoking to make people healthy. If you died of cancer, who's life is lost, yours or your doctor?

Doctors are there to help us out, to provide guidance and sometimes emergency assistance but it we who own our bodies and it is we who are responsible.

Yes, the producers (Baldwin is one) and the armorer are also to blame, but no one else is to blame for Baldwin pointing a loaded firearm at a human being.

[Krenn]

Well, except for the idiot who TOLD Baldwin to point a gun a right at her, but she's dead now.

[Roberta]

But she wasn't an idiot. She and Baldwin did exactly what their respective jobs called for.

[Krenn]

no, there was no reason why she needed to be standing next to the camera while Baldwin was pointing a gun at the camera.

She wasn't a camera operator, she wasn't an actor, and the camera was in a fixed position. She could have been standing ANYWHERE on the set. standing right next to the camera which was about to have a gun pointed at it was needlessly stupid.... there was no reason for her to do that.

[Roberta]

"No, not there, here."

[epsilon given]

And he did so in violation of well-established Hollywood safety protocols.

A fact you continually ignore.

[Jeb Kerman]

Being told to jump of a cliff does not entitle you to not paying consequences for jumping off a cliff.

Baldwin is an adult. His current argument is that he is not an adult. I'll concede his point and that's why I don't think this is murder.

IMO, it is criminally negligent and worthy of a few years in prison for being so casual with a weapon.

When he comes out, if he comes out, he will be an adult or at the least, he will truly know what he is.

[epsilon given]

Perhaps you would have a point -- if those very rules weren't codified as standard operating procedures for actors.

But, as someone else had linked to the relevant passages of a standard actor safety document in other threads here, this is not the case.

Actors, in particular, are supposed to know to not point their guns at people.

[mad.casual]

I made the rule and taught my kids before 3D printing was largely a thing, but it's more cogent now;

0th rule of firearm safety: If it's not your gun and/or you don't know how to use it, don't fucking touch it.

For clarification, replicating the pipe gun that killed Shinzo Abe.

Self-test: Go to ~3:51 and if you don't shout "Fucking hot!" by 3:57, you fail.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

"The actor is a polarizing figure. That shouldn't matter when evaluating the criminal case against him."

Are you fucking kidding? The 21st century is all about guilt by ideology. (Which is not that different from all previous centuries.)

[sarcasmic]

Hopefully actors will be required to take some basic firearm training as a result of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xii9_oWQ7HY

Video of John Wick training to play Keanu Reeves.

[KiwiLib]

I really really hope that you switched those two around deliberately.... 😀

[mad.casual]

But... Alec Baldwin's an actor, he didn't know!

Will Smith knows.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

They all know.

https://www.sagaftra.org/files/safety_bulletins_amptp_part_1_9_3_0.pdf

[sarcasmic]

Ironically, one wonders if these charges would have materialized had no one famous been involved and had it not attracted the attention of the world.

I only wonder how many life sentences a non-famous person would have been threatened with in order to coerce them into taking a plea.

[JesseAz]

Or when you defended DAs threatening 20 years to non violent J6 protestors.

[Liberty_Belle]

There are several people at fault here for different reasons. He was given the gun and told it was a "cold gun"; at that point a reasonable person would believe it was 'safe'. But, Baldwin is at fault for pointing a gun (prop or not) and pulling the trigger . He wasn't in scene, so why is he pulling the trigger ? Grab-assing, that's why.

The armorer is supposed to be in charge of all firearms, but she wasn't. Rumor has it that several people on the set were shooting soda cans and whatnot with live ammo during off-hours. If the armorer put all the guns away safe, and came back the next day after some dumbasses were drinking and shooting that night, she wouldn't know the difference. The guns should have been under lock & her sole , single key.

Supposedly safety was fast and loose on this set, and somebody is dead because of it.

[JFree]

There's a lot of negligence and scapegoating in this case. The armorer who is being charged was not really the armorer. More an armorer's assistant which is why she really didn't know that live rounds were even on set. The actual armorer - technically 'armorer mentor' but more usually called weapons master - Seth Kenny - is the person who hired the assistant, owned the props business, brought the live rounds onto the set, and apparently brought the live rounds onto the set because some of the crew was playing and shooting live rounds off camera for fun. Can't imagine why he's not being charged here

[Jeb Kerman]

Jeeeeezzzzzzz..

[mad.casual]

It was neither her first movie in the role of handing actors "cold" weapons, nor the first complaint of her incompetence on set. Seth may be guilty of not firing her, he may be more guilty, but she is, in no way, innocent.

[Jeb Kerman]

Spot on.

[ravenshrike]

The guns were left in a cabinet outside the set for the day's shooting due to COVID protocols instituted by the producers and directors. The armorer was directed to stay away from the set during shooting Reportedly, there was gun firing over the lunch hour that day. So it is entirely possible that the guns were shot with live ammo after being checked by the armorer depending on what exact time the cabinet was placed outside the set.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Stupid fucking progs making stupid fucking rules over a phantom menace end up causing an actual death. I hope they crucify Baldwin. Especially since eve was one of the producers.

[Chumby]

With firearms, the person holding it is responsible. The gun did not malfunction, it operated as intended. Baldwin shot and killed a person as a result of his irresponsible handling of that firearm.

[Social Justice is neither]

No, if given a deadly weapon and told it's safe a reasonable person ensures that is true. JFC you idiot leftists know nothing.

[markm23]

That’s not what the rules of gun safety say. You don’t trust anyone else that a gun is empty until you’ve personally checked, and that trust only lasts as long as the gun stays in your hand. According to other posters here, these rules are written into SAG contracts. Baldwin should know what’s in his contract, and he should have refused to take the gun they handed him or even get out of his chair before the rules were scrupulously followed – especially after there had already been two negligent discharges on the set.

But apparently he was treating the gun as a toy (another gross violation of safety rules), because as far as I can tell, the script for the scene he was rehearsing did not call for pointing the gun at anyone, nor for firing it. So I suspect that he not only tolerated careless disregard of safety rules on the set, but it may have started with him.

I may be wrong, because I only have internet gossip as a source. But unless the evidence shown to the jury is a lot different, holding Baldwin not guilty here would be like holding someone who caused a fatal accident while driving drunk at 90 in a 30 mph speed zone not guilty.

[NOYB2]

Baldwin wasn't just the actor, he was also the producer. He bears responsibility in both roles.

[Balloon maker]

Beetlejuice, beetlejuice…. Hey guys, should I do it?

[Chumby]

Alec Baldwin was shooting on location.

[Don't look at me!]

Now they have him over a barrel.

[Don't look at me!]

I hope that didn’t trigger anyone.

[Vernon Depner]

It's "tregro".

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

I don’t know, Baldwin is quite a pistol. Maybe he needs to get a grip.

[Utkonos]

But must he be the butt of these jokes?

[Dr. Shanks]

"I'd venture to guess it's not because the government thinks that the actor..."

And I'd venture to guess you have an agenda that supports' Baldwin's politics.

The real problem is not just that Baldwin the actor pointed a gun at someone and pulled the trigger, not having checked if the gun was loaded... That was just the last link in a chain of bad decisions that goes back to Baldwin THE MOVIE PRODUCER, responsible for the safety of everyone on the set and the hiring of all key individuals to maintain that safety. Like a wholly unqualified armorer, on only her second job (but had a famous daddy) who clearly was not enforcing key safety rules like....
1) No live ammunition on the set. (for most productions, violation is a termination of employment offense)
2) Only the armorer (or her assistant on large projects) can put a weapon into an actor's hand....and directly takes it back when finished. They are responsible for informing the actor of the weapon's safety condition.
3) All prop weapons and blank ammunition are solely under the armorer's personal control from the beginning of the project until its conclusion.
4) If a prop weapon leaves the set or armorer control, it is assumed to be hazardous (loaded), unless inspected and cleared by the armorer.
5) In the case of a safety violation (like an unplanned discharge), all use of weapons ceases until the failure is investigated, protocols are put in place to prevent a repeat, and all relevant personnel are informed as to proper handling.

A film armorer works under the property master, and is typically overseen by them....but apparently, the experienced Hollywood prop master on Rust complained about safety violations and conditions, and was fired. To be replaced by an inexperienced local. That's also on Baldwin the producer.

Baldwin says the asst. director fetched him the gun and declared it "cold" (safe) just before the shooting. But that claim should set off alarm bells to anyone with any knowledge of film set gun safety protocols... Because only the armorer should be providing guns to an actor or declaring them safe, not anyone else. Perhaps Baldwin the actor is so ignorant as to not know that......but it is negligent in the extreme for Baldwin the film producer not to know or recognize that. And the price of that failure was written in blood.

[Roberta]

Which is why he's the target of a lawsuit. Civil liability as producer. But not criminal, because as producer he was not close enough to the action for that type of negligence to be in his hands. As the actor, he could be criminally liable for negligence, but I don't believe he was at all negligent in his role as actor.

An airline owner cuts corners by hiring non-experts and/or fewer of them for the workload, and a fatal crash ensues. But the owner wasn't doing anything specifically enough connected to the crash for it to be negligent homicide. Still could be sued, though.

[mad.casual]

The owner makes all the cuts, gets told the plane is good to go, loses the engines, and slams the plane into the ground, it sounds, definitively, like he was responsible at both ends.

If he made all the cuts, said it was safe, and landed the plane successfully, the results speak for themselves. If he made all the cuts, said it was safe, and placed the plane recklessly at the bottom of a smoldering hole... the results still speak for themselves.

The only way it works otherwise is if you think no one at any point in the totem pole is responsible. And, as demonstrated elsewhere, frequently, that's a jury's decision.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

He is both civilly and criminally liable. Time for him to lay up on both sides.

[epsilon given]

And he's a target of a criminal charge because, as an actor, he disregarded well-established actor safety protocols, and he pointed a gun at someone and pulled the trigger. As a result of his negligent disregard of standard safety procedures, he's facing a charge of negligent homicide.

And the DA is 100% correct to bring these charges against him.

[ravenshrike]

COVID protocols instituted by the producers and directors had the guns placed in a cabinet outside the set prior to shooting unattended until it was time for them to be used. The armorer was explicitly directed not to be on set during shooting.

[Chumby]

Died from covid.

[Libertariantranslator]

The jerk is rich and made fun of Hitler before killing the lady. If he'd been a Texas cop shooting a pregnant girl fleeing across the river toward New Mexico--in the back--Qualified Immunity would guarantee him a bounty and extra notch on the old six-shooter. Baldwin neglected to get deputized, then shot the wrong girl in the wrong place. Dem lawyers and politicians will bleed away his fortune, he'll walk and become a poster child for repealing the Second Amendment and surrendering to Russia or China. Place your bets.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

No one gives a shit what you think, you deranged, infanticidal fetishist. Shitbags like you make me wish for a comprehensive ban on abortions everywhere. Just to spite your leftist ass.

[Vernon Depner]

I can't believe so many of you want Baldwin prosecuted. He was making a movie. Movies are make-believe—you know that, right? People making-believe in movies do things routinely that that are ill-advised, dangerous, or illegal in real life. It would be difficult or impossible to make "action" movies were that not the case. He had no reason to believe that the gun he was handed was anything other than a harmless prop. The armorer is entirely to blame for the death. Case closed.

[Don't look at me!]

He pulled the trigger. Case closed.

[Vernon Depner]

If he pulled the trigger, it was in a movie scene, where everything is supposed to be fake. The armorer is responsible.

[KiwiLib]

Do you think if the scene called for him to put the revolver to his head and pull the trigger he would have taken the same amount of time to check for safety?

[Roberta]

Probably, yes.

[Vernon Depner]

Yes.

[Don't look at me!]

Congratulations. You two are just as dumb as Baldwin.

[Roberta]

So what, you think nobody should ever do a "shoot yourself in the head" on stage? I was in a play like that in junior high school. It was a loud cap pistol, not a real gun, but had it been one, do you think the actor should have unloaded and reloaded it in front of the audience? (Of course you couldn't even use a blank in such a case, the sound effect would've had to come from backstage.)

[Krenn]

The only reason a gun should have a 'dummy' bullet in it is if it's going to be pointed directly at a camera, under circumstances where the camera can actually tell the difference between a 'dummy' bullet and no bullet whatsoever.

The only reason a gun should have "blanks" in it is if it is actually going to be fired, so that a camera can see the effect produced by the blank.

When you're holding a gun to your own head, neither of those things is going to come up....

and therefore, there's no reason why the object you are holding should even be a real gun in the first place. and if you can't INSTANTLY tell that this is a purely prop gun simply from the act of picking it up, you have NO BUSINESS pointing that thing ANYWHERE NEAR your own head.

[Roberta]

Junior high school, city kids, they should know a real gun by feel?

[Don't look at me!]

Give it up.

[Krenn]

The fake gun in a junior-high-school-quality production should definitely be made of something that weighs a lot less than solid steel and doesn't conduct heat in the same way as solid steel, yes.

If the kid can't instantly tell the difference between "this feels like a 5-pound iron weight from the weight room" versus "this feels like 1 pound of plastic, same as every other toy gun I've ever held..."

then you're doing junior-high-theatre wrong.

[Roberta]

You want jr. high students to have to have experienced holding a real gun, in order to tell the difference? They’re given a cap pistol and told, “Here, shoot this.” If someone gave them a real one, I would not expect them to notice, especially if they’ve never held a cap gun either.

BTW, I'm of such an age that my cap revolver (which I hadn't handled in years by jr. high) was made of steel and had real double action. Once I was with my mother as a customer in the bank, got bored with my cap pistol and handed it to her. She unthinkingly laid it on the counter, and the teller...froze in fear!

[epsilon given]

Roberta: "You want jr. high students to have to have experienced holding a real gun, in order to tell the difference?"

Yes, yes I do. I think all junior high students should have standard training in gun safety, particularly the part where you're not supposed to point guns at people unless your own life is in danger, and also have some time on the range to learn how to shoot the darn things.

If everyone had a basic understanding of gun safety, things like this would be a lot less common.

[Chumby]

Baldwin had possession of the firearm and was ultimately responsible for personally ensuring its status of being loaded and with what. Every gun is always loaded unless verified by the person holding it that it is not. This a universal requirement of safe gun possession and use.

[Roberta]

Actors should not be unloading and reloading revolvers for use on stage unless they're the best experts they've got.

[mad.casual]

Why not? Are you worried they may kill someone?

You dumb fuck.

[Roberta]

Yes. I believe the procedure you believe in would result in more deaths and debility than the procedure the industry has adopted. You must think they're stupid in show business.

[Don't look at me!]

How could it increase problems by checking to see if a gun is loaded or not?

[mad.casual]

Unless the actors are carrying around live bullets, nobody else dies. If the actors are carrying around live bullets, you know who's responsible for carrying around live bullets and/or handling firearms incorrectly.

You aren't trying to save lives, you're trying to exculpate people whom the evidence unequivocally indicates killed someone.

[Roberta]

Someone upthread said Baldwin actually was carrying live rounds! In that case, don't you see that the actor's unloading and reloading would have introduced danger that wasn't there if everyone else was doing their jobs?

I don't know why the actor would've been carrying live ammo for the same caliber revolver, unless it was personal and coincidental. If it was a dress rehearsal, they would've used dummy cartridges with bullets but no propellant, for the appearance.

[mad.casual]

Someone upthread said Baldwin actually was carrying live rounds!

No they didn't.

[Roberta]

damikesc:

He had live rounds on his person. Not just in the gun.

[mad.casual]

damikesc:

He had live rounds on his person. Not just in the gun.

Prove it.

[markm23]

If he was carrying live rounds on the set, that increases his responsibility.

[Roberta]

Well, damikesc, you're the one saying that. How do you know?

[Chumby]

If a person cannot proficiently handle a firearm then they should not be handling a firearm until they receive proper instruction. Nobody ever loads a firearm for me and regardless of whether an “expert” checked its loaded/unloaded status, that is the second thing I always do when receiving a firearm. My standard is to triple check that it is unloaded. The first action when handling a firearm is pointing the muzzle in a safe direction.

[epsilon given]

There's a lot of suggestions on this thread that guns are so varied and finicky, you have to leave the handling of the guns to the "experts".

I cannot help but reflect that this is the equivalent of insisting that table saws are so varied and finicky, you shouldn't be trained on how to use one before you do -- you just have to rely on the guy in charge of the shop to make sure everything is safe.

No. In my experience, no one gets to use that finicky table saw until they have had training to do so -- and guns are no different: you should not handle a particular gun without proper training.

[Jeb Kerman]

This is firearm. If you are not the best expert you have, you absolutely have no business handling it.

Once you are in a position to kill someone with a car or a weapon or a cheesesteak, you are the last line of safety.

Because there are no experts between your head and that trigger.

[Krenn]

Well, I mean, for something like a 15th century arquebus, I'm ok with being the SECOND-best expert I have. the period-specific armorer and I can work TOGETHER to safely inspect that one.

[Jeb Kerman]

Good point. I would have trouble with a cannon...

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

SAG-AFTRA disagrees with you. You really appear to be stuck on stupid here.

[Roberta]

What part of https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-statement-rust-charges did you not get? Commenting on this very case:

The guidelines do not make it the performer’s responsibility to check any firearm. Performers train to perform, and they are not required or expected to be experts on guns or experienced in their use.

[epsilon given]

"In addition, the employer is always responsible for providing a safe work environment at all times, including hiring and supervising the work of professionals trained in weapons."

Considering that Alec Baldwin was the producer who was responsible for providing that safe environment, I fail to see how that absolves him.

Indeed, perhaps if Baldwin wasn't instrumental in preventing safety meetings from occurring, he would have, perhaps, attended one that morning, and perhaps he would have remembered don't point a gun at people, regardless of whether or not it's "loaded", because all guns are always loaded."

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

I forgot about the ‘armories is responsible carveout in New Mexico’s homicide laws. You’re also wrong about the armorer being solely responsible. SAG rules on actor’s handling firearms put end responsibility squarely on the individual handling the firearm.

[Roberta]

But AFTRA disagrees.

[epsilon given]

I don't care if AFTRA agrees or not. THEY ARE NOT LAWYERS. And they can disagree all they want, but Alec Baldwin STILL violated THEIR SAFETY RULES.

[IceTrey]

What culpability does the armorer, DA and even Halyna have? She allowed the gun to be pointed in her direction. 5 people are responsible for the shooting.

[Don't look at me!]

Nope, the person pulling the trigger is most responsible.

[Krenn]

The armorer is being charged with the same thing as Baldwin.

The Director's assistant who transported the gun took a plea-deal for 6 months probation, which is probably about right, since he seems to be the only person in the custody chain who actually told the whole and complete truth about how the accident actually happened.

Halyna probably could have been plausibly charged with some sort of negligence or recklessness as well, for ordering someone to point a gun at a camera that she was standing right next to for no good reason. But she's dead, so that's kind of pointless.

The armorer insists that the company she bought dummy rounds from must have 'mixed in' a few live rounds at the time of sale, which is both highly unlikely, and does nothing to relieve her obligation to inspect each and every one of those rounds after recieving them.

And Baldwin, despite being the producer, continually insists that he never pulled the trigger, which per subesquent inspection of the working condition of that firearm can't possibly be true, and also continually insisted that absolutely everyone except him was 1000% to blame, and he was zero %, which, again, is not how responsibility works when you're the producer, star actor, and the driving force behind the entire movie in the first place.

[Roberta]

She was standing next to it to say, "Point it here."

[Don't look at me!]

Sure, blame the victim.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Baldwin is arrogant and unrepentant. He should het near the maximum sentence. Although I’m sure he won’t.

[Pebar]

"whoopsie" is not an excuse to kill somebody.
"i didn't know it was loaded" has never been an excuse for a negligent discharge

[Vernon Depner]

Movies could get really boring if you people who can't distinguish between real life and a movie set get your way.

[Chumby]

Movie not being boring >>>> person’s life

Anyhow, this is a false choice. One can have realistic firearms use in a film and do that safely. It requires responsible firearms handling and use which Baldwin failed to provide. A person was killed as a result.

[Jeb Kerman]

As I understand it, your argument is that Baldwin did not know the difference between a movie set prop and a real life loaded firearm.

Furthermore, you are stating that movies could get really boring if people like this, like Baldwin, get their way.

You know, I’ve seen a few of Baldwin’s movies and I completely agree with you.

[A Thinking Mind]

Also the values revealed are sickening. We can’t let our movies get boring, even at the cost of human lives due to reckless behavior. If people behaved responsibly with firearms and it made boring films, I’d take that trade off. 98% of movies are shit these days anyway, I’ll trade back the other 2% to save lives.

[Roberta]

So you want movies to use less realistic procedures than the wild west show they do twice a day near here?

[Chumby]

False choice. However, if someone cannot provide the necessary standard of care when handling a firearm they should never touch one until they have received proper instruction.

[Vernon Depner]

They had armorers on the set who were hired to provide "the necessary standard of care". They failed. They are responsible for the death, not the actors.

[Chumby]

The person holding the firearm and squeezing the trigger is responsible. Hence Baldwin facing the charge of involuntary manslaughter.

[Vernon Depner]

He should ask for a jury trial and not take a plea deal. He will be acquitted. Most people will look at the totality of the circumstances and see that the armorer was responsible, rather than judging him by irrationally dogmatic faith in Gun Safety Rules.

[Chumby]

He may get off but that would be due to him being able to hire excellent lawyers and the prosecutor being someone that barely got into and barely graduated from a lesser law school.
With firearms, absent of a malfunction (hi Sig), the person holding it is 100% responsible for where that bullet goes. Doesn’t matter if that is Baldwin, Ted Nugent or Bubba the single wide owner.

[Roberta]

So, Chumby, you think that 17 YO actor in the Wild West City shooting was 100% responsible?

[Chumby]

You’d have to provide details. I have no idea about an incident or what Wild West City is.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

If he skates I hope the husband of his victim later seeks retribution.

“If justice is denied, then let vengeance be mine.”

-Ted

[Chumby]

Ted, the resolution would be for the husband and Alec to work on a film together where the husband does some acting.

[Roberta]

Chumby, follow the link Krenn provided upthread.

My friend the lawyer (in the same state) says the reason he was prosecuted (for unauthorized carrying) was that he had to be, in order to charge the boss (for causing an employee to be illegally carrying).

[Chumby]

Roberta, no. Alec killed someone due to his failure to provide a minimum standard of care handling the firearm. Given the circumstances as being reported, there’s no nuance that will alter my position. I handle firearms daily and have taught several people to handle firearms properly. Baldwin’s actions are incongruent with my relevant authority understanding of safe firearm handling.

[Roberta]

You handle firearms daily. Baldwin does not. Don't impute a standard of care to someone who's not in that position. AFTRA's statement above looks definitive: The actor does not have that standard of care.

[Chumby]

Alec failed to provide the minimum standard of care resulting in him shooting and killing a person. I don’t believe he did it intentionally, and apparently neither do the prosecutors hence the involuntary manslaughter charge.
Baldwin violated multiple, simple, basic and universal laws of safe firearm handling. There is no, “…but some entity said it was ok…”. These are the same rules to which I have adhered since my first basic firearms safety course some decades ago.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Roberta, stop. Seriously, evenry atatement you’ve made has been objectively wrong, and your logic is bad. Really bad. Almost Tony bad.

[epsilon given]

The producer should have fired the armorer and hired a competent one.

Wait, that would be ... Alec Baldwin.

[ravenshrike]

No they didn't they directed the armorer to stay away from the set during shooting and place the guns to be used for the day in an unattended gun cabinet prior to shooting.

[Krenn]

Yeah, that's pretty basic.

If a grown adult agrees to pretend to hold a pretend loaded gun and pretend shoot someone, that adult had better be VERY certain that they have good reason to trust the person who PROMISED that it was only a 'pretend' gun, AND that the adult knew the bare minimum necessary to VERIFY that it really was a pretend gun.

Having the armorer come with several stellar references before you agree to work with her, and then insisting that your cue-sheet-of-the-day include the written procedures for how to verify that the gun-of-the-day is in a safe configuration, and then insisting that the armorer either CONDUCT that verification IN FRONT OF YOU, WHILE YOU READ THE CUE SHEET, or vice-versa, where the Armorer talks you THROUGH the verification procedures that you do yourself, while the ARMORER reads through the cue-sheet, seems to be a pretty basic level of mandatory safety procedure.

If it's a really STRANGE gun design, it makes sense that you would need to reference the cue sheet while inspecting the gun, and that you would want the armorer to be the one doing the physical procedure herself, instead of doing on your own. but you're still responsible for verifying that the inspection procedure did, in fact, happen.

And for checking the credentials of the armorer who was handling the gun and writing the safety procedures into the cue sheets.

PORN STARS manage that level of safety. They are specifically briefed on EXACTLY who they will performing with, EXACTLY what acts they will be performing, and EXACTLY what STD medical checks have been performed, how long ago, prior to every shoot. And Porn Stars can and have walked off the shoot if they don't like or trust the answers they get during the mandatory safety brief.

Expecting actors to follow a similar basic checklist before picking up a gun does not seem unreasonable.

[Roberta]

Apparently the Covid-19 protocol forbade her presence. Some authority had decided the presence of unnecessary personnel at the job site, even in open air, was too dangerous. So, as with the people who should've gone to hospitals but died instead, this was another case where supposed Covid safety brought about a death.

[Bruce Hayden]

That’s a pretty bogus argument. Oh! We’re all going to die if we do things the safe way, so let’s cut corners in term of safety, and kill them with bullets instead!!! Except that COVID-19 was never that dangerous… And even if it had been, someone (likely the producer - Baldwin) made a value judgment to -rocked without proper safety precautions in place, and to violate standard gun safety rules by pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger (the actor -Baldwin).

[Krenn]

if you honestly believe that you can't safely deal with BOTH Covid AND Guns, then either you don't film, or you don't film with real guns.

you don't get to say "I'm going to skimp on basic gun safety because having one extra person in the room for all gun shots might increase my chance of contracting and then dying of Covid by like 1 chance in a million so"

The odds of bad gun safety killing someone, in a situation where you specifically going to be pointing real guns at real people, are
the far higher risk: that's the bigger concern.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Fortunately, none of this abrogates state manslaughter laws.

[Roberta]

No, but the established standard of care is what is to be judged by under state laws. The established standard of care in a workplace supersedes the standard of care outside of it. Doesn't matter what gun owners do with their own guns, in the workplace there are other standards of who's responsible for what. There's no such thing as "gun rules" that apply regardless, workplace authority supersedes all such rules. And the AFTRA statement comports with ordinary workplace safety rules.

If someone in a workplace alters the equipment and thereby causes an accident, the fault is with the person who altered it. If someone just operates the equipment in the manner s/he's been shown, the accident is not that person's fault, regardless of what the operator might have done, but was not the established protocol of that workplace. to prevent the accident. If the rules of that workplace don't call for the actor to unload the gun and check the loads, it's not the actor's fault.

[NOYB2]

Well, obviously the armorer was necessary and the producers erred in dismissing her. That’s why he should be held responsible.

[epsilon given]

All you're doing with that argument about COVID "protocols" is doing -- is convincing me that the armorer should be off the hook for manslaughter charges.

I'm still going to hold the producer responsible -- particularly because that producer asked the assistant director -- rather than the armorer -- to hand him a gun, which he then used, as an "actor", to shoot and kill someone.

[Vernon Depner]

Expecting actors to follow a similar basic checklist before picking up a gun does not seem unreasonable.

No, that would not be unreasonable, but since such standards were not in fact in place, it is not reasonable to hold Baldwin to those standards ex post facto.

[Chumby]

Adults are expected to responsibly operate firearms hey are holding. If they choose not to or are ignorant how to, the firearm should not be in their hand or they bear the responsibility of failing to provide an adequate standard of care. Alec failed in his individual, personal responsibility and as a result he killed a woman.

[Krenn]

it is reasonable to expect that Baldwin, as producer, should have insisted that something very close to those standards SHOULD be in place... and that he as negligent by NOT insisting.

And it is reasonable to expect that Baldwin, as an actor, should have demonstrated basic levels of adult responsibility by refusing to work under conditions where something very close to those standards DID NOT exist.... and that he was negligent by NOT quitting.

Six people quit the night before, precisely because they had problems with those safety standards and other, similar safety standards.... and the people who QUIT managed to not kill or injure a single person. because THEY were not negligent.

[epsilon given]

Vernon Depner: "No, that would not be unreasonable, but since such standards were not in fact in place, it is not reasonable to hold Baldwin to those standards ex post facto."

The standards had been in place since the accidental death of Bruce Lee. The standards had been abandoned by the Rust producers.

That's hardly "ex post facto". It's also why Baldwin should be held to these standards.

[Jeb Kerman]

No.
I want anyone who handles a firearm to do so responsibly.

IDGAF about a movie.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

As if a bunch of Hollywood bullshit changes the law.

[A Thinking Mind]

Movie sets are real life. What a dumbass statement. Someone died because a movie set was treated like a fantasy land with no consequences.

[mad.casual]

And the movies would only get boring if you're really, really stupid. Like worse than accidentally shooting someone with a loaded gun stupid.

Wanna see a bullet go through Morgan Freeman's head, then back, then back through the hole in a donut, back through Chris Pratt's energy drink and then back into the gun without any actual shots being fired? Here you go.

Wanna watch Keanu Reeves, Hugo Weaving, and several others dodge bullets without a single actual shot being fired? Of course not! That would be a completely boring movie that no one would want to see, let alone be able to replay in their heads 25 yrs. later.

[Roberta]

Many times as many actors are involved every day in live shows as in shooting movies. If a protocol is good enough for them, why not for the movie?

[mulched]

You keep insisting that a live show actor would have to reload the weapon in front of the crowd, which is really stupid.

They have to inspect the weapon when they take possession of it before the performance starts.

If you say it again, I'll assume you're being stupid on purpose.

[Roberta]

What if they don't take possession of it before the performance? Their taking possession of it may be part of the act.

[mulched]

Thanks for confirming that you're an idiot and your whole basis for defending Baldwin is an imaginary Wild West show that you made up the plot for yourself.

[epsilon given]

Many movies have been made since Bruce Lee had died, without anyone else dying, because they had implemented safety protocols to prevent an accident like that from happening again.

The producers of Rust discarded those safety protocols — and someone died.

Maybe there was something to those protocols. Maybe producers and actors who violate those protocols should be criminally held accountable for those violations.

[NOYB2]

The movies are really really boring and really really stupid. Have been for more than a decade.

[epsilon given]

According to Roberta, movies are stupid because they stopped using live ammo on set.

But then, according to Roberta, movies should have started being boring ever since Humphrey Bogart got enough clout to be able to say "I will never be shot at with live ammo on a Hollywood set again."

For that matter, according to Roberta, movies got even more boring when, after the death of Bruce Lee, actors insisted that guns should never be pointed at people -- they should always be pointed off to the side -- and that camera angles should be used to make it look like guns are pointed at each other.

[A Thinking Mind]

"The prosecution would have to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he was subjectively aware of the danger: that he actually thought about the possibility that the gun might be loaded, and proceeded to point it and pull the trigger despite that," writes Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at UCLA. "That's much harder than just to show carelessness, or even gross carelessness."

Love Volokh but he's actually wrong here, as relates to New Mexico law. You don't have to rise to the level of recklessness or criminal negligence when a firearm is involved. Simply being negligent is sufficient to be convicted of involuntary manslaughter by law. Any failure to make sure the weapon was safe is negligence on his part, regardless whether he was subjectively aware, is sufficient.

Beyond that, his interviews after the fact have already screwed him over. He's said in multiple interviews he would NEVER pull the trigger while pointing the gun at someone. Why is that? Is it because the gun might be loaded? That shows a consciousness of the possibility that was he was doing was dangerous. Even if you accidentally pull the trigger by doing something stupid, you still were being negligent and ignoring the risk.

Fuck him. Treat firearms with respect and you're less likely to create more orphans.

[Roberta]

But they had people there whose job it was to make sure the gun was not loaded. Those people were not the actors.

[mad.casual]

Prisons are filled with people who were duly convicted and only loosely affiliated with people who actually pulled the trigger. Whether they were just the getaway car driver or they signed the trigger man’s paycheck they stood in front of 12 angry men. Alec Baldwin is not, and should not be, exceptional in the eyes of the law.

[Roberta]

But those are people who were part of a deliberately criminal enterprise. Sure, the boss crook is a crook too. But if they're not in the business of crime, then how is the boss criminal?

We have had many lawsuits where an enterprise cut corners and people died because it could've been done more safely. The owners are never criminally convicted.

[mad.casual]

But those are people who were part of a deliberately criminal enterprise.

So prior or unrelated crimes are evidence now? OK, Baldwin punched somebody in a parking dispute.

The owners are never criminally convicted.

Because of your own arguments. Seriously, you've painted your picture, you either really, really want Baldwin to be exceptionally untouchable or you really, really want more people to be able to perpetrate killings/murder. Which is it?

[Roberta]

Are you being obtuse? I'm referring to the prisons filled with people who were only loosely affiliated with shooters.

[mad.casual]

No you aren't.

[Krenn]

Question:

What's the difference between a criminal conspiracy to commit negligent handling of a deadly weapon, and a production company for a movie set in the Wild West?

Answer 1: If all the key players know that negligence has already occurred, and continue filming without taking steps to prevent a re-occurence, then there isn't a difference.

Answer 2: On a GOOD movie set, establishing, communicating, understanding, following, and double-checking gun safety procedures is EVERYONE'S business.

If a highly paid professional, and key corporate executive in that movie production company knows LESS about routine checklists and basic safety than a 14-year-old boy scout with a model rocket and a BB gun? There is a PROBLEM.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

He’s criminally negligent. Period.

[markm23]

"But they had people there whose job it was to make sure the gun was not loaded." And they excluded that person (the armorer) from the set!

Baldwin may not have been the one to make that decision, but he went along with it as a producer. Then he went along with it as an actor by accepting the gun from an intermediary, as well as by performing at all - even though there already had been two negligent discharges on the set.

[Nardz]

So, ATM, aren't you just stoked about supporting Kemp?

He's in Davos, Georgia has antifa autonomous zones, and gay adoption pedo rape rings now...

[mad.casual]

It reminded me of the case against Kyle Rittenhouse

Did it remind you of Dominic Black too or are we just going to conveniently forget that he was charged with two felony counts of “intentionally giving a dangerous weapon to a person under the age of 18 causing death” and pleaded out?

[Hattori Hanzo]

Comparing the circumstances of Baldwin and Rittenhouse is a non-starter. Propaganda is the reason some have an unfavorable opinion of Rittenhouse. Baldwin has earned the ill will some feel toward him.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Rittenhouse’s is a hero, and Baldwin is a scumbag who took and innocent woman away from her husband and kids forever.

[mad.casual]

Anybody remember when Cheney shot the judge? I said then that *he* should stand trial. I said he should for the same reason I think Teddy Kennedy should've stood trial. The same reason I think Baldwin should stand trial: someone died and/or was nearly killed by the direct actions of another person in situations where death was not expected and/or it was expected in the absence of a bare minimum of personal responsibility.

[Chumby]

Iirc, the judge declined to press charges. That makes it a little different. The woman Baldwin shot and killed isn’t in a position to make that same choice.
My take on Kennedy, as much as I disliked him, was he had loaned Mary Jo his car and she was driving alone when going into the water. It cost him a good shot at the presidency so he did pay a price. Had he been the driver, and maybe he was, he should have spent time behind bars as should have Cheney had the judge desired to have charged pressed.

[Jeb Kerman]

Well stated.

[mad.casual]

Iirc, the judge declined to press charges. That makes it a little different.

Actually, the only thing that inclined me to think he shouldn't stand trial was the canned hunt on a TX ranch. If Joe "Fire two blasts into the air/through the closed door." Biden would've committed a criminal act, Cheney actually shooting someone did. Both sides.

My take on Kennedy, as much as I disliked him, was he had loaned Mary Jo his car and she was driving alone when going into the water.

I don't know if this is sarcasm or satire or what, but the statement is so contradictory to the evidence and firsthand accounts I don't know what else to make of it. By Kennedy's own statements as well as first-hand accounts from local LEOs and eye witnesses, he stated he was leaving, he requested the keys, and he was driving the vehicle minutes before and even as it went over the bridge. There may certainly be a question about her tugging on his, uh, clothing, but the fact that he was in the car, driving, was not in question.

[Chumby]

The state typically does not proceed when the victim refuses to press charges. We see this with domestic violence cases. Opinions don’t change what occurred. In this case, Alec killed the victim so she can’t decide to give him a pass.

There was a documentary on Ted Kennedy where evidence pointed to him not being present. Some aides corroborated it. It was some years ago when I saw it; I think his location and wearing a dry shirt when first spotted pointed towards him not being in the vehicle when it went into the water. Maybe. I wasn’t there so I’n not sure, hence the “…and maybe he was…” statement. Kennedys got special treatment in Mass and that may have been in play. The fat fuck got kicked put of Havard for cheating then was later reinstated. Had his name been Demarcus Smith, probably not.

[mad.casual]

I think his location and wearing a dry shirt when first spotted pointed towards him not being in the vehicle when it went into the water.

Again, WTF? *He* agreed to a sworn statement that *he* was driving when the car went off the bridge. The crash happened, again by his own testimony and corroborated by witnesses, at ~11:15, he didn't report the accident until 9:50 the next morning. Again, there may be some debate about whether she was interfering with his driving and/or whether, if he'd notified anyone immediately, whether she'd have survived (the Fire Rescue diver, Farar asserts she would've/could've).

There is no question... none... that he drove a car off a bridge and either killed the passenger or left her to die. If his name had been anything... *anything*... John Smith, Juan Smith, OJ Simpson... other than Kennedy, he would've stood trial... and almost certainly been convicted of *something* if only reckless driving, DUI, or similar. The idea that he wouldn't/shouldn't/didn't is more incredulous than the idea that Baldwin shouldn't face a jury. Nobody handed Teddy a faulty car and he was a duly-licensed motorist who's actions directly caused someone's death.

[Chumby]

A statement by Ted Kennedy is credible? That family at that time and location played by a completely different set of rules. It may have played out exactly as the official narrative. Ted didn’t end up in prison and remained a senator until his death.

[mad.casual]

A statement by Ted Kennedy is credible?

No, the statement was made, as true, by someone else and he agreed that it was true. Other witnesses, without clue as to Kennedy’s involvement, corroborate the various pieces.

The Kennedy name may’ve carried a lot of weight, but it doesn’t, and shouldn’t warp factual history, logical causality, and all space time beyond all sensibility now and forever. What you’re asserting doesn’t, in any way make sense, Kennedy and the LEOs fabricated a statement along the lines of “I drove a car with a woman in it off a bridge at 11:15 pm, went to bed, woke up the next morning and notified LEOs almost 10 hours later that there was a woman dead in car in the water.” in order to make him look innocent?

No. He was a terrible decision maker whose direct actions killed someone. He’s every bit as guilty as Baldwin was and more. He should’ve at least stood trial and likely been convicted of something. I may wish that the conviction would’ve precluded not just his ability to make decisions as a President but as a Senator as well, but that’s not up to me or an impartial justice system. Just the fact that, by all accounts including his own, his direct actions and subsequent negligence killed someone and he didn’t even stand trial.

FFS, you’re creeping towards the line of, “Sure, Kennedy and Baldwin *may’ve* both killed someone, but we don’t *know* that the way we *know* Trump peed Russian hookers and how we *know* Hunter Biden’s laptop was a forgery!”

[Chumby]

You’re in Roberta territory. Good luck with things.

[markm23]

Ted Kennedy wearing a dry shirt only points to him going home and changing clothes before notifying authorities ten hours later.

He claims to have got a friend and gone back to dive trying to rescue her before going home, but he was not a professional diver. If he had made a phone call immediately, there's a chance that an actual rescue diver could have saved her before her air ran out. But there's an obvious reason for not making that call for ten hours - if he was drunk when he drove into the water, it gave time for the alcohol to clear from his system before his BAC could be tested.

He should have been sentenced to the maximum for leaving the scene of the accident. (And the laws should be revised so leaving the scene carries at least as heavy a sentence as staying at the scene and being tested and found super-drunk.)

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Kennedy tried to cover his tracks and obstruct the investigation. He was a criminal and should have burned for it.

[Mother's Lament]

"Alec Baldwin Shouldn't Spend 5 Years in Prison for an Accident"

Alec Baldwin should spend five years in prison for being Alec Baldwin.

[Vernon Depner]

That, of course, is what the controversy is really about. People want Baldwin in prison because they don't like him.

[Don't look at me!]

No, it’s because he killed somebody.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

That, of course, is what the controversy is really about. People want Baldwin in prison because they don’t like him.

Speaking only for myself, I want him to do time because a woman is dead (and someone else seriously wounded) because of Baldwin's combination of unwarranted arrogance and stupidity-driven carelessness.

[epsilon given]

No, there is a very strong case -- made here in these comment sections, over and over again -- but also made by a self-defense lawyer who likes to examine these kinds of things -- that Alec Baldwin is, indeed, guilty of manslaughter.

I don't particularly like Alec Baldwin, but I'd be willing to put aside my feelings -- if the evidence really did point towards this being a mere accident. But it does not.

Indeed, as someone who is very well aware of standard gun safety protocols, I cannot help but reach the conclusions I do.

[Liberty Lover]

Baldwin is not and never was in danger or spending 5 years in prison. It is a Hollywood show trial and he will get off with nothing or a few weeks in jail, not prison. The leftist elites are covering up their own hypocrisy with this trial, along with Baldwin's, it goes nowhere.

There should be some punishment, as he was negligent, but that is different than a premeditated act. A year in prison (not jail) and extended supervision would probably be appropriate.

[Krenn]

honestly, I'd consider a fair punishment to be somewhere along the lines of felony probation....

plus a lifetime ban on holding hypothetically functional firearms, regardless of what ammo is actually loaded into them,

plus a lifetime ban on being any kind of executive, director, producer, or supervisor in any movie or tv show which involves anyone holding hypothetically functional firearms. regardless of whether or not they are in his direct chain of command.

Plus suitable financial restitution to the deceased and injured, of course.

[Use the Schwartz]

"The trigger wasn't pulled, I didn't pull the trigger. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger, never."

- Alec Baldwin

This was a bald-faced lie, and likely why TSHTF.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

I hope this gets him convicted.

[Jefferson's Ghost]

Think what I might, eighteen months for killing somebody, even unintentionally, is a lot, but not necessarily too much. You did something stupid. And someone died.

What bothers me is the five years which may be added for using a firearm.

In a recent court case in CA, a twenty-two-year-old punched out some poor fool he thought was hitting on his girlfriend, and who later died, He would was sentenced to a maximum of 18 months in prison. And this wasn't an "accident." Mind you, I really think Baldwin is pretty much a reprehensible person, but he doesn't deserve more than 18 months. It was an accident.

[A Thinking Mind]

I actually don't think the 5 year amplifier applies in this case. It's involuntary homicide but I think there's a specific sub statute about negligent handling of a firearm. You can't put a firearm enhancer on a firearms charge, it's only applicable in cases where the specific crime doesn't require a firearm (ex: armed robbery-you could have used a knife or even a pipe but you used a gun). IANAL but I think, depending on the way it's charged, they can't tack on the 5 year firearms penalty.

[Jefferson's Ghost]

I suspect you are correct. But it really shouldn't even be a possibility. I am not a fan of "enhancements," be they firearms or "hate crimes."

[A Thinking Mind]

Yeah, I agree with that as a principle. Mandatory minimums and mandatory enhancers and sentencing guidelines are quite suspect.

The problem is that justice also shouldn't be arbitrary, falling to whims of a single judge who might be politically or ideologically driven. I don't have perfect answers for how sentencing should work.

[Jefferson's Ghost]

"I don’t have perfect answers for how sentencing should work."

I am pretty sure there are no "perfect" answers. All one can do is work against what one sees as failings, and hope things get better.

[Truthteller1]

I hate this wretched human, but I agree with Billy as far as the manslaughter charge.

[Bruce Hayden]

It’s manslaughter because the woman died. When someone dies from a gunshot, unless legally privileged (e.g. self defense), a crime was committed. The question then is the severity of the crime, ranging from manslaughter up to 1st degree murder, depending in great part on mental culpability. People are tried, and often convicted, every day, of manslaughter with maybe even less culpability than Baldwin has here. You drop your loaded gun, it goes off, and kills someone? Manslaughter. Etc. Baldwin pointed the gun at the woman and pulled the trigger - which to many, was far worse.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Billy is wrong. Baldwin is guilty of manslaughter.

[DesparateReasoning]

Alec Baldwin may or may not be guilty for actually pulling the trigger. The fact that he is an idiot and lied about pulling the trigger, will allow the prosecution to claim that he clearly knew the act was dangerous because he lied about it.

This case will almost certainly not hinge on his liability for pulling the trigger directly but on the fact that he was the head producer on a set with a pattern of creating an unsafe work environment where so-called experts were not qualified, were over-worked, and underpaid. This is where his real liability likely stems from.

To everyone saying he should have checked the gun: I agree in the sense that I definitely would have if I were an actor. However, actors do lots of things in movies they have no knowledge of and are not prepared to know if they are safe or even what to check for. This is why movies hire experts to pre-check stuff that the actors rely on. In a sense this is no different than throwing a stuntman out a window. No one would expect the actor to check the wires and harnesses of the stuntman before performing the scene even though it could have deadly consequences. Even if the actor wanted to, one could argue it is more dangerous to have the non-expert actor fiddling with something once an expert had declared it safe.

[Roberta]

That's exactly what I do say. The problem with the perspective of so many here is that they're personally familiar with guns, so they think it would be second nature for actors to unload them, check the rounds, and reload them. In any situation with dangerous implements where there are experts in charge, you should not allow the non-experts to subsequently alter or adjust them. That's a general rule of safety, and firearms should not be an exception. Commenters here are treating firearms as the items that set the rules, when firearms aren't special things requiring special rules, they're just an example of all the potentially dangerous technologies to which the general rule applies, which is, leave it to the most expert persons on staff, and don't second-guess them.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Tough shit. If he didn’t understand how they work then he should have educated himself. Just like anything else. He didn’t, and his ignorance and arrogance cost someone’s life.

Time for Baldwin to pay the tab.

[epsilon given]

I'm not only personally familiar with guns, but I'm now, thanks to this event, familiar with standard gun rules for actors, too -- which, oddly enough, are exactly the same as the rules for treating guns safely off set -- and which had been recognized as necessary to prevent another death like the one Bruce Lee sufferred.

Those standards worked just fine until ... well, they still work just fine, because the producers of Rust disregarded those rules, and one of those producers pointed a gun at someone, and killed her.

If that's not negligence, I don't know what is.

[epsilon given]

I cannot accept this reasoning. There are four simple rules that apply to all gun users, and are simple enough that even actors can learn them -- and they have even become official safety rules after Bruce Lee died from a freak gun accident.

In order for someone to die, Alec had to violate all four rules at the same time. He did so when he accepted the claim that the gun was "unloaded" (a gun is never unloaded, not even on set), he pointed a gun at things he wasn't willing to destroy (two people and a camera), he wasn't aware of his particular target, nor what was behind it, and he pulled the trigger (contrary to his denial that he did so).

If he had not pointed the gun at anything, or maybe only the camera, no one would have died.

[Gdubs]

Problems with the article. 1. It was NOT a prop gun. He held in his hand a fully functional firearm. 2 He was not just an actor -- He was the Managing Producer responsible for ensuring that competent people (Armorer, Site Safety, etc...) were hired and that safety rules were followed. 3 This was not the first safety incident and violation on the site.

[Chumby]

Reason does not like Trump. Baldwin did an excellent impersonation of Trump; ten out of ten cocktail party attendees agree. This periodical giving Baldwin a free pass is basically stage 6: FYTW. Like high school math class: turn to the back of the book for the answer then work backwards.

[mad.casual]

See below. Holding some people accountable for their actions is going to tug a thread of a finely-woven narrative tapestry, and we can't have that. Better to snip the thread, sweep it under the rug, continue admiring the tapestry, and just ignore that line where it looks like someone snipped a thread out of the tapestry (and all the other spots where someone carved out whole sections about myocarditis, locking old folks in their homes to die, and the rampant and violent looting burning of homes and businesses and poorly stitched the words "amnesty" and "mostly peaceful" in their place).

[markm23]

Problems with language: A fully functional firearm _is_ a prop when it's filmed on the set.

The producers (including Baldwin) chose to film with authentic firearms of the period. That meant the guns were fully functional. But evidently they did not choose to closely follow the safety rules that come with functional guns. There should have been NO live round on the set and the 4 rules should have been followed even if they were sure nothing worse than a blank round could be present. That is, he should have checked the gun himself, he should not have played with it, he should not have pointed it at anyone, and his finger should never have touched the trigger unless he intended to shoot something. (A movie can't always follow the last two rules, but there are ways to break them one at a time safely - you can make it look like the gun is pointed at someone without actually pointing it, and you can point at a safe backstop and pull the trigger.)

Baldwin was evidently OK with that lack of safety. Even after a couple of negligent discharges, he did not demand any changes being made in the safety practices. If he wasn't already responsible for the bad decisions as a producer, he assumed responsibility when he continued performing on a set that was known to be unsafe, and accepted a gun from an intermediary, not the armorer herself.

[Vernon Depner]

Where are these "4 rules" found in New Mexico criminal law?

[epsilon given]

When it comes to reckless disregard for life, you don't have to encode every possible safety rule for operating something. To do so is impossible.

What you can do, however, is establish (1) those four rules are also the rules adopted by Hollywood to prevent events like what happened to Bruce Lee, that (2) Alec Baldwin, as an actor, would have been aware of those rules, because of his training as an actor -- training that was undoubtedly provided to him by multiple armorers, including the one on Rust, and that (3) Alec Baldwin disregarded those rules, and that (4) someone died because of it.

You don't let someone who recklessly (albeit accidentally) kill someone with a forklift, after violating fundamental safety rules, just because those rules "aren't written in law".

[George]

Just as a point of information, he doesn't face "years in prison." The maximum sentence for involuntary manslaughter under the New Mexico statute is 18 months plus a $5,000 fine.

I can't imagine even the hardest core Libertarian believing that is too great a penalty for willful negligence causing the death of another. It wasn't just his personal violation of fundamental firearms safety (check that the cylinder was empty, keep his finger off the bang switch, etc.), but the gross disregard for safety not just during that incident, but throughout the making of the film. This was not the first AD on the set, which if he - and as executive producer he IS ultimately responsible for the safety of the case and crew - had shown the slightest bit of responsible behavior would have corrected before someone died.

[Use the Schwartz]

Hollywood Roulette:

"I wonder if this thing is loaded?"

Bang! *a nameless functionary dies*

"Yep! It was loaded!"

End scene

Fade to black.

[ThomasD]

A woman died as a direct result of his negligence.

I get that you are still a manboy Billy, and do not really understand the moment of his actions.

Him serving an actual sentence for his deed, if nothing else, might give you some sense of just how badly he screwed up and just what the word "culpable" means.

Libetarians believe in consequences. Not really sure what you believe.

[A Thinking Mind]

And if this was anyone else other than a famous Hollywood actor and progressive hero, I don't think it would have taken 13 months to file charges. I don't think they'd be letting that person know in advance of charges being filed, I don't know that they'd let them be arraigned via video conference. It's the exact opposite of what Billy claimed-he's not being targeted for his fame, he's being given extreme deference because of it.

[dchang0]

Unless you can read minds, you cannot claim that Alec Baldwin did not intend to shoot Hutchins.

I thought this might have been murder very early on, when I heard that there were labor conflicts on set AND in combination with Baldwin’s famous hotheadedness and tendency towards violence. Tim Pool not long after posed a very plausible scenario where Baldwin would disguise murder as a negligent discharge.

But we can never really know whether Baldwin did it on purpose or not unless we can read minds, and we can’t (at least not yet).

Now, from the legal standpoint, I think the charge is appropriate. They know they can't prove intent and thus cannot prove murder, so they went with a lesser charge. This is not the same as admitting this was an accident in reality.

[JM_gabacho]

Just because Baldwin plays make believe with guns and has an armorer, doesn't mean he can ignore what we were all taught in middle school by the NRA classes.
There are many many people in jail for doing the same thing with a car. You'll still go to jail if you kill someone in you car by accident even if you can blame your mechanic or the manufacturer.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Manslaughter laws have no ‘Hollywood movie set’ exception. Let Baldwin ponder that with a few years in prison. Hopefully in gen pop at a medium security prison.

[Vernon Depner]

The involuntary manslaughter law in New Mexico requires criminal negligence in the absence of an intentional illegal act. What Baldwin did was ordinary and routine behavior for an actor on a movie set. It was reasonable for him to assume the gun was harmless. He will be acquitted if he goes to trial.

[Krenn]

It's normal and routine behavior for an actor on a WELL-RUN movie set. Baldwin had roughly 8 different very clear warnings over the course of 11 days that this was NOT a well-run movie set.

Routine and ordinary behavior under that circumstance is to halt filming until the safety standards have been addressed to your satisfaction.

When the armorer recklessly discharged a firearm, without warning, on her PREVIOUS movie, Nicolas Cage screamed at her about gun safety and then walked off set until someone higher-ranking than the armorer could provide reasonable assurances that it wouldn't happen again.

When the First Assistant Director had a firearm in his custody which suffered a negligent discharge on set at HIS previous movie, all production was halted, he was instantly fired, and production did not resume until it was verified that he had been escorted from the premises.

When THREE DIFFERENT negligent discharges occurred on the RUST set..... absolutely nothing happened to address the problem. that is NOT routine or normal behavior.

Wiser and smarter people than Baldwin quit the Rust production crew rather than continue working under those conditions..... but BALDWIN continued to have ABSOLUTE UNQUESTIONING FAITH in the armorer, the first director, and the safety policies of the production company. that is very much NOT ordinary and routine behavior. it's downright negligent to continue automatically trusting any firearm that the 1st assistant director might hand you under those circumstances.

[ThomasD]

It is common practice with blank firing devices to aim off the target such that, to the camera or audience it appears the gun is pointed at someone when in fact the muzzle is safely away from anyone.

There were also multiple other safety lapses on the set, a set he was ultimately responsible for creating and operating.

[Krenn]

or, alternately, if the Camera IS the target, so that it appears as though the gun is pointed straight at the Camera....

it's good practice for there to be no human standing anywhere near the camera, so that only the camera is in danger.

[ragebot]

"or, alternately, if the Camera IS the target, so that it appears as though the gun is pointed straight at the Camera….

it’s good practice for there to be no human standing anywhere near the camera, so that only the camera is in danger."

Which is sorta what happened here but there were two peeps behind the camera; one who was killed and the other injured.

But as others have noted this whole shoot was a clusterfuck from the get to. Non SAG crew and actors on a shoestring budget with all kinda red flags raised about multiple issues. Not just with firearm screwups but hotels fifty miles from the shooting location and crazy stuff about who was on set when; not to mention several of the crew had a history of unprofessional conduct.

[ThomasD]

Cameras are expensive and lenses can be damaged by even small amounts of powder from a blank. When aiming "at the camera" the common practice is to use a mirror set at 45 degrees.

[markm23]

That's all irrelevant. Everything I can find on the internet about the scene that Baldwin was rehearsing does not show any shooting in the script at all, nor any pointing of the gun at anyone. He wasn't filming a scene, and he wasn't even rehearsing when he pointed the gun. He was playing with the gun, like 10 year old me playing cowboys and indians - but that was with a cap gun or squirt gun.

[mad.casual]

He will be acquitted if he goes to trial.

Fine. Go to trial. If the courts are systemically biased against black people, you rectify it by going to trial. If the system isn't biased against black people, you prove it by going to trial. If guns are dangerous evil objects with dire consequences whose only purpose is to kill people, you prove it by going to trial. If guns are mostly harmless objects except in unfortunate circumstances, you prove it by going to trial.

The only thing avoiding trial proves is that all of his vacuous virtue signalling is vacuous. Guns are only dangerous evil objects with dire consequences for "some people" and the system is only biased against "some people" and, by the precepts and actions, that's cool as long as "some people" doesn't include people like Alec Baldwin.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

No, it wasn’t. He did not follow SAG-AFTRS safety guidelines for performers handling firearms. And New Mexico doesn’t give a shit about SAG rules anyway. He is criminally negligent here and should lay the price for killing that woman.

If he had an iota of accountability he would take responsibility and plead out. I doubt he would get much time if he did.

[Roberta]

Then why did SAG-AFTRA say this, commenting on this case?:
https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-statement-rust-charges

The guidelines do not make it the performer’s responsibility to check any firearm. Performers train to perform, and they are not required or expected to be experts on guns or experienced in their use. The industry assigns that responsibility to qualified professionals who oversee their use and handling in every aspect.

And where there's an established business guideline, as here, New Mexico's going to judge negligence on whether that guideline was followed by the person in question.

[A Thinking Mind]

Why would a guild of screen actors come out to say that screen actors can't be held accountable for their actions, regardless of their own guidelines? Man, that's a tough one.

[Vernon Depner]

Because they have the final word on what their rules are, not Teddy?

[epsilon given]

Ah, but they don’t, do they?

The Prosecution, the Judges, and the Legislature have final word on whether or not those rules matter.

When the Prosecution submits the rules of safety as evidence, do you really think the Judge is going to say that those rules are irrelevant — that they don’t outline how Hollywood conducts a safe movie set?

Do you really think, when the Defense tries to submit this statement from the actors guild, that (1) the Judge isn’t going to say it’s relevant, or that (2) the Prosecution isn’t going to say it’s self serving for the actors guild to say this, when it directly contradicts their own rules, or that (3) even if submitted to the jury, that they aren’t going to look at the rules, as prepared by the actors guild EXPLICITLY for the safety of actors and others on the set, or that (4) as a result of Alec Baldwin’s violations of those very rules, someone is dead — that when a Jury takes all this into account, that they’re going to say “Nah, we believe this self-serving statement from the Actors Guild that Baldwin, being a member of particular stature of that group, probably requested they put out, in a vain attempt to make him look better?

You say that the Actors Gulid has “final word” on what safe practices are for a set. I would propose that they do not. Not only that, now that I think about it, not even the Judges, Juries, or Legislatures have that final word.

Actors Guilds and Actors may deny responsibility, and corrupt on stupid Juries, Judges, and even Legislatures may even believe this denial, but the fact is, physics has final say: these rules are, and always will be, a simple and effective way to prevent death on a movie shoot — and and actors who violate these rules, and kill someone as a result, will be responsible for the negligent manslaughter of those who die — and it doesn’t matter what any human has to say about it.

[justme]

"it was reasonable for him to assume the gun was harmless" -- really? apparently you don't own firearms and if you do you shouldn't. it is never acceptable to believe a firearm is harmless unless you've checked the firearm to see if it is loaded, which he never did. have you ever taken an nra firearms safety course?

[Roberta]

That's true of firearms you own. This is all superseded by the chain of authority in employment law.

[justme]

wrong. look into the concept of personal responsibility

[Vernon Depner]

The one personally responsible, the armorer, has rightly been charged.

[epsilon given]

And the producer responsible for hiring that armorer has also rightly been charged.

And the more I see people justify the slimy actions of that particular producer, the more I hope he gets a full five years of prison time.

[Vernon Depner]

You’ll still go to jail if you kill someone in you car by accident even if you can blame your mechanic or the manufacturer.

Bullshit.

[markm23]

That depends. If your brakes failed twice and you continued driving the car until they failed a third time and you killed someone, I'd find you criminally at fault even though the brakes were clearly defective. If you were only charged with the lowest level of manslaughter like Baldwin is, I'd think the DA was going too easy on you.

There were two negligent discharges on the set. Baldwin did not take this as a warning and refuse to do anything with a gun until the problems were identified and corrected, but kept right on until the third time a gun fired "accidentally", it was pointed at someone. He is criminally at fault.

[mad.casual]

The only thing avoiding trial proves is that all of his vacuous virtue signalling is vacuous. Guns are only dangerous evil objects with dire consequences for “some people” and the system is only biased against “some people” and, by the precepts and actions, that’s cool as long as “some people” doesn’t include people like Alec Baldwin.

Now I get it. Alec can't go to trial. If he goes to trial, then the system isn't biased against black and poor people and we can't live in that world. If he goes to trial and gets acquitted, then it's not just evil white Conservatives who are benefiting from the system and holding minorities down and "we" can't have that either. If he doesn't go to trial, then we just chalk Halyna Hutchins up as another unfortunate accident in the tragic search for the right TOP MEN to be the vanguard of the social and political elite, declare amnesty, continue the search shoulder-to-shoulder with the man everyone agrees shot her. Just like we did with all the people who were, and continue to be, just unfortunate accidents as the result of the actions of people like Anthony Fauci, Andrew Cuomo, and Rochelle Walensky; who themselves were also hapless victims dealing with forces they didn't understand and/or were beyond their control.

[epsilon given]

If only Hollywood had implemented, decades ago, simple safety protocols that could have prevented deaths like this! Maybe the producers of Rust should look into special safety protocols .... and maybe they could even publish these protocols in a guide for actors, perhaps even published through some sort of actor's guild ....

(And that's what makes me so angry about this. We do have these safety protocols, established because of the death of Bruce Lee, and they have been functioning just fine for decades -- but ONE producer ignores those protocols, and someone dies, and it's somehow an "accident" because "Alec Baldwin is just as stupid, brainless actor who couldn't have known better" and if we think he should be prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter ignoring safety protocols that have worked for decades, we're wanting to punish him "because he has politics different from ours".)

(Bah, now that I think about it, if Alec Baldwin had politics similar to mine, he'd have a healthy respect for guns, and he would never have pointed one at someone, and no one would have died.)

[ejhickey]

I hope the case is not plea bargained . Let it go to trial and see what a jury has to say about whether Baldwin serves time or goes free.

[Chumby]

After Alec does his time and is released from prison, do you think he will make a film about the lovin he received while there? The film could be called Alec’s Eager Butthole

[Chumby]

Bulging Badboys Bareback Baldwin’s Bulbous Buttocks

[Rob Misek]

Why are these fuckwit actors running around playing with real guns if they don’t know how to be safe?

It isn’t rocket science to identify blanks, load your own magazines and make a gun safe before handling it.

I wish everyone would get 5 years for being stupid.

Who the fuck brought and approved live rounds onto the set?

[Rob Misek]

Baldwin should be convicted of “reckless stupidity” sentenced to 6 months, made to pay for the establishment of the training for the entire movie industry for safe and responsible gun handling named for all time “Baldwins law” after the fuckwit who shot someone on set.

[justme]

no, he should get life in prison for negligently killing another person.

[Rob Misek]

We’ll see whose opinion is closer to reality.

[justme]

i said he SHOULD, but we both know that according to the law and the charges he can only receive a max of 5 years. but that is not justice, that is a slap on the wrist.

[Sequel]

The problem with this case is, once again, the inherent abuses that flow when legislators decide to overrule judges and courts by prescribing required verdicts and mandatory minimum sentences.

I agree that this actor had a duty that he appears to have failed to perform, but the actual facts of the matter make it clear that a 5-year minimum sentence is inappropriate.

[epsilon given]

In this case, it is my understanding that the potential punishment is up to 5 years. And if Alec Baldwin is as arrogant and stupid as every commenter here trying to justify this as "just an accident", then he'll deserve every last minute of that sentence.

[Hank Ferrous]

'Having a loathsome past doesn't render someone guilty of manslaughter.' Binion, you don't need to prove that you are ideologically biased in 85+% of your takes. The manslaughter law and charge is not based on the loathsome idiot's behavior outside of pointing the pistol, cocking the hammer, and pulling the trigger.

[mtrueman]

"pointing the pistol, cocking the hammer, and pulling the trigger."

A lot of comments here are telling us that it is never permissible to point a gun at someone and pull the trigger. I suspect that this is a lot more common in movie making than people imagine. There are a lot of risks in making movies, though most of it is borne by the stunt people. injuries are routine, and deaths are not so uncommon.

Presumably what Baldwin did was in the script and he was following the director's instruction. You can't have actors second guessing property masters and armorers. They are the experts and you don't need amateurs monkeying around with their work. If Baldwin is to be faulted, it's in his role as producer. As an actor, he has to trust the director, prop master etc. As a producer, he is responsible for their work.

[Hank Ferrous]

The armorer was not on site, and it appears that only the asst props manager was. So much for your argument. There are times when it is permissible to point a weapon at another person and pull the trigger -when the weapon has been determined to be safe. Given the incidents on the set, it seems that anyone concerned w/ safety, or for the well-being of those around them would at minimum follow basic rules of weapon-handling. The rules the left-leaning sorts are attempting to frame as too complicated, and the responsibility of the armorer and the props manager. You seem fundamentally incapable of comprehending why one follows basic safety rules w/ dangerous equipment, which in the case of this revolver take less than a minute. For that matter, baldwin is equally incapble.The only things that matter for the criminal charge are that baldwin pointed the pistol at Hutchins, cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger. Manslaughter, if we assume that it was no premeditated. As for your assertion about second-guessing, it is pathetically risible, given that one death and one serious wounding occurred. If baldwin had 'second-guessed,' if he treated firearms w' respect, then this horrible bullshit he caused would not have happened. This is typical for your arguments, you know little or nothing about the subject, but seem to consider yourself an expert.

[Rob Misek]

He had no argument.

Responsible gun handling requires confirming the guns status as soon as you obtain it. He didn’t.

No amount of finger pointing changes that.

[mtrueman]

"Responsible gun handling requires confirming the guns status as soon as you obtain it."

That's the responsibility of the property master and armorer. It's their job to ensure the prop works and works safely. The job of the actor is to act.

[Rob Misek]

The “prop” is a real gun and it worked perfectly.

EVERY person who picks up a gun is responsible to handle it safely as I specified.

Fuckwits who don’t know this have no business near real guns or offering their $.02 about their handling.

[mtrueman]

You're assuming that actors, who may not even be of age, have comparable knowledge of firearms to those professionals who are employed as armorers. I think that's a mistake. Actors act. They don't necessarily fire the guns you think they are firing. It's acting. They're not necessarily driving the cars or playing the music you think they're doing. Their craft is illusion. They leave the technical details to more appropriate hands.

"The “prop” is a real gun and it worked perfectly."

It's likely that the rules governing firearms on the set will be tightened. More replicas, no live ammo, etc. Allowing real guns and real bullets in the hands of the cast or crew is clearly a recipe for trouble.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

He didn’t follow the existing rules. Had he done so, that woman would still be alive.

[mtrueman]

Some of the rules discussed here don't apply to the movie business. For example, assume the gun in your hand is loaded, and don't point it at anyone. If the actors followed those rules, guns wouldn't have a place in movies. If actors assumed the guns in their hands were loaded, many would set them down and walk off the set. It seems there are other ways that safety was compromised, like cast and crew playing with the weapons with real bullets.

[Roberta]

Those are the key details we'd have to know about to assign fault here. If anyone was a witness to Baldwin's saying, "Sure, it's a pain in the ass the hours you've been pulling and how we're housing you so far away, but look at this fringe benefit: You've got real guns here you can use live ammo in and plink some cans while you're waiting." then that would be a smoking gun for Baldwin. Realistically, though, someone, probably without Baldwin's say-so, goofed in allowing such horseplay when serious work that could be jeopardized was being undertaken.

If we could know the entire truth, my bet is that there'd be no single person with enough liability in this for a criminal conviction. That's how it is with most industrial accidents.

[Rob Misek]

If you’re going to let someone as stupid as Baldwin drive a car on set, he needs to know how to safely drive one.

Guns are no different.

[mtrueman]

"If you’re going to let someone as stupid as Baldwin drive a car on set, he needs to know how to safely drive one."

If he's just going to sit in a motionless car on the set, then no need to learn to drive it. If he's given a loaded weapon and expected to kill people on the set, then naturally he'll be expected to learn how to use it.

[Rob Misek]

Obviously is was a fully operational gun.

Not dissimilar to a car with the keys in it.

Who’s at fault?

[epsilon given]

For crying out loud: Hollywood itself adopted rules to prevent accidents like the one that killed Bruce Lee.

Rules that were ignored on the setting for Rust.

Rules were tight. The producers of Rust loosened them.

[Hank Ferrous]

You prove my point, again. It wan't a prop. Neither the armorer nor the prop master took the pistol, failed to confirm it was clear, then cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger twice. Neither the armorer nor the property master made baldwin kill hutchins, leave another crew member wounded. What they did do, as much as they were able under baldwin's rules, was provide a functional firearm. A firearm which it seems very clear had been used by cast and crew with live rounds. As always, you have no argument, and you know nothing about the topic about which you are running your piehole.

[mtrueman]

"What they did do, as much as they were able under baldwin’s rules, was provide a functional firearm. "

Providing a functional firearm to the actor is not their job. Their job is to provide a functional safe firearm. Safety is the main reason they're employed.

"As always, you have no argument,"

Maybe you should read what I wrote more carefully. You can't expect an actor to do the work of an armorer. As mentioned earlier many have an aversion of firearms and their skills don't lie in mechanically organized things, like guns. They're artists. I hate to sound like a cliche but artists are notoriously scatterbrained. Putting the lives of the cast and crew over their supposed expertise on weaponry is begging for trouble.

[Hank Ferrous]

I read what you wrote, and replied. It was ignorant, as I stated. Basic safety with any hazardous materials or dangerous equipment is the responsibility of the individual working with the item. Your list of excuses (aversion to firearms, not mechanically inclined, artistic, scatterbrained) does not absolve baldwin of his responsibility to use dangerous equipment in a safe manner so as not to injure or kill cast or crew. In short, you have no argument, you do not know what you are talking about, and you remain ignorant. This is the pattern that you show w/ each topic you write on, one wonders if there is anything you don't fuck up?

[Roberta]

Not in an employment situation. On the job, responsibility for the safety of equipment is in the hands of someone whose job it is to assure same, if such a person is on that job. In that case the responsibility of subsequent handlers of the equipment is not to alter or adjust it in any way (in this case by unloading and reloading a revolver). If they think the machine is unsafe, their job is not to try to fix it themselves, but to send it back up the line to whoever's entrusted with that. It doesn't matter whether the piece of equipment is a piece of consumer goods that such an operator may be familiar with and handle on his own off the job, he's not supposed to do so on the job.

[epsilon given]

"Not in an employment situation."

On the contrary -- it's the responsibility of every person in an employment situation to be safe.

What's worse, Baldwin failed to be safe on two levels: he failed to create a culture of safety on the set or Rust, and he failed to follow fundamental, simple rules -- rules that had been established in response of the death of Bruce Lee -- to ensure the safety of actors and crew.

[epsilon given]

It's the responsibility of the producer (aka Alec Baldwin) to make sure the armorer is on site making those checks -- and making sure stupid actors like Alec Baldwin are following safety protocols, like don't point guns at people.

But the producer made sure that the armorer wasn't on site. It's as if he had disregard of all the safety rules when it came to safe gun handling.

[mtrueman]

"The armorer was not on site, and it appears that only the asst props manager was. So much for your argument."

You evidently don't understand my comment. I beg you to read it again once you have calmed yourself. It's not the fault of the actors that the armorer was absent. That responsibility falls to the producer. As I said in my comment, "If Baldwin is to be faulted, it’s in his role as producer."

"for the well-being of those around them would at minimum follow basic rules of weapon-handling."

That's the responsibility of the armorer and prop master, not the performer. Actors have enough to do without having to worry about the correct functioning of the props, cameras, lighting, electrics etc. There are others on the set who look after these things. As for pointing a gun and pulling the trigger on a movie set, I'm certain that this happens with much greater frequency than you imagine. Movie making is not a world of make believe, the risks are real and people are hurt all the time, though usually A list performers are not hurt, as the industry takes pains to prevent this with stunt doubles being hired to do the riskier things. I have a friend, a stuntman, who had his nose broken by Tom Cruise, during a fight scene.

"If baldwin had ‘second-guessed,’ if he treated firearms w’ respect, then this horrible bullshit he caused would not have happened."

We don't know that. Baldwin is an actor, with a scene to shoot. He has his mind on other things and evidently trusted the props to function safely.

"This is typical for your arguments, you know little or nothing about the subject, but seem to consider yourself an expert."

The bigger mistake is to assume that actors are expert in weaponry and the safe handling of props, and should be trusted to change their state after being given them. There are armorers and prop masters for precisely this reason.

[Roberta]

The bigger mistake is to assume that actors are expert in weaponry and the safe handling of props, and should be trusted to change their state after being given them.

Exactly. Too many people here think of their own knowledge and experience with firearms, and because it's routine, even trivial for them to check the loads of a revolver, they think it should be so for anyone in any situation. OK, it's not "disassembly" in the manner they think of it, but it's changing the state of the machinery they're working with on the job. There's a lot of case law regarding workplace safety regarding people who do that, and whatever particular rules people may have learned elsewhere regarding gun safety are superseded by the general laws of workplace safety.

An actor — in a play, rehearsal, recording — is not subject to the ordinary rules of life handling objects. Unless they're improvising, their actions are very constrained by another's orders. In retrospect it may look foolish for a director to say, "No, not there, point your gun HERE," and for an actor to go thru the natural continuation of firing it, but these are not idiots, it's just the way they do things.

As far as Baldwin's role of executive producer or producer goes, unfortunately we don't know who was really calling the shots as far as overall work protocol goes. It's far too common in the entertainment business to have figurehead roles for the credit and money aspects. I remember a season when the New York Sharks women's pro football club had a former Jets star as "head coach", but he was just a figurehead for prestige and publicity purposes, while the actual head coach was a local high school football and lacrosse coach, Alton Rose, whose wife was the 3rd string quarterback.

[Hank Ferrous]

You are both completely oblivious. When firearms are being used, basic rules for their handling are part of 'general laws of workplace safety.' The fact that you cannot and will not accept this relegates you to the ash heap of discourse.

[mtrueman]

"‘general laws of workplace safety.’ "

If that's the best the prosecution can come up with Baldwin has nothing to worry about. Legally, anyway. He still has to live with the guilt of shooting those two people.

[epsilon given]

On the contrary: if you kill someone because you disregarded fundamental safety procedures (say, like ones established in Hollywood to prevent another Bruce Lee-ish incident), that is the very definition of involuntary manslaughter.

Had the prosecutor decided not to press charges, Alec Baldwin would have been fine. Now he's in hot water.

[Roberta]

The armorer was not on site, and it appears that only the asst props manager was.

But if that's the protocol that was in place, it's not the fault of the people following the protocol, only of whoever established it. From what I understand, whoever established the protocol had to use judgment as to which was more likely to cause injury: having more people in proximity during the pandemic, or a departure from a usually more robust chain of handling of props. The judgment may have been correct or incorrect; if the scenario were repeated 1,000 times, we don't know how common or severe the injuries would've been in either case, and at that time Covid-19 was being treated as more dangerous than we now know it to have been. You certainly couldn't get a criminal degree of negligence out of that, even if you could get any. I think the negligence was on the part of someone who was actually handling the props in the chain of possession, such as whoever made the guns available for the recreational shooting that we hear was going on during off hours.

[Don't look at me!]

The guy pulling the trigger is at fault.

[Chumby]

^ This. Always this.

[mtrueman]

It's not always this at all. Normally, yes, we're all told to assume every gun we handle is loaded. This is not the way it is in movies. Actors have to assume that the gun in their hand is unloaded, otherwise they couldn't possibly perform.

[Chumby]

It doesn’t matter whether it was on a movie set. There is never any assumption regarding a firearm being unloaded. All firearms are always loaded unless personally verified by the personal holding it. A woman is dead because Baldwin failed to provide this universal standard of care as well as failing to adhere to other safe firearm handling and use requirements.

[mtrueman]

" provide this universal standard of care "

Except it's not as universal as you think. Movies are a whole other world. It's an art and artists take risks for their work that is beyond the capability or understanding of your run of the mill gun toting salary man. Still, I think making the actor responsible for the safe function of the firearm is not a good idea. They are paid to perform. That is why they're there. I was reading about Kubrick and how 2001 was made. Basically the whole thing is a collection of other peoples ideas and contributions. Kubrick focused on the lighting, and wanted a certain affect which required large numbers of very hot bulbs, and special cooling was required. The only accidents during the shoot were from these exploding bulbs. Artists are sometimes willing to deliberately put others in danger to pursue an artistic vision.

[Chumby]

It is universal. When internet pontificators and narcissistic actors think otherwise, bad things happen such as a woman being shot and killed.

[Don't look at me!]

Artists are sometimes willing to deliberately put others in danger to pursue an artistic vision.

And they should be held responsible when things go wrong

[Vernon Depner]

SAG rules...were ignored.

“The prosecutor’s contention that an actor has a duty to ensure the functional and mechanical operation of a firearm on a production set is wrong and uninformed.”

https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-statement-rust-charges

[Vernon Depner]

And they should be held responsible when things go wrong

Because the others were forced to participate? I thought the right to assume risk was fundamental to libertarianism.

[epsilon given]

Vernon, I thought holding people accountable for their reckless behavior was also a tenant of libertarianism.

It's one thing to try to pull off a dangerous stunt. It's another thing, however, to violate fundamental safety rules when nothing was even being filmed.

[epsilon given]

Also, that statement from SAG falls flat when it directly contradicts their own rule book.

They're essentially saying "Yeah, we have these so-called rules to prevent death, but actors aren't expected to really follow them, wink wink nudge nudge, oh, by the way, it's the producer's fault, really!"

Ironically, if it really is the producer's fault -- the criminal blame still rests at the feet of Alec Baldwin.

[Roberta]

Too many commenters here read "guns" and think they know all the rules because they know guns and that anybody who's handed one under any circumstance know the same. What they don't know is that gun handling doesn't have its own special rules that supersede all other aspects of the workplace relationship; rather, it's the other way around. This is a case of employees handling a piece of machinery on the job — a job where there's supposed to be an established protocol of responsibility for safety of the machines. Regardless of whether that protocol was actually being followed or not, the workers are supposed to trust that it is, and not take it on themselves to depart from the protocol that, as far as they know, is being followed.

If these commenters heard of a case of on-the-job accident that involved a piece of equipment the commenters were unfamiliar with the operation of, they wouldn't assign blame the way they deign to in this case.

And that's the way this case will be adjudicated — not by the testimony of gun handlers, but by that of occupational health and safety law experts. The way you handle a gun as a free agent is not going to be relevant to the question of what should have been done by these people on the job.

[epsilon given]

Too many see the word "actors" and think of brainless airhead people who can't perform even the most fundamental rules established after an actor had died in a freak accident to prevent those kinds of deaths from happening again.

And here we are: a brainless airhead person disregarded fundamental and simple safety rules, and someone died in the very kind of "freak accident" those rules were specifically designed to prevent.

[epsilon given]

These types of comments really irk me. "Oh, but actors can't have responsibility, it's too much for them, it's up to the armorer and director and producer to make sure the guns are safe!"

But when we point out that poor li'l Alec is producer, it's suddenly "Yeah, and some people are just put on the roster as figureheads for publicity!"

Actors have one rule. ONE. And it's a bloody simple rule. DON'T EVER POINT A GUN AT ANOTHER PERSON!!!! REMEMBER BRUCE LEE!!!!! IF THE SCRIPT CALLS FOR IT, POINT THE GUN OFF TO THE SIDE!!!!!!! WE'LL GET IT RIGHT VIA PERSPECTIVE ANGLES!!!!!!.

Poor, stupid Alec couldn't even follow that one rule. Probably didn't hear it (yet again, yada yada, I've heard this a million times before, who cares, it's just a prop, yada yada, no one had died in the last four decades anyway), because the safety meeting the armorer WANTED TO HOLD wasn't held that morning, because money is important than safety, I guess.

And people here have the GALL to say "but it was JUST AN ACCIDENT". Yes, and accident that wouldn't have happened FOLLOWING JUST ONE STUPID RULE. A stupid rule HOLLYWOOD HAS BEEN FOLLOWING FOR FOUR DECADES.

[epsilon given]

Ever since Bruce Lee died from a squib pushed out by a blank, the protocol has always been "never point a gun at a person, point it off to the side instead".

This standard has kept people from getting shot via Hollywood for decades.

This standard did not fail here. Alec Baldwin failed the standard.

[Agammamon]

Alec Baldwin Shouldn't Spend 5 Years in Prison for an Accident

What about an accident caused by his own negligence?

The actor is a polarizing figure. That shouldn't matter when evaluating the criminal case against him.

1. He's not really polarizing at all - no one like *him*, everyone likes his work.

2. We're not evaluating the criminal case against him - but I'm going to assume the court and jury can be reasonably impartial here.

3. Are you not already evaluating the case against him based on your own perceptions of him and the incredibly small amount of information that has been released?

[Agammamon]

one wonders if these charges would have materialized had no one famous been involved and had it not attracted the attention of the world.

I'm pretty sure that if me and my buddies were shooting a home movie and I shot one of them with a 'prop gun' that I'd be facing the same charges as Baldwin is.

While I do think this is actually more suited (and more libertarian) for a civil case brought by the victim's family, *this is* how we do it here.

[CaptainJack]

If you want a society where the right to bear arms is allowed, then you must accept that their needs to be enforcement for when someone misuses a gun and kills someone.

Alec Baldwin, by nature of his job has been trained repeatedly in gun safety. EVERYONE who has ever been instructed in gun safety knows that you always treat the gun as if it is loaded and NEVER point it at something you don't intend to shoot. Furthermore, he was trained to always confirm the gun isn't loaded when being handed the gun, and STILL treat it as if it is loaded.

If Alex was not trained in theses things (which is required for handling guns on set) then it is the producer that was negligent in ensuring the actors were trained properly. Of course Alec is the Producer, so he can't even use that excuse.

At this point in his career, having been in dozens of movies involving firearms, it is completely implausible that he didn't have adequate knowledge of how to responsibly handle a weapon. This means his mishandling of the weapon was sheer hubris and arrogance in thinking the gun safety rules could be ignored. That is negligence.

We prosecute people all the time for "accidents" That punk doing 100MPH in a school zone certainly isn't wanting to mow down a bunch of kids, he just thinks he can get away with violating safety rules. Same with EVERY drunk driver that has killed someone.

If you want a world where people have the right to carry arms, you have to be able to come down hard on someone that negligently kills someone even if it is an oopsie. And even if it is a once handsome millionaire actor.

[Vernon Depner]

NEVER point it at something you don’t intend to shoot.

What about police officers? They routinely point guns at people and then shout orders at them rather than shoot. Are they doing it wrong?

[epsilon given]

Police officers are prepared to shoot those people, and they have cause to.

If anyone on the set had a knife or a gun and were attacking Alec Baldwin, he'd have had cause to shoot them -- or even just point his gun at them -- that that wasn't the situation, was it?

[mtrueman]

"EVERYONE who has ever been instructed in gun safety knows that you always treat the gun as if it is loaded and NEVER point it at something you don’t intend to shoot. "

I suspect it's common practice to point firearms at others on a movie set. The actors and crew assume the firearms are safe. There should be professionals on hand to ensure safety, and not leave it to the actors.

"If Alex was not trained in theses things "

Actors are actors, armorers are armorers. Assuming they are trained in each others' work is dubious. Actors you see 'playing the piano' very likely have no musical training. Same with actors 'firing weapons.' Acting is pretend and it's a mistake to understand the apparent skills you see on the screen for the real thing.

"If you want a world where people have the right to carry arms"

We want a world where people can make and watch movies. That means firearms, pyrotechnics, guys jumping through glass windows, driving cars in unsafe ways, and a lot more, all fraught with more danger than we'd assume given the pretend make believe that the business is cloaked in.

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, Baldwin should have had some formal training with guns if he was going to handle one. And even the most basic training would have prevented this accident, if followed.

But Baldwin is fanatically anti-gun, so he wouldn't have anything to do with the people who'd train you in their use. As a result, he killed somebody. And that's the long and short of it.

[mtrueman]

"But Baldwin is fanatically anti-gun,"

I'm sure Baldwin isn't the only actor with a distaste for guns but are required to handle them in their line of work. That's why the movie industry has people who specialize in weapons and make sure they are safe to use. Foisting that responsibility on actors, especially 'fanatically anti-gun' actors, is the height of foolishness.

[A Thinking Mind]

He's not required to. Actors are gig employees, and big name actors can veto any role. He didn't HAVE to take this job, he could have taken a job that put him far away from any guns. He signed on to produce this movie because he really liked the story and the role that involved being around guns, and part of being around guns means being responsible. The movie didn't conscript him.

[mtrueman]

It's silly to expect actors to be responsible for gun safety on the set. That's the job of the armorer. Emoting, singing, dancing and speechifying are the skills of the actor. Others take care of the technical/mechanical details.

" The movie didn’t conscript him."

Nobody was conscripted. Everyone knew it was a western and potentially dangerous gunplay was certain to be part of the scene. I keep telling you, there's a lot more danger and risk taking in movie making than people here seem to realize. People are hurt all the time, though they are almost always less noticeable and celebrated than Baldwin. Armorers haven't always been around. They're a relatively recent addition to the crew, presumably taken on because of tragedies and accidents caused by putting the responsibility of gun safety on untrained and disinclined actors.

[NOYB2]

It’s silly to expect actors to be responsible for gun safety on the set.

No, it's not silly to expect that. In addition, it's not silly to expect producers to be responsible for gun safety on set.

[justme]

you are as wrong as you can be. i bet you're anti-gun like baldwin. anyone handling a firearm must do so responsibly and according to proper gun safety rules. there is NO excuse for doing anything else. he was careless and negligent and caused the death of another person. he alone is responsible and should go to prison for a very long time.

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

Baldwin has handled firearms during the filming of several movies going back to the 80 ‘s. He ignored SAG safety guidelines both as an actor and producer for this production, and he shot that woman. He’s guilty, and should lay the price.

Any sentence eve gets is getting off too easy anyway.

[Roberta]

What part of what guideline of SAG do you think he ignored? In their statement on the case, https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-statement-rust-charges , is SAG blind to their own guidelines? Or are you pulling a guideline out of your ass?

[Cloudbuster]

I don’t know about SAG, but Actor’s Equity, another actors’ union, specifically advises actors to check their guns:

“Check the firearm every time you take possession of it. Before each use, make sure the gun has been test-fired off stage and then ask to test fire it yourself. Watch the prop master check the cylinders and barrel to be sure no foreign object or dummy bullet has become lodged inside.”

https://www.actorsequity.org/resources/Producers/safe-and-sanitary/safety-tips-for-use-of-firearms/

So there’s not unanimity among the acting community, apparently.

Actor’s Equity guidelines more closely follow NRA and other shooting organization safety guidelines.

Hmm. The SAG announcement references safety bulletin 1. In that document (and other safety bulletins) it says:

https://www.sagaftra.org/files/safety_bulletins_amptp_part_1_9_3_0.pdf

"FIREARMS & OTHER WEAPONS
Treat all weapons as though they are loaded and/or ready to use. Do not play with weapons and never point one at anyone, including yourself. Follow the Property Master and/or Weapons Handler regarding all weapons."

...

"Anyone that uses the weapon shall know all the operating features and safety devices."
...

"Anyone handling a weapon shall receive the proper training and know all operating features and safety devices." Me: Proper training by any shooting organization standards would include knowing to check the load status of any weapon you are handed.

"Before any use of a firearm in a rehearsal and/or on-camera sequence or off-camera use, all persons involved must be thoroughly briefed at an on-site SAFETY MEETING where the firearms will be used. This meeting shall include an "on-site walk through" and/or "dry-run" with the Property Master (or, in his/her absence, the weapons handler and/or other appropriate personnel determined by the locality or the needs of the production), designated production representative, and anyone that will be using and/or handling a firearm." Me: Obviously no dry run occurred. Baldwin would have been expected to know this.

"No one shall be ussied a firearm until he or she is trained in safe handling, safe use, the safety lock, and proper firing procedures." Me: Those procedures would include load-checking any firearm handed to you.

"Refrain from pointing a firearm at anyone, including yourself. If it is absolutely necessary to do so on camera, consult the Property Master (or, in his/her absence, the weapons handler and/or other appropriate personnel determined by the locality or the needs of the production) or other safety representative such as the First AD/Stage Manager. Remember that any object at which you point a firearm could be destroyed." Me: This also implicates the AD -- no idea why he hasn't been charged, but doesn't absolve Baldwin of failure to adhere to safe gun handling procedures.

"Protective shields, eye, and hearing protection or other appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) shall be issued and utilized by all personnel in close proximity and/or directly in the line of fire." Me: This was not done. As producer, that's on Baldwin.

The armorer (Reed) is responsible for many things, including "Ensuring that any actor who is required to stand near the line of fire be allowed to witness the loading of the firearms. " Me: Obviously, this was not done. Again, as producer, Baldwin should have been aware that safety procedures were not being followed.

And so on. Baldwin is at least as culpable as anyone else in this chain of screw-ups, both as producer and actor.

[mtrueman]

"Baldwin has handled firearms during the filming of several movies going back to the 80 ‘s"

Firearms differ from gun to gun. Experience handling modern rifles doesn't mean you know squat about handling a revolver from the 19th century. Expertise about weaponry is the province of the armorer, not the actor. Producers, on the other hand, are responsible for ensuring that the armorer is doing the job properly and to take measures if there are problems, which there evidently were.

"He’s guilty, and should lay the price."

I imagine a large settlement to the families of the victims is where this will go. I hope none of this 'non-disclosed sum' stuff, either. I think it's best that the public know the extent of the price Baldwin has paid.

[epsilon given]

Yet there's one rule that is applicable to all guns, no matter how weird:

Don't point a gun at a person, particularly if you are pulling the trigger.

Baldwin violated that simple rule, and someone died because of it.

[Krenn]

Of course, the problem with "trust the armorer" logic is pretty straightforward in the Rust case:

If the Armorer ISN'T EVEN THERE during the scene, because you TOLD the Armorer not to be there....

and if it has already been proven that trusting this particular Armorer, on this particular set, DOESN'T WORK....

and if you KNOW both of those things... That the Armorer can't be trusted, and the Armorer isn't here anyway...

Is it still a valid defense to say "but I thought the gun was safe, because it's the Armorer's job to make certain that it's safe?"

There were three negligent discharges, on the Rust set, in under 11 days. and no actions of any kind were taken to prevent a FOURTH negligent discharge. large numbers of people were quitting because they didn't trust the safety standards of the Rust Set.

Under the circumstances, can Alec Baldwin really say "It's not my fault, that there was a FOURTH negligent discharge, because why wouldn't I trust the Armorer and the written procedures?"

[Roberta]

If Baldwin didn't trust the chain of gun handlers, do you think he would've shot that gun? Do you think he wanted to scuttle the production? Was it over-insured? Was it like The Producers? "Buy bullets. Shoot the actors."

[Krenn]

it's not a question of "did" Baldwin trust the custody chain....

it's a question of "should" Baldwin have trusted the custody chain.

If he shouldn't have trusted it, but did anyway, then that's negligence.

[mtrueman]

"If the Armorer ISN’T EVEN THERE during the scene, because you TOLD the Armorer not to be there…."

Why was he told not to be there? Who told him not to be there? Do you know the answers to these questions? Do you think that getting answers to these questions is relevant or desirable? I confess I haven't followed the case all that closely.

[Hank Ferrous]

The armorer was a woman. Her absence from the site has been discussed, you don't have a fucking clue. Willfully ignorant, deliberately obtuse, all wrapped up w/ your tendency to lecture on topics about which you know not a damned thing. Stick to your risible claims about communism and socialism, they at least had the veneer of informed opinion.

[mtrueman]

"The armorer was a woman. "

That's fascinating but I didn't ask the sex of the armorer, I asked why was he (sic) was told not to be there and who told him (sic again, her is probably more accurate, Hollywood notwithstanding.) not to be there.

[Roberta]

They'd established a Covid-19 prevention protocol that said her presence was unnecessary and therefore that she should not have been in the presence of those other people. How the protocol was adopted, I don't know. My guess is that it would be impossible to assign blame for this to any individual.

[epsilon given]

At the same time, this was a significant departure of safety protocol. We should hold the producer of the movie accountable for that departure.

[NOYB2]

Actors are actors, armorers are armorers.

And producers are producers. Baldwin was both an actor and a producer. As a producer, he was responsible for ensuring that competent people were present to make sure guns weren't loaded.

We want a world where people can make and watch movies.

Given the last decade of crap, I'm not so sure I actually care about living in such a world. Hollywood and people like Baldwin can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. But that's a separate issue.

[epsilon given]

There's a general understanding that all the rules of the FAA are written in blood. If a pilot does something that no one had done before, and dies in the process, when he tells St. Peter at the Pearly Gates what happened, St. Peter says "I'm sorry you had to go through that. It will be a learning experience for others."

The next pilot who dies doing the exact same thing results in St. Peter saying "What were you thinking? You should have known better!"

Hollywood had one of these moments with the death of Bruce Lee -- he was shot with a squib pushed out by a blank -- and so Hollywood came up with some rules to make sure that wouldn't happen again, while still making movies with lots of guns.

Alec Baldwin disregarded those rules. That is why he's charged with negligent manslaughter.

[ragebot]

Just my two cents but if I was in charge of putting azzhole Baldwin in jail I would base the case on the fact that the entire production of the movie was a cluster fuck. Well before Baldwin shot and killed one person and wounded another there were too many red flags to count.

Baldwin put up some money to start production (and others as well) but from the very start it was clear corners were being cut to reduce costs. Lots of non SAG peeps were involved in the production and SAG rules (which almost by definition raise costs) were ignored. The crew was housed in a hotel in a small town fifty miles from the shooting location and griped about problems with travel pay to get to location. The armorer was the daughter of a well respected SAG armorer but she had had problems in prior gigs and was working under scale; same for several others involved with what I will term ‘supposed firearm safety’. There were also multiple other firearm safety ‘violations’ on the set well before Baldwin offed and injured crew members.

Several seemingly well versed firearm safety posters in this thread have noted that what Baldwin did violated basic safety protocols, but that seems more like the straw that broke the camel’s back more than anything else. My experience has been that in incidents like this there is not a single event that is responsible for the disaster; rather it takes a whole horde of people making many mistakes. It certainly seems that in this case this is true. While there is plenty of blame to go around the bottom line is that Baldwin is the person most responsible for what happened and deserves most of the punishment, both civil and criminal. Criminal because a person died.

[Don't look at me!]

A person died because he pulled the trigger. It’s on him, totally.

[mtrueman]

Nonsense. Pulling the trigger was part of the job. A person died because the gun was loaded.

[Vernon Depner]

I guess people who want Baldwin prosecuted want actors to just point guns with their finger outside the trigger guard and yell "BANG!".

[markm23]

No. We want a movie filmed with safe gun-handling and camera tricks, splicing, and special effects to simulate a gunfight rather than actors actually shooting at each other. We want the four rules to be followed as much as possible. If an actor does not know how to or doesn’t want to check the gun, we want him to receive the gun directly from the armorer, not from an intermediary that took the gun out of a cabinet and could have got the wrong one, or one that was tampered with since the armorer left it there. We want actors to not actually point the gun at someone, but rather to use camera angles to make it look like this although the gun is actually pointed in a safe direction. We want them being sure the gun is aimed at a safe backstop before putting a finger on the trigger.

And we DON’T want them ignoring negligent discharges. We don’t want them acting like “cowboys” (in the derogatory sense) with the gun handling and other safety rules. We don’t want them playing with the guns by loading them with live ammo for some target shooting. We want the ONLY live ammo on the set to be in the security guard’s gun, with no way that gun can be mistaken for the movie props or his ammo can be loaded into a movie prop. (This is easy when you are filming a movie set in the Old West, with authentic black-powder revolvers vs. the guard’s modern pistol.)

Most of all, we don’t want an arrogant a**hole producer/actor setting a bad example for the whole crew, then running around the set pointing and shooting the gun in a scene that does not call for pointing or shooting.

[Vernon Depner]

Want, want, want. Does the law require all your "wants"? If not, Baldwin is not criminally responsible.

[epsilon given]

The law may not "require" it, but common sense does. And if you know better, but still shoot someone anyway, you're held responsible for it.

[NOYB2]

As a producer, he was also responsible that the production of the movie was carried out safely, including that there were responsible people on site who made sure that guns were not loaded.

[NOYB2]

Nobody seems to be asking why the gun was loaded in the first place. Someone must have taken the gun and put live bullets into it. That's either negligent or deliberate murder.

In any case, as a producer, Baldwin was responsible for this. Whether he was responsible as an actor in addition is a secondary question.

[Rob Misek]

I can see why Baldwin hates guns.

In properly trained responsible hands they are very good.

In the hands of uniformed fuckwits, they can be dangerous.

Baldwin is a fuckwit.

[Naime Bond]

Negligence is not an issue in this case and so does not need to be proven. '... 3) the commission of a lawful act that might produce death without due caution and circumspection." ...' is what he is charged with. The case linked to was a case that had negligence AND involuntary manslaughter elements. This one doesn't. Five years for taking someone's life, sounds like a gift.

[Rob Misek]

Yes, if they weren’t “rolling”.

If they were filming a shooting it would be negligence.

[Uomo Del Ghiaccio]

Alex Baldwin should serve a few months in jail, but probably not prison. It is pretty obvious that he was reckless in his actions and wants to blame everyone else without taking responsibility for his actions. He is a not solely to blame, but he did pull the trigger.

[ThomasD]

You accept that he is responsible for causing the unnecessary death of a human being but do not think this warrants more than "a few months" in jail?

Noted.

[justme]

wow, billy is very ignorant of firearms. very ignorant. the statement "the prosecution would have to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he was subjectively aware of the danger" is wrong. the prosecution needs to prove negligence and doing so is very simple. basic firearms safety dictates that you always check a firearm when you take possession. only an idiot takes a firearm from someone, points it at another person and pulls the trigger and not know if the firearm is loaded. this trial should take about 5 minutes. he needs to be found guilty and sent to prison. in my world 5 years is not nearly enough. he should spend the rest of his life in prison.

[Jose 3]

There are four basic rules of firearm safety, the very first of which is to "Treat every firearm as though it is loaded." If Baldwin is indeed "very familiar" with handling firearms, then one must assume he is familiar with the rules of firearm safety, and therefore, pointing a firearm he must assume is loaded at another adult and pulling the trigger would be negligent.

So, Billy, if you think 5 years is too much...then please tell us what you think an adult who is supposed to treat that gun as though it is loaded, points that gun at another adult and pulls the trigger and kills her should get?

[Bruce Hayden]

If you haven’t seen it yet, here is a good analysis of the law in NM by Andrew Branca.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/01/manslaughter-charge-against-alec-baldwin-in-shooting-death-of-halyna-hutchins-fits-the-known-facts/

Branca is a well respected attorney in the area of self defense and the use of force. He is a gun owner, and has routinely carried a handgun for decades. He is the author of The Law of Self Defense, and a blog with a similar name.

To summarize, there are two different relevant parts to the NM involuntary manslaughter statute. Both essentially require negligence and a death resulting from that negligence. The penalty for both is 18 months. The difference between the two is that one requires an illegal act, the other part does not. The five years is a result of a NM statute that requires a 5 year enhancement if a gun was involved in the death. Except that the NM Supreme Court has determined that you can’t double count the gun usage. That means that if the presence and usage of the gun was a part of the underlying crime (making the action illegal), the mandatory enhancement doesn’t apply. That means that Baldwin would only be subject to the mandatory 5 year enhancement if he did not commit a crime that resulted in the death. If, however, he engaged in, say, reckless endangerment by pointing the gun at the victim, the prohibition on double counting the gun use prevents the 5 year statutory enhancement.

As for negligence, firearms are in a class of inherently dangerous articles, that also include explosives and heavy machinery, that are, essentially, subject to strict liability. He pointed the gun at the victim, and they died. But he also violated the first three (Of four) standard gun safety rules, that most everyone is taught when learning to shoot. Violating even one typically results in a finding of negligence.

[gbear]

Yes he should if convicted by a jury of 12.

[Vernon Depner]

If this goes to a jury he will be acquitted.

[epsilon given]

I don't see that, beyond the random unpredictability of juries in general. In order to conclude that Alec Baldwin wasn't negligent, you have to turn a blind eye to everything that Hollywood has done to prevent these kinds of things from happening since what happened to Bruce Lee -- which the producers of Rust jettisoned out the window.

[Steven Howard]

Pointed a loaded gun at somebody without checking the weapon and then aiming it at a person and pulling the trigger is no accident. It is a careless intentional act which deserves at least five years in prison, if not longer.

[Sorcer23]

A person drives down the street, residential area, at or below the speed limit, all legal. A child runs out between two cars and is hit and killed. All unintentional, it is still manslaughter. Unless one wants to eliminate that law, Alec Baldwin is fair game to be charged. Whether a jury convicts him or not should be based on this case and this case only.

[Vernon Depner]

All unintentional, it is still manslaughter.

Bullshit.

[epsilon given]

What you just described isn't manslaughter. It's purely an accident -- there was no way the driver could have avoided what had happened.

Manslaughter is a result of an action that could reasonably expected to cause death, it's done anyway, and it results in death.

[Navy CWO]

It is the responsibility of the person who is handling a firearm to practice safe procedures. Mr Baldwin failed to exercise due caution when he handled a firearm. He should have been charged with negligent homicide. By the way, Why are real firearms being used on a movie/TV set? Non-firing replicas have been available for many years. They should have been used vice real guns! Sound effects and Computer Graphics could be used later to simulate the firing of the gun.

[boroka]

Old rule, basic rule, eternal rule: "Weapons are to be pointed up or down." (Meaning, toward the sky or toward the ground.)
At.
All.
Times.
Except when one wants to use them.
Did Baldwin want to use that gun? If not, then WTF . . . ?

[gbear]

I am disappointed to see the tic tok link. Not the Reason I read before the internet. But free speech is free speech, the listener must determine the worth, and the source.

[SIV]

I'm not going to read every comment (and akmost no one will read this one but it's worth noting how rare a firearms fatality is on a movie or television production. IIRZC, it's about 5 (in the US) in 125+ years. I believe this is the first such fatality in a Western. In almosrt all Wetern movies, shorts, serials and television shows they're firing blanks from real functional firearms yet no one dies until Alec Baldwin deliberately points and fires a weapon not as a part of any scripted scene or rehearsal.

[Vernon Depner]

Which goes to show that Baldwin was reasonable in assuming that a live weapon would not be on the set.

[epsilon given]

No, it goes to show that Alec Baldwin should have done that which was known among actors on sets since the time that Bruce Lee had been accidentally shot:

You don't point a gun at another person. Let the cameras make it look like it's pointed at the person.

And that's why Alec Baldwin is charged with manslaughter, and why (among other reasons) there's a very strong case for conviction.

[Vernon Depner]

What exactly was your role in this movie? I mean, it's obvious from the way you talk about it that you were there.

[SQRLSY One]

So Baldwin should be KILLED for his sins? Or 20 years taken away from him, of what relatively few years he has left? Will this bring BACK the life that he helped to take? What purpose will it serve? Will you pay ALL of the taxes for his upkeep in prison, for XYZ years? What justifies YOU making ME pay all of these taxes? When Alec COULD be earning money, and paying taxes, instead?

You really are a sick fuck, with an obscenely ugly "punishment boner"! Have some decency, and COVER UP, willya please?

[Ted AKA Teddy Salad, CIA/US Ballet Force]

If only he had killed SQRLSY. I would throw Baldwin a parade if he did that.

[Jeb Kerman]

I believe the charge is manslaughter.

If he is convicted by a jury, I suspect he will be sentenced in accordance to the laws of the state where the crime was committed.

Just. Like. Anyone. Else.

[Chumby]

His sentence could be up to five years in prison. Or possibly worse, forced to read squirrel’s gibberish.

[Four fried chickens and a coke]

Damn straight, Mike is one fine thinker.