Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

How horrible!

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainmen...c-baldwin-film

I heard about this earlier today, but I hadn't heard that Alec Baldwin was the person who shot the prop gun, or who was killed and injured.

This is so sad. :(

Horrible for the woman and her family. And also horrible for Baldwin, who has to live with this tragic accident. UGH on all fronts. :(

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

Just woke up to this. Terrible news. Thoughts to all involved.

Jesus Christ that’s just absolutely devastating news. I feel for everyone involved in this

I woke up to this too. Not sure what the point of a “prop” gun is if it can kill a person.

thats so sad cause it happen on the set of the crow aswell in 1994 🥺

I'm also confused, and waiting for some technical clarification. I understood Brandon Lee's accident as something lodged in the barrel, and propelled (like a regular bullet) by the blank's explosion. I suppose people don't clean prop guns with the same care as guns where each part is used. But here... two people were hit ? By a same projectile ? Or did the prop gun propel several ? :|

Exactly, same thoughts here. Doesn’t make sense at all.

@Flicker BBC article just out:

“Despite sounding innocuous, both prop guns and blanks can be dangerous. Here's what we know about them.

What is a prop gun?

Blanks are used in the film industry to imitate live ammunition.

The reason they are so convincing is that blanks are essentially modified real bullets.
Modern bullets are made of a cartridge, consisting of a shell holding a propellant powder. When a gun fires, it ignites the propellant, firing the bullet attached to the front of the shell forward.

Rather than using a metal projectile, blanks have material such as cotton or paper attached to the front.

While prop guns could mean non-functioning weapons, such as cap guns, the term also applies to real guns used on film sets.

Together they add authenticity to productions - fire a blank using a prop gun and you'll get a loud bang, a recoil and what's known as a muzzle flash, the visible light created by the combustion of the powder.

Has this kind of incident happened before?
Yes. You may remember Brandon Lee, the actor son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee.
Brandon Lee died aged just 28 in 1993 while filming The Crow, when a prop gun which mistakenly had a dummy bullet loaded in it was fired at him.

Dummy bullets are used for close-ups and should have been removed when the blank was loaded.

After Lee was shot, the cameras kept rolling. It was only when he did not get up at the end of the scene that those on set realised something was wrong.

In another incident, in 1984, US actor Jon-Erik Hexum started joking around on the set of a television show after being frustrated by delays in filming.

He loaded a revolver with a blank, spun the chamber, put the gun to his temple and fired.
Unlike in Lee's case, he was not killed by a projectile, but rather the force of the blast was strong enough to fracture his skull. He died days later in hospital.

Others working in film wondered why, at a time when gun effects can be cheaply added using computers, blanks are still being used at all.

"There's no reason to have guns loaded with blanks or anything on set anymore. Should just be fully outlawed," tweeted Craig Zobel, an actor and director whose credits include Westworld and Mare of Easttown.

"Prop guns are guns," TV writer David Slack tweeted. "Blanks have real gunpowder in them. They can injure or kill - and they have. If you're ever on a set where prop guns are treated without proper caution and safe handling, walk away.”

seem like someone might of switched to the real bullet instead the blanks but who knows :suspicious: :confusedwhite:

Rest in peace Halyna Hutchins. Am unfamiliar with any of the films she worked on, but it doesn't make it any less terrible or tragic. Staggering to think that in this age that safety measures were either not in place or were inadequate regarding any handling of firearms on a set.

Some prop guns are fake, but most are real guns, whihc some productions prefer, as, well for one, they look real because they are real, and secondly, even though they are using blanks, they still capable of producing the recoil and muzzleflash etc, all of which adds to the realism, and is why they often get used instead of fake prop guns.

If I recall correctly, that incident wasnt to do with a faulty blank cartridge, but because it ws being held close to his head, virtually at point blank and the force of the impact from the recoil of the weopon itself is what fatally cracked his skull.


EDIT - My mistake about the Brandon Lee incident. Apparently there was a discharged blank cap still in the barrel and when the next shot was fired, the impact triggered it like it was with enough force to cause the fatal skull fracture.

Yeah, that article doesn't really give any specifics about this accident. It reiterates what we know about Brandon Lee's death, and Hexum's which I didn't know about but damn that facepalm (but to be fair, that's how blanks are depicted in cartoons and, ironically, cinema). What baffles me is how two people were hit on the Rust set, which could not have happened in the circumstances of the accidents referred to by this article. Did the projectile pierce someone in a close group ? Or was it spread ? Or were there two mistakes ?... I simply can't picture the events...

For what it's worth, I'm all for practical effects, pyrotechnics and stunts on set, dangerous if careless but simply demanding some professionalism. That's the job. Indeed, don't shoot blanks at point blank, check the props, don't jump off the cliff without checking where you'll land, make sure that's truly Joe in a bear costume, etc. Of course Buster Keaton would have taken fewer risks and Jackie Chan fewer wounds with pure CGI. But there's a value in live action (and, in my eyes, even in bad practical effects). So I disagree with Craig Zobel here. How many on set accidents with how many items would/should/could justify "let's make it illegal and go CGI instead" ?

Anyway. What i can imagine is that this is probably the worst thing that can happen to an actor or an actress on a set. Killing someone while laying pretend.

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

Just read about this. Terrible stuff.

RIP

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

Heartbreaking. :(

Syndication of a Conversation piece:

“The publication has also reported that only one bullet hit Hutchins and went through to Souza.”

Ah, ok. This makes sense then. That's abominably bad luck.

There's few things as terrible as small causes huge consequences ratios, fractions of instants that suddenly change everything (all the "what if I had", all the "yet one second ago"), and our mind seeking meaning, seeking to pin proportionate guilt on something, someone or ourselves.

The hell it must currently be for so many people.

Just awful

What a horrible thing...reminds of what happened to Brandon
Lee and John Erik-Hexum

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

Today's news adds that there was one live bullet in the gun, for some as-yet unknown reason.

Also, whether or not this matters, the prop manager(s) on the set were not part of the union but were independents. Not sure if that means they weren't as well trained or...

Baldwin has come out on Twitter with his heartfelt grief over what happened. Such an awful thing to have to go through, for all of them. :(

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

I never liked Alec Baldwin for a variety of reasons. Now, before you write me off as a heartless bastard, let me finish.
I wouldn't wish anything like this on my worst enemy. There are only victims here and this is something that those involved who are still living may never recover from.

So I pray for Alec, his family, along with those injured and the families of the deceased.

I see a humongous lawsuit coming down the pike if this is indeed the case.

I feel so sorry for Baldwin. Because you know he’s always gonna blame himself as he pulled the trigger. I’ve often thought if I were a movie extra that I would be terrified to have someone fire a gun at me. I probably couldn’t do it.

Precisely my perspective. I think Baldwin has a terrific sense of humor, is VERY funny, but I've disliked him for many, many other reasons unrelated to his acting or comedic abilities.

And yes, wouldn't wish this on anyone and am praying for everyone involved in this as they struggle to live with it in the aftermath.

This incident is a tragedy for everyone involved and the sad thing is most likely this was caused by carelessness on the part of the propmasters/gun handlers, who didn't check the gun carefully enough for a live cartridge.

Of course this is all speculation, but I believe the propmaster would be required to have the gun test fired at a gun range using live ammo to insure it functions perfectly. Then after live firing & after bringing the gun onto the set & as the actor was being handed the gun...at each of those check points the gun should've been checked to make sure it was clear of live ammo. Then of course no one should ever be standing in the direct path of the gun when it is fired. Just so sad.

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

The word is that they were not filming on this day, but prepping for shooting. Perhaps they were working on blocking a scene. Word is that it was a real gun and not a prob gun (e.g., one made of rubber or which only fires blanks). Apparently, the prop master shot live ammo out of it that day. The type of gun in question is a apparently a 45 western style single action revolver.

Questions:

1. If they weren't filming, why was there a real gun on set?

2. Why did Baldwin both cock the hammer and then depress the trigger with the barrel pointed at people?

3. Why didn't Baldwin clear the weapon? Even if you think it is loaded with blanks, Baldwin should know that blanks can kill within 20 feet and that people are most often by the gun that is "unloaded." Opening the loading gate and turning the cylinder would have saved a life. A five second operation. If someone hands you a real gun, it doesn't matter if it was cleared by a prop master, range officer, your dad, or Jesus Christ - you are responsible for safe handling of that thing and rule #1 is to assume that it is loaded.

4. Why would you block a scene with a real gun? You don't need visual authenticity on prep day. Why wasn't that a rubber gun?

I think this reveals a bad policy in the movie industry. If only one person is absolutely responsible for safe handling of weapons on a set, then you have a model with a single point of failure leading to a catastrophe. Safe gun handling is common sense turned in habitualized behavior. Actors handle guns much more frequently than the public does, so they should be taught basic handling and take minimal personal responsibility (to not assume that it is unloaded, to not point it at anything you are not willing to destroy, to know what is behind the target, and to not put your finger on the trigger unless you are willing to accept BOOM as a possible outcome).

Finally, remember the empathy you have today for Baldwin (who once tweeted this https://www.the-sun.com/wp-content/u...33-1.jpg?w=960) when you hear of a gun enthusiast who makes a mistake in their hobby and negligently discharges a weapon. We have all done things behind the wheel of a car that could have killed a family, if for no other reason than that we were distracted for a moment. I think Mr. Baldwin is now quite tragically in a moment where he does know "how it feels to wrongfully kill someone."

If they were filming. Why would there be a real gun on set?

These were pictures taken of Alec Baldwin outside the Santa Fe County Sherriff's office following the shooting incident. He's clearly distraught.

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/me...b0af27ccb3a924

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/4Z...cefc01cf86c8ff

I don’t think anyone doubts this. Can’t even imagine his pain.

https://nypost.com/wp-content/upload...y=90&strip=all
https://nypost.com/wp-content/upload...y=90&strip=all

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

I'm seeing a lot of conjecture in here. The fact that the last time this happened was back in 1993 is a testament to how safe the industry actually is when it comes to guns in movies. Just think of how many movies have been made in that period of time with guns in them? Yeah, a LOT.

That said...obviously something went wrong with said safety standards, and someone is bound to get sued.

Just awful :(

EDIT: Assuming someone who is anti-gun is gunna truly know about gun safety and handling procedures? It's Hollywood

I feel extremely sorry for him, the victim and her family. He's going to have to live with the guilt for the rest of his life.

Authenticity, I suppose.

Also, it's simple to fire blanks through a real gun, which makes it convenient.

Did not know this.

Someone else mentioned how many times guns have been used in movies & I’m just now thinking of movies where the gunshot had been extreme. Butch Cassidy springs to mind right away. Reservoir Dogs is another where they all shot each other at the end. I guess it is amazing that more accidents haven’t occurred.

This is so horrible. And while figuring out who was negligent will obviously be the next piece of news about this, nothing can bring back Hutchins, or help Baldwin or the others who were hurt or traumatized by this incident.

I was an extra once in a film and had a prop gun pointed at me and it was one of the most NOPE!! moments I've ever experienced. Because in that moment I was like "Who is this 20-something person? Who trained him? Who checked that gun?"

There is a database for guns in movies

http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Main_Page

It details which firearms are real and fake or fudged to be another gun (a lot of real guns are featured in films).

I think that the prop masters have largely done their jobs well as this appears to be an exceedingly rare occurrence.

On the other hand, Ruby Rose just torched the WB over alleged unreported serious injuries to stunt people on Batwoman, so who knows how much stuff, in general, is suppressed. Even so, a gun injury or death would seem to be hard to suppress as a story. I'd guess that there are some people politely carrying shrapnel and who have a scar or two from movie sets which involved an incident with a gun, but that it is unlikely that there are many, if any, unreported deaths. All in all, Hollywood has a solid safety record with firearms.

Even so, guns are still deadly weapons and you only have to mess up once. You have a legit question with regard to why real guns should be on movie sets.

Moreover, the idea that the prop master is God can also make the prop master the sin-eater (it's YOUR fault if anything goes sideways). The tragedy here is that Baldwin could have popped open the loading gate and turned the cylinder to inspect the condition of the weapon. Baldwin isn't a bad guy and it's ludicrous to think he was thinking of doing anything other than trying to make entertainment... ...but... but... ...if he'd inspected the gun, he could have discovered its condition.

From time to time we would perhaps do well to remember that people occasionally die or really hurt themselves to give us a brief thrill as we sip soda and munch popcorn (think of all those Jackie Chan injury reels).

I am not a fan of method acting and hyper-realism the exposes actors, stunt people and hands on set to real danger, is in the same category. I mean, I love Sorcerer, but Friedkin was a madman and took unnecessary risks (just as he did on The French Connection).

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

My God. This is is horrifying. This honestly sounds like the plot of a "Columbo" episode where some criminal mastermind intended to kill someone, but used a prop gun in order to disguise his true motive and portray the incident as if it was something that happened accidentally to escape the consequences. That obviously didn't happen here, but I had no idea that prop guns could be dangerous, and that they could actually result in someone's death as well, similar to a real gun. If I were Alec Baldwin, I would feel so horrible, and yet, he likely didn't do anything wrong here, but will need to live with being the cause of this tragedy anyway, albeit indirectly. I've never been a fan of Alec Baldwin, but I am definitely wishing him peace and strength tonight!

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

It's brought back discussions on the death of Brandon Lee (also reported to have been killed by a "prop gun")...

As well as issues surrounding the alleged suicide of George Reeves - a lot of theories surrounding his death, including one where he accidentally killed himself with a "blank".

The tragedy is that the person responsible for the gun left a live bullet in it! I don't believe it's up to the actor to know firearms and spin the cylinder to check for bullets like they do in...well movies!

If there was a blank lined up for the next shot (of the gun) then spinning the cylinder by anyone without knowledge of firearms would be stupid as it could misaligned the blank with the firing pin. I believe it's already been pointed out that Baldwin has an anti-gun stance and it makes no sense to expect that he knows how to spin a cylinder in a 19th century firearm to check for live bullets, that's the job of...the prop master/or the person in charge of firearms (I believe they have their own title these days something like weapons master).

Agreed. Even if you have a moderate understanding of how something works (be it a gun, an expensive camera, a pulley rig, ANYTHING), if you are in a professional environment where it is someone's job to make sure that thing is safe--for you and for others--the last thing you should do is mess with that thing. Especially if, like you say, tinkering with it could actually create a dangerous situation.

The more I think about all this the worse it seems. I feel like the revelation about how the bullet actually ended up in that gun is either going to be infuriating or really infuriating.

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

I stand by my assertion that anyone waving around anything that could possibly injure someone is also responsible to be sure it will not. And I don't agree that someone who might be anti-gun would NOT be gun-safe. I could envision such a person being MORE diligent about such things due to their feeling guns are horrifically dangerous.

That doesn't mean I don't feel absolutely horrible for Mr. Baldwin. I do. He's getting my prayers over this, for sure. But anyone who touched that thing and pointed it at someone should have found a way to be sure that it was safe to do so. Cardinal rule of dealing with firearms of any sort.

The 4 Rules applies to everyone. They apply everywhere, all the time, to anyone competent to hold a weapon. One who is not competent, should not pick one up (this is why children are taught to NOT pick up a gun). Any competent adult, however, can learn and follow these rules, as they are simple and practicable.

Baldwin has been handling firearms in the movies since the 1980s. As an actor, he handles firearms more frequently than the average person.

As a person who handles guns, he has an obligation to be aware of safe-handling rules and follow them.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't know how guns work. You can't just spin the cylinder of a revolver when it is locked up, nor is this how you inspect to see if they are loaded.

It is a very simple thing to unload/check a single-action revolver. See the video below. It demonstrates how Baldwin should have safely checked the revolver in about two minutes.


And if you are not competent to clear the gun, don't pick it up.

Oh, he not only has an anti-gun stance, he has had no mercy for the mistakes of others.

https://www.the-sun.com/wp-content/u...33-1.jpg?w=960

There is a bitter irony in this, because now he does know, and you have much more empathy for him, than he has historically had for others.

Regardless, if you don't like guns and aren't willing to learn how to safely handle them, then don't handle them.

[quote=Citizen Rules;2247656]and it makes no sense to expect that he knows how to spin a cylinder in a 19th century firearm to check for live bullets,[quote]

On the contrary, it is the responsibility of anyone who handles any gun of any era, to learn safe-handling before actually handling it. A Colt-style single action revolver is a simple device and is simple to handle safely. It is much easier to handle safely than a modern stirker-fired pistol like a Glock. It is for this reason that it is commonly recommended to train people to shoot handguns staring with a single action revolver in a small caliber like .22, as this is the hardest to screw up with.

Industry norms do not absolve you of your moral responsibility to know and practice safe handling of firearms. Once you are holding that device, it is under your control and is your responsibility. Baldwin has handled more guns than any of us and for many decades. He should really have learned the rules by now. This was not a toddler handed loaded gun. Again, if the Hollywood norm is that the prop master is the only one responsible for safe handling, then Hollywood is screwing up.

We should note that Baldwin is also a producer on this show, so he has another layer of responsibility here (i.e., to provide for a safe set ). And the scuttlebutt is that the crew had already walked out over safety concerns one time.

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

this was not accident
the producers were too greedy to pay professionals and hired cheaper help who were not trained on safety procedures
the producer disregarded the inherent risks of weapons
now everyone are crying innocence and claim accident death when in fact it was murder
sincerely such people give bad reputations to low budget movie business
i hope all those producers get life time jail sentences ASAP

It's starting to look like this was a real mess.



https://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...walked-off-set

For the record, I wasn't inferring that Baldwin's anti gun stance would make him more dangerous around guns with live ammo (or even make him more safe)... I was pointing out that there's a likelihood that if he's anti gun then he hasn't spent a lot of time around real guns with real bullets, so relying on him to check the gun for safety as Corax said, makes little sense.

Then you just made my point for me, if I don't know how to check a 19th century revolver for safe handling, what makes you think Baldwin would know? Besides the gun was suppose to be fitted with blanks, unless he's psychic he's not going to know that the weapons master left a live bullet in it.

That's the second time you said something like this. Who cares what his gun views are? I don't....Nor do I care what comments he made in the past about accidental shootings, it bears no meaning on this tragedy.

If true that would mean the producer/producers would be to blame, at least in part.

But what does that mean in the context of a film set where a designated prop person is responsible for that safety?

If a prop person hands an actor a gun and says it's ready to use, what further action is the actor supposed to take? Asking "Are you sure?". Making the prop person recheck the gun every time it's handed to them? (I know a beginner-level amount about guns and I can load/unload/fire a shotgun or a rifle and the same for a musket, but I would actually be hesitant to open or mess with a gun that had been handed to me by a professional).

Now, that said, I'm seeing reports that this film set had already had TWO OTHER GUN MISFIRES prior to this happening. If that's true, it puts this all in a very different light. This is all starting to sound less like a horrible accident and more like a case of unethical negligence that ran the range from the prop people to the producers and that a serious injury/death was in the air.

Oh yeah, there were texts sent among crew members about guns firing randomly a few days prior, and yet here we are.

I agree with the gist of your point though that this does go a tad beyond reasonable precaution.

I think gun safety supersedes movie set protocol. I certainly wouldn't want anyone pointing a weapon at me on a movie set unless I myself had checked it. I would NOT hesitate to check a gun handed to me by a "professional." The chart Corax posted is pretty much the one we used in the gun safety course I took. *Always* assume a gun is loaded until you personally check it. Always.

They’d need to know manual of arms to stay safe. If they are anti-gun with lack of experience I am nervous around those types when firearms come out. They are just as dangerous as people who love guns and treat them like toys.*

I’m uneasy around anyone with a firearm until I know how they established their manual of arms training.

This is just conjecture: what’s to say that this wasn’t just the result of negligent safety standards and poor trigger finger discipline on the part of an actor?

So I suppose the producers do not consider these texts, or the walk-outs that resulted, as "official complaints"? I hope these crew members, and that unit manager, has preserved these texts. This is beginning to look like criminal negligence for the producers (which Baldwin was one) and it'll be interesting to see who was responsible for some very crucial decisions that specifically led to an environment of carelessness and disregard. I'm sorry that Hutchins didn't join in her collegues in walking out.



Unless Baldwin is shown to have been a force behind this push to rush the production at the cost of safety, I don't hold him primarily responsible. Most of my prayers are for Hutchins' family however. I will echo one slight point from Corax which in this scene involving the unholstering of a weapon, not firing of a weapon, in a rehearsal not 'action', I don't understand why Baldwin's finger should have ever been on the trigger.

But there's a difference between a "normal" situation involving a gun (like being at a firing range) and a situation where a specialty weapon is (supposedly!) being prepped for you by a professional.

I agree that I personally wouldn't want to point any weapon at a person or have a weapon pointed at me unless someone had shown me that it was safe. But that would involve me asking the prop person to demonstrate that it was safe, not me myself fiddling with the gun.

And if you're not overly familiar with guns (or with the particular type of gun being used, if it was a historical weapon) and/or what blanks are supposed to look like when loaded properly, you might not totally know what you're looking at.

What would we all be saying if it turned out that an actor had been given a weapon, decided to pop it open by himself to check how it was loaded, and then when putting it back together something got messed up/misaligned and that caused injury/fatality? We'd all be saying "What a moron! Only the propmaster/armorer should have been prepping the weapon! Who does this guy think he is?!". And if the actor was a gun novice, the critique would only be more scathing.

It was someone's job to make sure that the weapon was unloaded before it came on set. To me, this is no different than if an actor got into a car that was supposedly safe and then it turned out someone had failed to do something critical with the brakes or the steering and the actor accidentally drove into someone. Would be all be saying "Never drive a car unless you personally inspected the brakes?" I don't think so. Uma Thurman was seriously injured in just such a situation. Is she to blame because she didn't independently verify the safety of the course she was driving?

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

Like some others, I don't like Baldwin very much, but I also doubt that it was his fault. At the "best" someone screwed up very seriously in the prop department. At the worst someone did have malignant designs. I don't know why a movie studio would EVER have live ammo anywhere in the prop department, so my suspicions start to nag me. Because a perpetrator who put real bullets in the gun would not have any way of knowing who might get shot, it almost seems like some sort of deliberate sabotage of the movie or Baldwin rather than targeted murder.

After all the dust settles, I can see an old-school murder mystery being written about this, a movie-movie.

It's not hard to learn. Anyone who picks up a firearm has an obligation to become familiar with the manual of arms for that weapon, especially before pointing that weapon in the direction of another human being, cocking the hammer, and pulling the trigger. This is 101 stuff.

The decades of experience that Mr. Baldwin has in handling guns in films. He started playing make believe with real guns in the 1980s. Between you, me, Baldwin and a person off the street, I would expect him to be the most qualified.

He must bear some of the blame. The argument that he is an innocent in all of this, does not square with the known facts of the case. And as facts are coming out, it's looking worse.

Doesn't matter if it was supposed to be fitted with jelly beans. If you pick up a real gun, you (personally) have a real responsibility. You have a deadly weapon in your hands and you (personally) have a responsibility for safe handling, including knowledge to the manual of arms, checking to see if it is loaded, and following the 4 Rules.

This is like the responsibility you have when you have sex. Your good buddy can avow to you that the girl at the party is of age, but if you have sex with her without further inquiry, that's still statutory rape if it turns out she is underage.

And this detail does not otherwise help his side of the case. A blank can kill within 20 feet. As a professional actor who regularly handles guns, he should know this. Moreover, why would be shooting blanks on a prep/practice day? Why would you point it at a person, cock the hammer, and pull the trigger if you thought it had a blank in it?!?!!

You don't have to be psychic. You do a five-second safety check. That's it. A five-second check.

Your friend at the party, even if he is an "age master," does not get you off the hook for statutory rape.

Please remember this in your own life. If someone ever hands you a gun, even a good friend or expert, and they tell you it is "unloaded," assume that it is loaded until you check for yourself. If you don't know how to check, don't pick it up. And if you do pick it up, keep it pointed in a safe direction and do not touch the trigger at any point in time.

Experts make mistakes.

By his own publicly asserted standards, he bears responsibility.

Mr. Baldwin obviously knows that guns are dangerous. He knows that a person who handles a gun has a tremendous responsibility.

And yet, until just now, he has never had to take responsibility. Someone else has always taken it for him. Armed security guards, a cop acting as sentry at a red carpet, security cameras, heavy doors, gated communities, private planes, layers of staff. On movie sets he has apparently relied on other people to take this responsibility for him. He outsourced his responsibility to a prop master to make sure he was safe with a deadly weapon. He knows guns are dangerous, but didn't take it upon himself to follow the rules of gun safety that apply to everyone.

He screwed up. It's a tragedy. This does not make him a monster. But he did screw up. I feel bad for him. I think that the personal punishment he feels will exceed any the state could bring to bear on him. But he still screwed up.

Decades of bad experience = mistake bound to happen. Go and watch his older movies and you’ll see he rests his finger on the trigger all the time. Hollywood is not known for getting trigger discipline right.

Now add in a negligent prop master and a hair trigger…very bad combo.

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

@Corax

Hard disagree, that Baldwin the actor is responsible unless his acting contract or California state laws states that it's his responsibility as an actor when using a prop gun.

Now, Baldwin the producer might very well be criminally responsible for creating hazardous working conditions on the set that lead to this tragedy.

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

This is definitely one of the more interesting and thought-provoking conversations we've had on the board. If there was a prior history of guns misfiring on this set, and Alec Baldwin as a producer knew of these incidents, then I do think, if that is substantiated, he may bear some responsibility if no action was taken to make the set safer. Additionally, if it is standard protocol that an actor should never point a gun at a live person, and the facts indicate that Baldwin did do that in violation of that protocol, then again, he may bear some responsibility for this incident.

However, speaking of him purely as an actor, and not concerning his role as a producer, I don't really think it's his responsibility to have checked the gun to ensure that it was not loaded with live bullets before being fired. I am not a gun owner, and I do not have an affinity for guns. My knowledge of guns is quite low. I have only fired a gun once at a gun range, so those that state that it is standard procedure to always assume a gun is loaded while handling it, and who point out Baldwin did not do that, have far more expertise than I do in this area.

I do think that there is definitely a practical and moral difference between being on a set, where someone is hired to ensure safe handling of firearms, and other circumstances where someone is handling a gun at a gun range, or in their own personal lives. In those circumstances, the affirmative responsibility flows to the person who is handling the gun because there is not someone else responsible for ensuring safety. On a movie set, the production hired an armorer, whose entire job for the production is to ensure that the gun is loaded with blanks and that proper gun safety handling is followed during the production. Therefore, due to that, I think the moral, practical, and legal responsibility really lies with that person and not with the actor handling the gun. I also think that the fact that Alec Baldwin may have had decades of experience handling guns on movie sets actually makes him less rather than more culpable. It is likely true that since he has handled guns before, that he likely does know how they work, and that he may know how to check whether a gun is loaded with blanks or live rounds. However, it is also true that for all of those years, he handled guns without incident. The proper procedures were followed, and there were no accidents, that we are aware of, related to guns for any of his other films. To me, that would give me even less reason for concern than if I were an actor handling a gun for the first time, because as an actor with that expertise, he will have known that there were procedures in place for gun safety that worked successfully, so he really had no reason to have a heightened level of awareness or concern related to gun safety on this production.

I do think that the analogy of a car having faulty breaks and killing someone and a gun being loaded with live rounds are different from each other. It is likely much easier to quickly check the gun to verify the type of ammunition that is in it than it is to independently check whether the brakes on a vehicle are faulty. It also likely takes more expertise to examine brakes to determine if they are working, and more effort to do a road test, for example, for a car, than it would to check the rounds of a loaded gun. Additionally, there is a well known and documented history of car accidents being responsible for countless deaths every year, while the same is not true for accidental discharges of guns during movie productions. For those reasons, I do think that there is both a moral and practical difference between using a car that had faulty brakes and not checking that during a film production, and using a gun and not checking whether it was loaded with blanks.

It is very easy for all of us to kind of sit in hindsight, knowing what happened, and to say that Alec Baldwin, in his role as an actor, should have checked the gun before firing it. But, I think it's also important to keep in mind that almost no one is killed in this way on movie productions. Since Lee was killed, there have been thousands of films and TV shows produced that involve the use of guns, and this didn't happen on almost any of those other productions. When something like this is so exceedingly rare, it's not something that would be top of mind for any actor handling a gun on a movie set, in my opinion, nor should it necessarily be. That may change now, because based on this experience, perhaps it should.

Good trigger discipline or not, I would still expect him to know the bonehead simple manual of arms for a Colt SAO revolver (aka THE revolver Hollywood features most prominently in Westerns). He should have known how to clear the gun. And he should have cleared it.

As for the hair trigger, you can play with the trigger of an SAO revolver all day long and nothing will happen. That's why you can spin them around in dazzling arcs before reholstering them. You have to manually draw back the hammer of an SAO to get access to the trigger as a firing mechanism.

He picked up a gun.

He did not safety check it.

He cocked the hammer.

He pointed that gun at another human being.

He pulled the trigger.

He screwed up.

Decades of holding deadly weapons in contempt and never learning safe-handling? That's not really exculpatory, is it? This would be like finding out that Harrison Ford has been flying planes all these years without ever learning how they work.

I’ll be the one to point out that pretty much every argument in here is based on assumptions.

SAO has light pull weight, so you kinda are proving my point. Especially since we have decades of footage of bad trigger discipline.

Until facts are out we all just a bunch of nerds at the water cooler.

A gun that shoot real bullets is NOT a prop gun. It is a real gun. He didn't shoot a prop person. He shot a real person.

The law does not absolve you of personal responsibility. The shooting took place in New Mexico, so it is New Mexico state law that applies. And even this is at the discretion of officers to arrest and for a DA to charge. The legal argument does not supersede the moral argument; it was once the law that you could hold property in persons. Moreover, no contract can simply confer to you a moral license to rob, drive drunk, slander, etc. He negligently discharged a weapon.

He may duck a manslaughter charge because of his privilege as an actor, but I'll bet dollars to donuts, that he is not going to skate free in civil court.

The producer stuff just compounds the error.

Actors are not babies and they should not be conferred a magical bubble or privilege that absolves them of responsibility when handling a weapon on a movie set.

I like Alec. I think he is a talented actor. I think he has a quick wit. I think he is funny. I think he would be great to have a beer with. I also think that he screwed up massively, and is now paying in a bitterly ironic fashion for the contempt he has shown both to deadly weapons and people who handle them.

I bet that he doesn't get into legal trouble from his actions as an actor. I bet he does get into legal trouble from his actions as a producer. It's an important distinction under the law.

You seem focused on blaming Baldwin for his actions as an actor, what about the weapons master who was in charge of safe handling of the gun? I believe she was a 24 year old and on her second movie assignment as a weapons master and left a live round in her gun. What blame do you place on her?

We shall see. I bet that the people who sue him throw everything, the kitchen sink, a bag of chips, and wet spaghetti at him.

First and foremost, I am concerned with how a real person handled a real gun. The unreality of "acting" and "sets" and "props" allows for obfuscation and equivocation of responsibility ("It's all just make-believe"), but at the end of the day he is a responsible person, an adult.

His role as actor only heightens his responsibility as a player in all of this, because a professional actor should be professionally competent. If you act with guns (and he has made a career of it), this extends to professional handling of guns.

A lot. She agreed to be the highest authority on the condition of deadly weapons on that set. She put at least one real bullet in that gun. She brought that gun to a set. And it appears that she communicated that that gun was safe.

This really does highlight a problem with the Hollywood model of weapons safety. A single "master" who is absolutely responsible introduces a single point of failure into the safety model. Countless negligent discharges have occurred when one person who "knows" has told another person that the gun was unloaded and safe. This is really really bad practice. This sort of thing is why official rules of gun handling were codified. When it comes to prudential and moral reasoning about the case industry norms and standards don't supersede these rules.

No one (speaking here only of prop master and actor) is really a monster here (at least as far as we presently know) and it would be pointless and even vicious to demand heads on pikes.

These people are going to have to live with this for the rest of their lives. I can't think of a tougher punishment for a human with a conscience. Both, however, share blame in a negligent accident that resulted in the death of person who has been deprived of what was left of the rest of her life. They are both responsible for a negligent discharge and they must both own their role in this event.

If the producers created an unsafe set, however, then real outrage may be warranted for them, even though all share the blame.

@Corax thanks for your answer to my last question about the responsibility of the weapons master. I repped your post.

General question for everyone:

Should working guns that fire blanks be banned from all movie sets in the U.S.? *The gun shot effects can be put in during post production with CG.

I wouldn't be surprised if California takes that action (even though this shooting happened in New Mexico).

Hollywood appears to have a good safety record relative to guns. I believe many more people have been killed and injured on movie sets by explosions, horses falling over, light stands falling over, fight choreography gone wrong, etc., than by firearms.

I don't think that we can honestly ban real guns from movie sets without entering into a wider conversation about the use of explosives, animals, motor vehicles, bladed weapons, humans performing dangerous stunts, etc. How much realism do we really need? Audiences may crave real dangers to be present to lend a sense of authenticity, but how much should that monster be fed?

How many people do we sacrifice a year, in whole or in part, to the God of realism?

William Shatner has been troubled with Tinnitus ever since the Gorn episode of Star Trek. Daryl Hannah still has glass in one of her arms from Blade Runner. These injuries are so common that they're presented in click-through slide shows for casual entertainment.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/new...ALbahf#image=2

Also, a deeper question is Hollywood's role in demonstrating casual contempt for the handling of deadly weapons (as shown on screen) and seducing us with the power guns allegedly confer while officially being anti-gun. Hollywood is one of the best gun marketers in the world. They present the fantasy in which the gun is a tool of adventure.

No. It should be kept in mind that this is an extremely rare occurance. If I were to suggest a ban it would be to ban any non-union uncertified crew, or at least very specific liability clauses to such contracts that will unambigously hold the production management responsible.


I don't think it's a coincidence that at least two of these production companies responsible for this film seem to specialize in the kind of anonymous straight-to-Bulgaria cheapo action flicks that Bruce Willis has been specializing in lately. I think most likely we're going to find that this accident is directly attributable to tight-fisted penny-pinching corner-cutting by people likely more concerned in fronting their off-shore accounts than quality control or professional safety. But I digress...

No. Action movies are full of dangerous don't-try-at-home stunts requiring very careful specialists, and therefore danger in case of sloppiness, but that's merely an argument against the sloppiness. Replacement with CGI is always a loss (because no conscious CGI imagery reproduces all the subtle audio-visual cues that make it feel real). This goes for a lot of things, guns aren't special with that. Not more than other potential causes of deaths (cars, etc) that hopefully won't be replaced by CGI after some other super avoidable accident.

But :

1) There is no reason why a real bullet was even in the vicinity of that movie set. What was it even used for ? Was some gun nut seeking the thrill of going poom poom for realsies between the takes ?

2) There's (or there used to be) gun models that were actually fully functional guns, but with some protruding part within the barrel, ensuring they couldn't be used as gun. More than fully realistic from the outside (it's the actual thing) but disabled. Could be only used for blanks. I suppose a real bullet could injure the holding hand, but that's a lesser evil, and no one would have put a real bullet in it in the first place (because why for, see point 1). Why are these not standards on movie sets ? Why even risk people stealing fully functional guns from movie sets ?

3) And no, by the way, no. When you've got a professional technician whose specific job and responsibility is to put a selected, prepared prop in your hand, you don't have some sacred holy duty from the nra bible to ritually double check it just because it's a gun. Your job is to act, you trust the technicians who tell you that it's a retractable blade, that the bridge will blow up after your passage, that the pillar won't fall on your own floor marking. It's not bad to double check dangerous stuff (and some actors like to go check if the pyrotechnics along their path are set right), but it's not an obligation, and not more for a gun than for any other potentially lethal device or mechanism. Some default trust is perfectly justified.

4) And of course, the opportunistic false equivalence between the "mistake" of discharging your knowingly loaded handgun into a suspect and the "mistake" of treating as a prop the prop handed to you as a prop by a prop specialist is as dishonest as nauseating. But hey, what would you expect. At least we were spared the "this wouldn't have happened if she was armed too" argument, this time. Somehow. For now.

Again, underlying all these reactions, the "how does it fit in the cultural/political agenda" priority. So tiresome, and so predictable. I'm almost curious to go check how militants spin it in symmetrically progressive forums.

Not a ban, but in terms of their use, I'll be the slight contrarian here and say that my feeling is a yes/maybe.

Special effects have gotten really strong these days, and one of the most striking things about some of the director's commentaries I've listened to in the last 10 years is just how many things were CGI that I never imagined.

I think that it's something that anyone making a film should think seriously about. Is the (admittedly very small but also potentially very serious) risk of using a real weapon critical to the film?

Generally, though, it seems like what's more necessary than a weapons ban is a very clear set of safety regulations and procedures with SERIOUS and RUTHLESS enforcement when they aren't followed. As in, if you are caught letting people skip safety training, or skip over steps in safety procedures, consequences like not being able to work on a film set for two years and face a big fine. Even within the microcosm of this one incident, there were accidental gun misfires and that should have triggered some automatic auditing of the crew and their safety procedures before anything else was allowed to happen on that set. But then again I know very little about how the industry is regulated and what procedures are already in place.

Gun nut? Sorry, this one isn't on the gun community. Your politics are showing.

Yes, actually you do. A gun doesn't stop being a gun just because it is a movie set. Calling it a "prop" doesn't change what it is. This wasn't a "prop" gun. This was a real gun. An adult doesn't stop having responsibilities just because they are actors.

Yes, you ritually check. You habitually check. You always assume it is loaded. Yes, you do this because it is a gun. These are the rules. They apply to everyone. The apply everywhere. If you are not prepared to be minimally responsible, then don't ever pick up a gun.

Moreover, it is casual contempt for guns and gun safety ("Not my job!") that results in tragedies like this. Attitudes like this get people killed.

This isn't the fault of the NRA.

Someone died. A five-second check that could be performed by any competent adult was not performed.

Bulls--t. If you drive in a scene, your job is also to be a competent driver.

A gun is a deadly weapon. They aren't toys. If your job is to handle a gun, your job includes safe handling.

And so far you haven't supplied anything outside of chest-thumping assertions. This does not even begin to address the simple prudential logical which has already been presented upthread.

No, you need to double check that too. Otherwise, you might stab someone.

Unless you are the one setting off the explosives, this example is irrelevant. Your are responsible for your actions.

Again, this is irrelevant. You are are responsible for what you do, not what others do.

If you are handling the gun, if you point that gun at another human being, if you pull the trigger, it is a f---cking obligation.

You're equivocating, flagrantly, between examples where the actor is handling and controlling a deadly device and examples where other people are. This is sloppy thinking at best, and disingenuous at worst.

This default trust does NOT overturn the presumption of Rule 1 of safe gun handling. Contempt of this rule got someone killed.

Just for once, pause, and listen to people who actually know something about guns.

Like the false equivalence between someone else setting off explosives and Baldwin pointing a gun at a person, pulling back the hammer, and pulling the trigger? This is RICH.

On the contrary, it is you who is dishonest and nauseating. The mistake is not checking the condition of a real gun. Now you are equivocating about "props" and "guns."

No one. I repeat, no one absolves you of your responsibility of safely handling a weapon. This includes clearing it. Again, "Not my job" got someone killed here. This is not acceptable.

This is a disgusting thing to say. You are arguing basic rules of gun safety as if the idea of basic gun safety is politics(!!!). This is how far left of field you are. You have whined and whinged about gun nuts, the NRA, mocked the "sacrality of simple rules (as if the rules are bulls--t and worthy of contempt), and now invoked tropes in the gun debate to cover Baldwin's ass. You have attacked prudence as politics.

So I guess it's confirmed that Corax prefers to see this as karmic payback for Baldwin's anti-gun stances over the years :rolleyes:

I think these standards are stricter and better enforced on major studio productions. The problem is with these more independent productions with more nebulous accountability. I think the best bet is to front-end the risks, specifically through standardizing access to the insurance needed to begin a production, rather than punitive on the back end after a tragedy has occured. Make it prohibitively expensive to try to skirt the union/studio standards before the first inch of film is shot.

Either that or use camera tricks to make it appear that the actor is pointing a gun at someone. I do think it should be illegal for actors to point a gun, prop or not, at anyone.

How about just real-looking fake guns - surely prop departments can produce them, and then special effects (or CGI) people can put in things like muzzle flashes later?

Even with this, though, guns can misfire when they aren't being intentionally aimed at someone.

One of my co-workers has a husband who owns several guns. (Okay, basically ALL my co-workers own several guns). He was putting one of them back in the gun safe in their closet and it fired unexpectedly (no, I do not know specifics) and the bullet went through their closet and into their son's bedroom. If their son had been at his desk or sitting up in bed, he would have been hit by the bullet. I'm honestly not even clear from what I've read whether Baldwin was intentionally aiming at anyone, or if he was just raising the weapon when it fired and the DP and director were just unfortunate enough to be in the way of the bullet's path.

I agree with @Captain Steel. Incredibly realistic props that cannot actually fire anything seems the best way to go. In fact, I bet some genius could even find a way to design a prop gun that generated a loud bang and possibly even some element of "kick" when the trigger was pulled without actually ejecting a single thing, if your concern is wanting the actors to have some visceral "reality" to pulling the trigger.

It's a tragedy mixed with negligence. People who make mistakes with guns (including cops and "gun nuts") are quite often decent people who make a horrible lapse in judgment. They should be judged, but judged appropriately. God save Alec Baldwin from the public pronouncements of Alec Baldwin.

Myself, I know there are moments of distraction and aggression I have displayed operating a motor vehicle that could have resulted in death and I only have moral luck as my justification. I think we have all done something behind the wheel of a motor vehicle which could have killed someone (be it racing, road rage, texting, drinking, fiddling with nobs on the radio, not pulling over when tired). I am not justified. I am lucky.

Baldwin was righteous, but ultimately unlucky. He neither deserves to have his head put on a pike (unless we learn he is the one responsible for the unsafe set), nor does he deserve a free pass for a negligent action. He deserves empathy and forgiveness, but he also deserves blame for screwing up. He must take ownership of his share of the blame in point a gun at a person and pulling the trigger.

No luck is involved here. There was professional negligence by at least two people - the prop master and the assistant director - who held the specific responsibility to not hand Baldwin a loaded weapon. Your omission of their very clear guilt in order to preserve your narrative against Baldwin says all it needs to say. You have a target and an agenda.

What I need to know: We know that the prior incidents with discharges were reported to the unit production manager. Who else? "At least one of the camera operators complained last weekend to a production manager about gun safety on the set". "There were no safety meetings", who made this decision? Was the person who claimed "cold gun" with Baldwin's stunt double the same assistant director who handed Baldwin a "cold gun"?

We know that those who reported the previous discharges walked off the set hours beforehand. Why did the producers allow this? What efforts did they take to address their complaints? "Hutchins had been advocating for safer conditions for her team"? Advocating to whom? Why was she ignored? Why was the producers' response to their union crew's complaints, including the dangers of the previous discharges, to "order the union members to leave the set and threatened to call security to remove them if they didn’t leave voluntarily"? Was the assistant director who handed Baldwin the gun a nonunion member? With any certified training in firearms?

Why hasn't Hannah Guiterrez Reed been available for comment? Is she cooperating with authorities?

Quite simply, it seems clear that unless Baldwin was one of the producers in question who willfuly ignored these complaints over gun safety, or was one of the producers who ordered the union crew off set, his culpabilty here is far less than a half-dozen easily identified suspects. For some reason, you've chosen to make Baldwin the focus of your moralizing. I wonder why? You've already answered. Because of his past support for anti-gun regulations.

Sure there is. Chance operates everywhere. We are all the beneficiaries and victims of chance.

Controlling for contingency is what codified rules of safe handling were developed.

Not the person who picked up the gun?

Not the person who pulled back the hammer of that single action Colt?

Not the person who pointed that gun at another human being?

Not the person who pulled the trigger?

Not "at least three people"?

What a curious sense of responsibility you have.

I am already on record, in this thread, noting the blame that also belongs to the so-called prop master. I have already committed in bold print to saying that they deserve a lot of the blame.

I am just not the bizarre alien thinker who holds the responsibility can only ever belong to one person and thinks that Baldwin has no responsibility because someone else has all the responsibility. That's bonkers.

And Baldwin, also being a producer should have been aware of those incidences and ever more vigilant in handling a real gun.

I guess we'll find out when the facts emerge.

The only thing I know for sure is that you treat every gun as if it is loaded, that you do not take the say so of anyone else that it is in safe condition, that you keep that thing pointed in a safe direction, and that you inspect the weapon. That's all I need to know to know that Baldwin fired a weapon negligently and took a life.

The father of Halyna Hutchins (the woman who was shot) refuses to blame Alec Baldwin but instead blames the armourer team for the accidental shooting.

News Link

*there's a photo of Halyna Hutchins in the news link, such a sweet photo of her, how totally sad:(

They're going to make movies about this. First it will be a documentary, then a "journalistic: re-creation of events, and then as pure entertainment. There are too many elements for storytellers not to seize upon it.

Yeah, maybe because I'm paying attention to the available information as opposed to punching my preferred object of derision.


Here's some more info on the assistant director in question, a Dave Halls, who reportedly "had a troubling history of ignoring safety protocols", and who mocked safety meetings and training exercises, "He would always roll his eyes. ‘Do we need to do a safety meeting?’ He would do it and he would be flippant." "There was one day the actress was aiming it at her head. He didn’t want to do safety meeting! It took a person from another department demanding the meeting to finally hold it." And who had asked a non-trained crew member to light pyrotechnics (and was thankfully rebuffed). This is the man who handed Alec Baldwin a loaded weapon, the first loaded weapon Baldwin ever discharged in his 40 year career.


As you pointed out, Baldwin has had experience with guns on film sets for nearly 40 years. He's been handed, what?, a hundred guns in that time? How many had live ammo? Is it so difficult to develop a certain amount of confidence over than period of time that the crew members that handled weapons took professional safety seriously?


As illustrated in the above quote, your focus on Baldwin's blame has been disproportionate in this thread, as has your reasoning based on schadenfreude shaming based on Baldwin's politics (specifically those involving the instrument of tragedy here).

I'm not aware of what Baldwin knew, and neither are you. I think he should be held responsible if he had been involved in any of these decisions involving sacking his union crew over safety concerns (or simply ignoring Hutchins'), the decision to employ a nonunion prop master, or was one of the executives actively pressuring crew members like Halls into cutting safety corners in order to stay on schedule. As of right now, I see some more immediate actions that led to this death.


Also, as an extra, I'd be curious to see which member of the production staff approved of the initial statement citing a "misfire of a prop gun with blanks", which anyone on the set must have immediately known to be a lie.

Add this to the mix.

Prop Gun Specialist Calls Alec Baldwin 'Very Safe,' Says Props Dept. Likely to Blame

newslink

This is also potentially a very instructive excerpt:

I am also curious to know if the gun safety trainings that they do before each scene with a gun actually says anything about the actors themselves checking the weapons. Is it encouraged? Discouraged? Is it even mentioned?

I am just noting that Baldwin has a share of blame. That's it.

Sounds like other people, as I have already said, are to blame.

Having watched and enjoyed many of his films, I know that he has handled real guns. Real guns come with real responsibility. Love them or hate them, you have to treat them with respect if you are going to handle them.

And I have said (repeatedly) upthread, this shows a flaw in the Hollywood model. A single person responsible for everything creates a model with a single point of failure, because there is a single point of responsibility. This is great if you are looking for a fall guy if things go sideways, but it is not ideal for actual gun safety.

If Baldwin took to casually externalizing his responsibility to people who did everything for him over the years, then this just show how he became negligent, it does not justify it. He still screwed up.

This is untrue. I have blamed the Hollywood safety model and the so-called prop-master. Most tragedies are an intersection of errors.

You're speculating. Even if you were right, however, it is irrelevant. If you see a flaw in the reasoning, then point it out. That you don't like the alleged motivation of the reasoning proves nothing.

I am aware that he pointed a gun at another person and shot them.

I know that if he followed the 4 Rules, that woman would still be alive.

I know that anyone can learn and follow these rules.

What else do we need to know?

Most importantly, he must hold himself responsible. He must make amends, as well as he can, and he must take steps to ensure that he never makes such a mistake again.

I don't want his head, but there is no moral hall pass for manslaughter, either.

The most proximate/immediate action that led to this death was Baldwin pointing a gun and pulling a trigger.

I am not saying that he is a monster. I am not saying that this is all his fault. I am not saying he should go to prison (at least not given what we don't yet know).

I am simply saying that anyone who picks up a gun has a personal responsibility to be safe with it. That's all. I don't want Baldwin's head. I think he is already in hell.

Yep.

And the negligent discharges that preceded this indicate a non-safe environment.

Honestly, I like Baldwin. He's a good actor. He's intelligent. He's funny. He's kind of an ******* on some other accounts, but I like seeing him on screen.

Tragedies have no inherent value. They only have the instrumental value of teaching lessons. This tragedy will hopefully prompt actors take greater personal responsibility in the handling of firearms, show the dangers of cutting corners, and remind us that making film involves inherent risks (and that perhaps we should always whine for more and more realism).

This was not a "Hollywood" film. It's an independent production made up of non-studio companies, at least a couple of which (BondIt Media) appear to be nothing more than venture capital shell companies. There's no model protocol being followed here. There appear to have been at least a couple people in the production crew who sacrificed caution for expediency. If anything, it shows a flaw in using nonunion, nontrained crew members.

Mm-mm. "So-called". Not like it was an official title on the production or anything.


It doesn't require speculating to point out something you mentioned twice before I said anything about it. I have been pointing out the flaw in your reasoning, as well as the biased motivation behind that reasoning. Such examples of your bias are not hard to cite in your posts.


Such bias may involve the presumption of guilt that Baldwin must come to terms with, if he must make amends for such an obvious foregone conclusion. It almost sounds as if you've already indicted and condemned the man, and now it's only a matter of his stepping up and begging for your mercy. Any pesky little details like anyone else's stated and specific professional responsibility be as damned as he surely must be. Why on earth would I think that this reasoning is motivated by some kind of sour contempt based on your preexisting bias against Baldwin's moral character?


Oh.

Fair point. Nevertheless, they were aping the Hollywood model of leaving everything to a "prop master."




All these years, and I still have not taught you to avoid the genetic fallacy I have failed you. For that, I am sorry. The flaw in any chain of reasoning is not its motivation, but is in its validity conditions or premises, if any flaw is to be found.





Let the wild speculation begin now...





If it turns out he didn't shoot a woman, killing here, I shall eat my words. Fair enough?





Except that I have repeatedly said that what he is experiencing is already punishment and that I am not calling for his head, that empathy for errors is appropriate, even if Baldwin must also own his part in the tragedy.



You've gone beyond mind-reading into willfully reading contrary to what I have explicitly stated and even wandered into some bizarre fantasy where Baldwin is asking me personally for forgiveness, immediately after I have noted that moral luck is the only thing that separates us from being Baldwin (in the context of driving a car).





This is pure spun fiction. Cotton candy for the reading impaired. I have repeatedly noted that other people also share responsibility. I am not the one who is unable to grock the idea that more than one party may be responsible for a tragedy (for indeed, most tragedies are a comedy of errors).





I don't know why you say half the goofy things that you do.



Wouldn't you be if you just wrongly killed a person?

There was only one man standing between those Asian children and the helicopter rotor. Vic Morrow should be ashamed of himself.

A nonunion prop master. Key distinction. Out of all of those Hollywood modeled movie sets that Baldwin performed on, he never killed a person before. Wonder why?

Because up until that point he was able to outsource his personal responsibility for handling a deadly weapon to another party. His privilege allowed him to externalize the costs of competence to someone else. And the day when those training wheels were removed, he killed someone.



Yes, because picking up a gun and shooting a woman is the equivalent of being present when a helicopter crashes. :rolleyes: Did you really think you scored a point with this one?

Just as he's always outsourced the responsibility for handling the camera that was filming or the lighting that was illuminating him or the make-up artist and costume designer for making him look dashing or the editor to pick his best takes or the composer to give his close-ups gravitas or the director to make it all coherent. It's almost as if making movies is a collaborative enterprise that requires a lot of people to perform very specific roles in order for everything to run smoothly and efficiently. Turns out that one of these specific roles is the person professionally responsible (as in they are paid well for their trouble) to make sure the weapons are safe before handing them to an actor.


The fact that Reed delivered a gun to the set with live ammo is automatically criminally negligent. The fact that the assistant director handed a "cold gun" to an actor without verifying it is also criminally negligent. The fact that the latter had been mocking and skirting safety procedures throughout the shoot is simply proof of negligence. Baldwin's mistake was believing people who he's paying to be reliable, as reliable as hundreds of other set crew people he's worked with over the years.

You're more like blaming the helicopter pilot. What I'm pointing out is how you're ignoring everyone else behind the scenes who's responsible for creating the crisis.

Except handling a camera does not come with the moral responsibility of a deadly weapons.

Except that, as an actor, he has not even personally handled a camera.

A disanalogy on two counts.

Another disanology on the same two counts.

More of the same.

Yes. And handling a gun is a personal responsibility. When activity of making a movie (who gives a care?) mixes with the activity of handling a gun (a deadly weapon) the personal responsibility supersedes the corporate activity in every case.

It takes a village to make a movie. It takes a responsible adult to handle a gun. If you don't get this, don't ever handle a gun.

No one. I repeat, no one absolves you of your responsibility to handle a gun responsibly.

OK.

If you say so.

If true, he deserves quite a bit, but not all, of the blame.

No, his mistake was not treating a gun as a gun. His mistake was in breaking basic and simple rules of safe handling that apply to everyone. His mistake was in thinking that he was above learning and abiding by these rules. His mistake was pointing a gun at a woman and killing her.

Pretty much the entire stunt department involves potential deadly outcomes. Actors are not held responsible for faulty harnesses or faulty cars or faulty landing pads, etc. There are people who are responsible for these things, and this is neither new nor controversial except for some people choosing to opportunistically score points on politically outspoken actors.


Yes. I say so. Apparently a number of his collegues are saying so. I haven't seen anyone from that set calling out Baldwin yet though. He seems to be cooperating. Obviously you've spent most of your posts moralizing against Baldwin, with scant and usually dismissive mention of those paid professionals who happen to be more relevently responsible. You can call this speculation on my part, but it appears most people here can see this for what it is. All of this tangent talk about Baldwin's vanity and privilege only underscore the fact that you're using this tragedy to grind an unrelated axe. You do you.

Harnesses are not known deadly weapons. Harnesses are safety devices. They have no intended design function of bringing harm to another person when they are working as they are designed to work. A gun on the other hand, will kill if it is set to operate as it is designed to operate.



A gun that is deadly is a gun that functions as it was supposed to from the factory. A faulty car, on the other hand, is a car that fails to perform as one would expect a car to operate. If an actor is not competent to operate a motor vehicle, but they decide to so anyhow (because it is only a movie) and someone gets killed because the car performs like a car, then that is on the actor.



If an actor goofs around messes with another actor's harness, there is blame to be had for the actor. If an actor decides to press the button on a pyrotechnics panel, there is blame to be had for the actor.



You're doing better now, but this is still not good enough. Not good enough to exculpate Baldwin for picking up a gun and shooting a woman, killing her.





If you pick up a gun, you are one of these responsible people. If you decide to grab a detonator, you are one of these responsible people. If you decide to monkey around with a safety device, you are one of these responsible people.



Why are you so desperate to establish that Baldwin has no blame in this? He obviously does. What gives?





Ah, so now it no longer the objection that I have not moralized against other responsible parties at all, but that I haven't moralized enough? Can you let me know when you're done shifting the goal posts so that I know where to kick the ball?

Check out Jack Palance from Shane over here. Technically, he didn't "pick up a gun", he was handed a gun from someone who was being paid to assure him that it was a safe (cold) gun. Like the hundred previous people who had reliably and professionally handed him guns which were safe in his 40 year career.


I think there's only one of us treating this like a sport. I'm concerned about getting a clear account of what happened on the set. Kick it wherever you like.

No difference. Once the gun is in your hands, it is your responsibility to inspect it. Doesn't matter if another person assures you it is unloaded. Doesn't matter who that person is. It is now your job to handle that gun safely. Rule #1. the gun is loaded until you (personally) prove otherwise. It doesn't matter how the gun gets into your hands. Once it is in your hands, responsibility falls on to you to handle it safely.





That he was able to outsource his responsibility and enjoyed moral luck in externalizing the cost of checking to them for 40 years is not proof that he is innocent. It is proof that he developed bad habits.

Like I said, it's pretty clear what the focus is here.

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

Corax, thank you for contributing your knowledge of gun safety practices to this thread. May I ask, how do you know this information related to gun safety? Are you in law enforcement? I would like to ask you and others who do believe that Baldwin did not follow standard protocol for the handling of firearms, do you know if it is standard practice on movie sets to inform the actors of these principles, or not? For example, are actors in scenes involving guns told, "always assume the gun is loaded," even if the prop master or Assistant Director has told them it is a "cold gun?" Are actors shown how to check the gun to determine if it is loaded or not? Are actors shown the difference between a live round and a blank, and how to examine the gun to determine whether it has been loaded with blanks? If the answer to any of these questions is no, then I think that rather than assigning even partial blame to Alec Baldwin, should we not be assigning blame to the Hollywood system and the training and education provided that does not educate actors in scenes involving guns to always assume a gun is loaded, for example? To never point it at a live person? Are actors trained on these things?

Also, the LA Times article states that Alec Baldwin was doing a scene when he was drawing a gun from his holster. The first draw was done without incident, but when he did this a second time, the gun appeared to go off. One of the principles that is being talked about is to never point a gun and fire at a live person. Do we actually know that that happened here? Is this an assumption being made because two people have been hit, or is there another way that you know that this actually happened based on these facts? If Baldwin did not cock the gun and point it at a live person in the scene, and then had the gun automatically misfire, or perhaps ricochet from where it was pointed to hit the two people in question, why attribute blame to him? Or, based on these facts, could that not have happened?

Also, it appears that the gun was loaded with live rounds rather than a blank. Based on these facts, why were live rounds taken to a movie set when they were entirely unnecessary, and in fact, could be quite dangerous, if used, and should not the lion's share of the blame fall on the person that brought live rounds to a movie set and then loaded those rounds into the gun, since live rounds should never be on a movie set in the first place?

I can see a lot about this that's muddled. An actor on a scene is handed what's assumed to be a prop gun. It could be cheap plastic, a modified "real" gun or a completely real gun or it could even be that the actor points his finger, yells bang and the animators take over after that. In a murder case, much depends on intentional killing or negligent killing or a killing that's part of another crime or a tragic accident.

First degree just doesn't make sense for anybody, since the whole thing was witnessed and probably on video.

Motive wise, is there anything there? If it is, I have not read that anybody in the production really wanted to kill anybody.

Baldwin has nothing to gain and possibly a career and reputation to kill. He's dead meat in Hollywood now, or at least will have a long period of exile. I'm assuming that he probably was handed what he thought was a prop gun and didn't check for himself....negligence but not deliberate intent.

Even an inept prop manager or armorer would know enough to check the gun. Bullets are not hard to recognize or distinguish from blanks. There's no reason why there would ever be real bullets on a movie set, even if they are the ones that get loaded by the actors for a scene. Fakes will do as props.

So, in my whodunit mode, it almost seems like there's a whole chain of inept acts that are needed for this to happen, but there are lot of worms to be turned in this drama, like who had an attitude or who had a reason for this movie to be overwhelmed by controversy. Nothing about this makes any sense except as an amazing chain of incompetence OR, deliberate sabotage of the movie by some third party. It's not unlike the stuff that the mafia once did when producers wouldn't hire the "right" person.

I am no one in particular. I have handled and fired guns, including single action revolvers. I have cleared these devices and can affirm that it is a brief and simple procedure to do so. However, the information I am offering is Gun Safety 101 stuff.

Rule #1 is that every gun is loaded (even if the person who hands it to claims it is unloaded) until proved otherwise.

I am not in the industry. My understanding is that the prop master is God.

This is good and bad.

On the one hand, this ensures us that an expert is guiding the flock. On the other hand, with any God comes a Theodicy, the problem of evil. Why does God let bad things happen? If something bad does happen with an omnipotent God, isn't that God's fault? Prop masters are not really Gods, are they? They are still humans and humans make mistakes.

The idea of hierarchy is good, but on-set Gun Safety Gods should be assisted by on-set Gun Safety Saints (i.e., anyone else who handles a weapon), who learn the manual of arms for the device, understand safe handling, and personally check the condition of the device for themselves. To do otherwise introduces a single point of failure into model.

Is the present case not an object lesson in why the actor should check? A five-second check would have saved a life. Is this too long? No. Is this too hard to do? No. Do experts screw up? Yes. Can film sets get chaotic? Yes.

If you are speaking to industry standards as a mitigating factor of Baldwin's personal blame in all of this, I agree. I think there are three problems here. One problem is procedural. No, it is not good enough for a prop master to simply tell an actor a gun is cold without the actor performing an independent check. That is bad practice which violates the basic rules of safe-handling. If your industry is breaking basic safety rules that apply to everyone else in any other context, your industry is doing something wrong. Another problem is the idiot who brought a loaded gun to a film set and then reported it clear. Holy s**t this is bad. A third problem is that Alec Baldwin didn't check. Regardless of what people told him, regardless of procedural norms, he had a prudential and moral obligation to check for himself. He didn't.

What you don't seem to quite grasp (you say, "If the answer to any of these questions is no, then I think that rather than assigning even partial blame to Alec Baldwin"), is that prudential and moral reasoning supersede industry norms.

EX: It used to be an industry norm that Harvey Weinstein and his ilk could sexually assault women. The industry has even protected him and others. The industry was wrong. People were harmed. Morality and prudence > Industry standards.

This is the crux of our dispute. I see these outside factors as mitigating factors of blame. You see them as eliminating factors, leaving Baldwin completely exculpated. I am not the one taking the extreme position here. I am not saying Baldwin should go to prison, but can we at least admit that he f*****d up? Just a little bit? Because I guarantee you that if I go to a gun range and a range officer hands me a gun and assures that it is clear and I then proceed to shoot another person dead (Oopsie!), I am going to bear some scrutiny for that act, as I should.

As a person "appeared" to die when he did so, I'd say it is a safe bet to say that it did, in fact, discharge.

To a high enough degree of certainty forming a presumption which would have to overturned with evidence, the answer is unequivocally "Yes!"

Unless that was the magic bullet that killed President Kennedy it ballistically traveled in the direction the barrel was pointed. Guns don't point themselves. Moreover, guns don't shoot themselves. Two operations have to occur to fire a single-action revolver, both of which have to be performed by the operator (i.e., cock the hammer and then depress the trigger - both operations must be performed in this order to fire).

So, you're speculating that another person handed the revolver to Baldwin in a pre-cocked position? And we are further to suppose that he holstered the weapon in a cocked position? And that he drew it twice in that condition? That's quite a stack of assumptions you have. And this is where safety rules 2, 3, and 4 come into play. Rule 2. Never point a gun at something you are not willing to destroy. As already discussed, he pointed it at a person (per ballistic function). Rule 3. Keep your finger off the trigger unless you intend to fire. Guns don't shoot themselves, even when cocked, so Baldwin minimally broke this rule too. Rule 4. Be sure of your target and what is behind it.

Even if we assume he was handed the weapon cocked he should have de-cocked the revolver while pointing it in a safe direction and then inspected the weapon personally.

Again, responsibility is still present.

This speculation does NOT help your side of the case. It is a rule in the real world and the movie industry to not point a gun loaded with blanks at another person, as they can kill (a lesson the movie industry learned the hard way more than once). If Baldwin believed that the gun was loaded with blanks, then he was criminally negligent in pulling the trigger while the gun was pointed at another person.

I advise that our future speculations suppose that Baldwin believed that the gun to be empty or loaded with snap-caps. And then I will remind you that we would be wrong on this supposition as well. ;)

Re: Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun
 

Corax, as I stated earlier, I think in his capacity as a producer, Baldwin may be culpable here, or may have some contributory negligence, if it is substantiated that he knew about the previous gun safety concerns expressed by members of the crew, and did nothing about them, and/or if he was aware of the accidental gun discharges previously on this set.

You express a general principle that actors should always assume a gun is loaded, and that they need to check to determine if it is. How far does this responsibility extend, in your mind? Let's say for his first scene of the day, he does exactly what you suggest, and he finds the gun is either not loaded or loaded with blanks. If Baldwin then does his scene, and then takes a break to go to his trailer while they do another scene not involving him or this gun, and comes back a few minutes later, does he need to check the gun again? What if he does a second scene, then has to go to the bathroom? When he returns, should he do another check? What if they break for lunch, and he comes back, does he need to check a third time? If the answer to all of these questions is yes, prior to this incident, given that this almost never happened on a movie set before, do you think that is a reasonable expectation of the actors? This is not a trivial point. This is exactly how movie sets likely run.

I am not suggesting that someone handed the gun to Baldwin in a pre-cocked position. I am asking whether it is possible, since there were accidental discharges on this set with other guns, whether it is possible for no one to have intended to fire, and for the gun to have gone off anyway due to faulty mechanics. This seems to be something that you dismiss, saying that a gun can't fire without being cocked or putting your finger on the trigger, but there were accidental discharges, so it seems like this may be possible, and may have even happened previously. I don't actually have a case here at all. I'm just asking questions to try to learn more about the circumstances under which something like this could happen.

I do think that you are also making a lot of assumptions here about what actors might know about gun safety, or what they "should" know. For example, do actors even know that the guns that they are using, which are colloquially called "prop guns," are in many cases real guns, and that the only difference between a "prop gun" and a real gun is that a prop gun is supposed to be loaded with blanks rather than live rounds? If actors don't always know that, because they haven't been told that, then your entire argument about following standard protocols of gun safety does not hold, does it?

Prior to this incident, although I am not in the movie industry, I had no idea that prop guns were kind of a misnomer, and that they are actually real guns. I would not be surprised if many actors did not know that either, unless that is something they have been trained about. What did people on this set know, what were they told, by whom? Was the training adequate? If it was not, whose fault was that?

Criminal negligence flows from what someone knows, or should know personally, based on a reasonable person standard, not what others in the industry might know based on previous incidents.

I read this earlier today:

and this:

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