Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun

It's insulting because any literate adolescent could read Corax's posts and discern a clear and steady pattern of asserting Baldwin's culpability above anyone else's. The sustained theme of his posts have been about Baldwin's particular responsibility. Any and every mention, not just by me, of those on the set who were more responsible have been dodged and minimized by Corax. You don't, or shouldn't, need me to point this out to you. I honestly don't even believe when you ask whether or not he had been doing this.


The role and responsiblity of the prop master, and the entire line of succession that a weapon goes through before reaching an actor's hand, is completely relevent, not pointless, to the story. Corax believes it's pointless. He's not right. Again, I haven't been the only one pointing this out. There have been links to professionals saying this.



I ended the discussion with Corax two pages ago, but you decided to bring it up again as if there was some kind of equal ambiguity here (both-siding)? No. Corax was wrong. He was shown to be wrong, in multiple ways. He was wrong for reasons that you don't appear to even understand. He shut up when it was clear he was wrong. You don't need to be breathing more fire into this. Corax was happy to wait and sproat anew on some other poor sucker. That's what trolls do. I don't respect being equivacated with a troll like Corax. Try not to do that.

Yoda literally posted 1 hour after Corax had posted. Corax was still responding to Taks post after that. I’m pretty sure Corax would still be responding to posts whether Yoda had stepped in or not.
It’s a bit of an absurd claim here.

Reducing the issue to the "sides" of "Baldwin has some responsibility" versus "no he doesn't" is stupid. (No one here as absolved him completely.)



Asking "Did anyone argue the he had more responsibility than the people in charge of the prop?" is ignorant. (Corax has clearly been arguing Baldwin"s "ultimate" responsibility the entire thread.)


Why are we BSing here? BS is insulting to me.

The only thing I remember about Baldwin's career is his Jack Ryan's Colt Mk IV in The Hunt for Red October... old movie. After so long using guns on set, I wonder why he didn't have the ability to check before using them. I know there are experts on set to prepare everything, but at the shooting range, it doesn't matter who hands me the gun, I always make sure everything is okay. We can talk about the weight differences between blanks and live rounds, but since he's anti-gun, maybe he just hates using them and doesn't want to waste time practicing and getting used to it. The first lesson my teacher taught me (it wasn't even with real guns yet): it doesn't matter if it's real or not, always treat it like it's a loaded gun and NEVER point it at anyone. From an actor's perspective, it's clear that they're going to point to someone on set, which is why they must master their "working tool". I'm not talking about guilt here, I just believe that every actor who wants to be part of a set that has guns, should learn to use it for real.

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"Some people just doesn't understand the dangers of indiscriminate surveillance."

A lot of the discussion here has centered around why Baldwin would willingly point a gun at someone and pull the trigger?

I began to wonder about the body positions of Baldwin and the director and the DP. So I did a search this morning and found this:
It then might be possible that Baldwin never pointed a gun at anyone, but instead the gun went off as he was drawing the gun from the holster and swinging it upwards.

Also in the article:
Full news story

If the bullet went into a person, then the barrel was pointed at that person. If we was not in a scene, but simply practicing a draw, then he had all the time in the world to perform a safety check of the weapon.

And the "sustained theme" of your posts has been about Baldwin's lack of responsibility, yet my claim to this effect was denounced as "bullsh*t." This is my whole point: that you're reading the implication of what he says, but asking for literalism about what you've said.

It's relevant to the question of whether this situation involved the usual protocol, but irrelevant to the question of whether that protocol is sufficient, which was explicitly the thing being argued.

Professional what? The dispute is how far our basic human responsibility extends even in situations where we have no professional responsibility. That's not an empirical question. The only thing a professional can answer for us dispositively is what the standard protocol has been up to now, which doesn't seem to be under dispute.

Is this what happened? It looks like you bowed out here. To be clear, I don't care who "shut up." I think it would be childish egoism to yell the digital equivalent of "yeah, that's what I thought!" when someone makes the (often mature) decision to walk away from a pointless fight. But insofar as you care about such things, that's not how it went down.

This alone seems to suggest I did need to say something.

And let's be honest, it wasn't just gonna be some rando: you two were going to (and might still!) do this whole song and dance again. Because, as I keep noting, there's obviously baggage here, and I can plainly see numerous points in the discussion where that contributed to the escalation. Where points of agreement or logical impasses were glossed over to keep the hate spice flowing.

To me, a "troll" is someone who says completely insincere things just to stir up trouble/get attention. To a lot of other people it appears to mean "someone who sometimes says things I find ridiculous." I don't think anyone in here has been a troll, by my standard, but I can't speak to whether I've called you one based on whatever standard you use for it.

I can certainly elaborate, but I think it's kind of crappy to publicly call someone out for every thing they could have done better, particularly as a mod. That's why what I initially posted (and what I usually initially post when wading into these kinds of things) was so generalized. Unfortunately quotes like the above, and the others where you take offense, kind of force me to be specific in order to answer you properly, and that too is an example of escalation.

You've said that Baldwin needed to do a safety check many times before. If you believe that fine. I don't believe he needed to do that.

Why don't you try to find some precedent or law or acting contracts that supports your position, otherwise it's just your opinion. We've all stated our opinions already.

I get that. However, what you "feel" is at odds with well-established and codified norms of safe gun handling which are derived from the collective years of experience of actual firearms users. I am not merely referring to what I believe to be true, but what people who handle these devices know to be true. These lessons have been learned the hard way. This wisdom is distilled from tragedy.

You keep digging for exculpatory information and slinging links to details (some clear, some foggy, some gossip) from the movie set to establish that Baldwin did nothing wrong. Why? My repeated question is why is it that Baldwin must be entirely exculpated? Why not admit even a scintilla of responsibility? I have not called for his head. I have not said he deserves to go to prison (unless and until more details emerge). I have argued that he is no worse (morally) than any of us who have driven a car negligently (referring to his role as actor, not producer). And yet, psychologically, someone is prevent your from agreeing with even this. Why?

Frankly, given your apparent ideas of personal responsibilities with a gun, I don't know that I would trust you with one, as you have rebuffed basic safety rules as mere opinion. This is dangerous. Anyone who follows your implicit advice (i.e., that you can outsource all personal responsibility for handling deadly weapons) might meet with a similar tragedy.

I have offered a detailed argument showing why Baldwin, to some extent, was in the wrong. I have shown how your new details are NOT exceptions to the rules of safe handling, but illustrations of them.

What you need to find are details that refute the 4 rules of safe handling. I can help you with this. For example, in a scene in which an actor must convincingly point a gun at another human being in a scene, Rule #2 by necessity will be broken. This means that the actor's job is to occasionally break Rule #2 of gun safety. There you go. A gift. A line of refutation that offers a line of refutation rather than more details confirming how Baldwin goofed up (repeatedly drawing and holstering a pistol, not knowing your condition of carry, is negligent AF). Make use of it as you will, but bear in mind I already have the counter-argument ready to go.

Don't take this the wrong way, but we're talking about matters of life and death, offering advice which could get people killed (this isn't a Jeremiad about mise-en-scene). This isn't, therefore, merely a matter of opinion, but requires careful attention. If you are to opine that Baldwin did absolutely nothing wrong, I will press you to prove it, because the question matters (there is already a corpse in this narrative).

Frankly, it is a little frustrating to be lectured from the armchair by people who have little to no understanding of the gun function, ballistics, or safe handling -- this is a bit like the man explaining to the woman what it is like to experience a menstrual cycle or having male doctors speculatively infer female need from male needs (e.g., seatbelts that tend to harm and kill women because of the default assumption of a male driver).

Just admit that Baldwin screwed up, even a little, and we can be done with this. However, insist that unsafe handling is righteous because of industry norms or because "actors only act!" or because of mindlessly practicing a cross-draw, or whatever, and I will continue to challenge you, because this is not only wrong, but dead wrong.

The yoke is light, it is nothing more than prudence pressed into procedural rules, and basic recognition of inherent moral responsibility in handling deadly force. Baldwin screwed up, but is no worse than the rest of us. Is that so hard to admit?

I have a feeling this wouldn’t be the case.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

Perhaps, but we could at least move on to the debate of his role as producer and how guns should be handled on sets. California has predictably taken the "blame the gun road" introducing legislation to make real guns illegal on movie sets. Then again, if you contemptuously play with guns for a living and cannot be bothered to learn safe handling (an actor's job is only to act, plebs!), then perhaps it would be better to restrict the industry to toy guns. Strange that we never blame the car (God bless Paul Walker), or existential fact that high explosives are used on sets, etc., however.

That sounds like an ultimatum...like you will set on this thread until everyone gives up or tells you you're right, is that what you're saying?...No one has the right to tell another person that they have to change their viewpoint.

There's no need for arguing and no need for anyone to 'win' or for anyone to capitulate their viewpoints. We could just discuss and when an impasse comes up, just move to another point of discussion.

Yeah, that would perhaps be better phrased as "I would be content/satisfied with any admission that Baldwin screwed up even a little." And that posture is in general the right one, I think: figuring out what level of agreement is "acceptable" and granting that anything beyond that is the kind of stuff reasonable people might disagree with. That's where I'm at, at least.

For the record, I actually come down way more on the side of him not being responsible (as an actor: the producer stuff is trickier, I think), but I acknowledge it's a tough question.

Of course not, eventually we'll all get bored with this and move on to the next shiny object. For now, however, I shall press you for justification, and I can only be dismissed by substantive confutation or capitulation. This is not an ultimatum. This is dialectical procedure.

Yes, they do. If your viewpoint is that it is OK to flagrantly play with a gun like a toy just so long as someone else claims that the weapon is safe, then your viewpoint is wrong. You are, in fact, wrong. This is bad. Please help me help you be less wrong on a detail that could get someone killed.

Not having the right to tell someone they are wrong about about literal life-and-death commitments is basically to deny rule of law, ethics, morality, and prudence. We're not doing aesthetics here. There are wrong answers here. Don't check a gun? Wrong. Point at gun at a person? Wrong. Put your booger hook on the happy switch when you aren't ready for "BANG"? Wrong. Not sure of your target or what is behind it? Wrong.

If you are to make arguments (and you are), you should be expected to be pressed for justification. This matter is serious, so yes, one of us is wrong. We may not resolve the matter, but this is a matter of life and death.

And again, why is it so hard to admit that that actor has ANY responsibility?

Paul Walker didn't die on a movie set, a crucial difference considering that we're discussing specific safety protocols of movie sets. And, btw, Walker's family did receive a large settlement from Porsche.

Also worth noting the "why don't we blame the car?" thing is somewhat at odds with the earlier distinctions you made about the purpose of the device in question. IE: a car is not meant to cause an accident, a gun is meant to injure, etc.

It may be a fair question to ask if someone does not/did not accept this distinction earlier in the thread, though, of course.

All true, but we never begin to think about banning cars as dangerous items.

And although this might sound rather prude, maybe we should? Are there more injuries on Hollywood sets than we know of? Listen to Hollywood interviews of actors and a shocking number of them have permanent injuries from filming, some quite severe, and these are the people who get the most safety consideration. I shudder think of the discarded pile of stunt workers. Does the industry have a dark side with safety? Probably not with guns (they seem to do quite well here), but overall? There is, at least, cause for concern. And now that we're moving to a Netflix model, are productions becoming looser?

This is true, but this point was only raised to indicate why an actor would not be expected to personally "pre-flight" a car, not to say that cars are not potentially dangerous. It is just that if a cars works as it is designed to work, no one dies. We check it to make sure that it will work as it is assumed to work. With a gun, we are checking to ensure that it does NOT work as it was designed to work (i.e., with a bullet traveling down a barrel).

We should also note that actors rarely drive their own cars in action scenes, because cars are dangerous when you drive them dangerously. They've got that big wagon rig that makes it look like they're driving and stunt drivers take the wheel for the tough stuff. Anything beyond the competence of an average driver goes to the stunt driver. Actors, however, regularly handle guns - they are the operators in this instance, so they either need a fake gun or gun training.

Also, a car is more complex, requiring more expertise, and would require much more time for an actor to check (e.g., the actor putting the car on a lift and inspecting disk brakes seems unlikely), whereas clearing a gun is something anyone can do.

We were nerds around a water cooler. Now we out in the weeds.

I've never been big on guns in movies because they've always gotten it wrong. It wasn't until the last decade that we started to see proper handling trickle across the medium. But even to this day I see bad examples in all sorts of new movies, which breaks the suspension of belief and teaches viewers improper handling.

But Hollywood loves guns as much as they say they don't.

But we do think about banning drivers as dangerous users.

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

Happens all the time! My roommate in the 90s lost his license for 4 years at one point...

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I might agree with you if I knew what this meant.