Alec Baldwin accidentally kills crew member with prop gun

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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.
I agree, but he is also responsible for personally handling of a deadly weapon.

You express a general principle that actors should always assume a gun is loaded,
The general principle is that people should do so. I do believe that actors are people, so they fall under this principle as well.

How far does this responsibility extend, in your mind?
It extends as far as putting the gun on half-cock, opening the loading gate, and turning the cylinder to confirm six empty chambers.

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?
Absolutely. If the gun has not been in your chain of custody, then you check 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?
Yes and yes.

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,
Are you sure? Are there no movie sets that have taught safe handling and had actors follow the same rules that apply to everyone else? That's quite an assumption, I think.

do you think that is a reasonable expectation of the actors?
Absolutely. This is no more or less than is required of anyone who handles a firearm.

This is not a trivial point.
No, it is not. And this is why you always check a gun that has been out of your possession and out of your sight.

This is exactly how movie sets likely run.
"Exactly" and "likely" are strange companions in this sentence, aren't they? The first suggests no doubt at all. The second admits that that we don't really know.

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.
It is entirely possible. It is also entirely irrelevant as discussed above. Baldwin should have taken even greater care if that is how the gun was handed to him, that should have been a taken as a red flag.

This seems to be something that you dismiss, saying that a gun can't fire without being cocked
Which is true. An SAO revolver cannot shoot unless the hammer is manually drawn backward.

or putting your finger on the trigger,
Also true. However, a cocked SAO has a very light trigger. And again, this is why you need to be very very cautious in approaching a revolver that has the hammer cocked back. That's a rattlesnake.

but there were accidental discharges,
Accidental discharges are exceedingly rare. The gun industry is an "industry" which cannot risk the liability of guns that do not function as they should. Much more common is what is called a "Negligent Discharge" (i.e., the gun did exactly what it was designed to do, but the user made a mistake). Our presumption, until evidence appear proving otherwise, is that these were negligent discharges. All the evidence I have hears so far is that there were negligent discharges (e.g., the inexperienced prop master/armorer).

so it seems like this may be possible,
Anything is possible at a conceptual level. The facts, however, indicate a picture in which what is probable is operator error.

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.
Sure.

I must confess that I find skizzlerflake's conjectures about foul play to have prima facie plausibility. Let me put it this way. It is much more likely that that gun was purposefully sabotaged than that it accidentally discharged all by itself. The incompetence is so glaring here, that we're either dealing with the criminally stupid or just plain criminal.

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.
It is not an assumption to say that one who handles a gun should know how to handle them safely. It is, rather, a responsibility. It is not a probability, but a duty. As for what he might know, it is hard to see how someone who is so hyper-aware of the danger of firearms and who has been handling these devices on sets since the 1980s(!) would not have been exposed to the 4 Rules and learned about the basic manual of arms. We're talking about many decades of handling. You would really have to suppose that Baldwin is a massive hypocrite or inept fool to assume otherwise.

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,
At this point in his career, Baldwin would be felony stupid to not know this.

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?
A real gun can be used as a prop, but that does not make it a prop gun. And Baldwin fired a real gun shooting a real bullet into a real person which is a real problem.

Most often a gun firing blanks is a "real" gun. A gun loaded with blanks is still a real gun and is still really dangerous to anyone within 20 feet of it. Baldwin has a professional responsibility to know this as a person who operates guns which fire blanks. There are some guns which do not fire bullets, but only blanks, but again, blanks are still dangerous. Then there are plastic guns, and rubber guns, and metal guns that are pure contrivances or which are deactivated.

And all of this is why there is all the more reason to check.

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?
Already answered upthread. Industry standards are subordinate to prudential and moral rules of safe-handling. Baldwin violated these rules.

I would not be surprised if many actors did not know that either, unless that is something they have been trained about.
And if Baldwin were a 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld on the set of True Grit, this would be a different story. But we're not talking about a child experiencing a film set for the first time. We're talking about a 63-year-old man with forty years of experience handling firearms on movie sets. This ain't his first rodeo and this ain't the first time he has ridden this bull. He is a grown man and the same rules that apply to you or me when we handle guns also apply to him.



Actors are not responsible for firearms. Period. They are only responsible for acting. Period. Case closed.



I think a lot of pointless arguing is happening around a simple failure to distinguish between gradations of overlapping responsibility. Saying an actor is "not responsible" for this can be true if it's taken to mean "not primarily or dispositively responsible," and I think as much has been admitted on all sides, but it's a much tougher case if you frame it as "do they bear any moral responsibility whatsoever?" In my experience, a lot of serious and important moral thinking is avoided by thinking in terms of what's normal or typical, and not what is optimal.

Of course, I realize people are not necessarily trying to steel man the opposing argument, which is why meaningful distinctions like this are sometimes being elided, in favor of needlessly ambiguous language allow for the most definitive-sounding declaration.



it's a much tougher case if you frame it as "do they bear any moral responsibility whatsoever?"
It seems to me that most of the discussion is centering on the idea of legal responsibility, and whether an actor failing to check if a weapon is loaded with live or blank rounds counts as essentially criminal negligence.

Moral responsibility almost varies by the person, I think.

Suppose an actor was doing a scene where they push another actor off of a cliff. The person they are pushing is in a rig. The person doing the pushing has a passing understanding of how a harness is correctly fastened, but the stunt coordinator tells both actors that the harness is correctly fastened and neither actor checks. The first actor then pushes the second actor off of the cliff/platform/whatever. The harness was NOT correctly fastened, and the second actor falls to his death or is seriously injured. Does the actor who pushed the other actor bear responsibility for the death/injury? Legally I would say no. But morally? If it were me, I'd agonize over both being the person who pushed them AND not having checked the rig.

In an example I gave earlier, an actor drives a supposedly safe car but the brakes/steering are faulty and they kill someone. While they bear no legal responsibility, I would probably also agonize if I were that actor and feel some sense of responsibility and guilt, despite the fact that having a mechanic double check all safety aspects of a car before ever driving it is the kind of request that would probably delay shooting and earn an actor a reputation of being overly-picky and difficult.

The fact that the gun was being used recreationally with live ammo AND that there was a table with a mix of blanks and live rounds is so disturbing. If you want to talk about moral failure in this case, I think that's where the focus should be. Like, that is a level of negligence I can't even comprehend. And, frankly, the people doing that junk are the people who ARE supposed to be the gun experts, and yet they either failed to unload a gun or mixed up blanks and live rounds. It seems kind of nuts that we are expecting more from an actor than from these "experts".



Alec Baldwin is one producer on the set of this so claimed accidental death
he even erased all photos of himself on that set on his instagram
a tactic move to avoid association with this blatant murder
even that yoda aids him!



It seems to me that most of the discussion is centering on the idea of legal responsibility, and whether an actor failing to check if a weapon is loaded with live or blank rounds counts as essentially criminal negligence.
Most of the conversation has orbited moral, prudential, and procedural responsibility (industry ethics vs. universal principles of safe handling).

Moral responsibility almost varies by the person, I think.
Well, this is a metaphysical stance. You're signalling an affinity for subjectivism, but where this is plausible for appetitive preferences (such as pizza toppings), it's a tougher sell when we're talking about behaviors that result in grave injury or death. I doubt, for example, that you would dismiss the seriousness of rape as something that varies from person to person.

Suppose an actor was doing a scene where they push another actor off of a cliff. The person they are pushing is in a rig. The person doing the pushing has a passing understanding of how a harness is correctly fastened, but the stunt coordinator tells both actors that the harness is correctly fastened and neither actor checks. The first actor then pushes the second actor off of the cliff/platform/whatever. The harness was NOT correctly fastened, and the second actor falls to his death or is seriously injured. Does the actor who pushed the other actor bear responsibility for the death/injury? Legally I would say no. But morally? If it were me, I'd agonize over both being the person who pushed them AND not having checked the rig.
We should note the disanology in this example.

First, safety harnesses are not deadly weapons. They do not kill people when they function as they are designed to function. And if an actor picks up a safety harness off a table and waves it around, no one is in immediate threat of death or severe injury if a finger slips.

Second, a safety harness is a passive device. It is always working while you wear it where a gun requires an operator to make it function. Once you're in the harness, the harness is working. The gun, on the other hand, will require manipulation to fire.

Third, actors do not attach safety harnesses to other actors. An actor who did have the job of attaching another actor to a safety harness (say a small production where a stuntman was also given an acting role), however, would indeed have a responsibility to make sure it was safe.

In an example I gave earlier, an actor drives a supposedly safe car but the brakes/steering are faulty and they kill someone.
Again, there is a disanalogy here. A gun functioning as it is designed to function will kill or injure someone if you pull the trigger. A car, however, comes from the factory with functioning brakes, and any reasonable person will assume that a car on the street or a set will have adequate brakes. There is no presumption that brakes don't work when you hop in a car. There is, however, a presumption that a gun is loaded, because (and again) a gun is a deadly weapon.

While they bear no legal responsibility,
That would depend upon the particulars of the case. Did the actor drive recklessly? Was the driver drunk? Did the actor do something she was instructed not to do?
The fact that the gun was being used recreationally with live ammo AND that there was a table with a mix of blanks and live rounds is so disturbing. If you want to talk about moral failure in this case, I think that's where the focus should be.
Focus? Sure. Complete exculpation of Baldwin? No. Indeed, the unreliability of people is why we have special rules for safe handling of firearms.

If someone commits, or arguably has committed, manslaughter, you can't just say, "Well, let's not focus on this, let's talk about the real problem." Baldwin took a gun in his hand. Baldwin pointed that gun in an unsafe direction. That gun discharged into a person, killing her. An SAO revolver requires two actions to fire once. You have to first cock the hammer and then pull the trigger.



It seems to me that most of the discussion is centering on the idea of legal responsibility, and whether an actor failing to check if a weapon is loaded with live or blank rounds counts as essentially criminal negligence.
We're reading the discussion very differently, then. There's clearly arguing about whether Baldwin deserves any blame whatsoever.

Moral responsibility almost varies by the person, I think.
Sure, and that's reasonable. But again, there seem to be arguments that suggesting Baldwin might have any responsibility is absurd, and is only being discussed as a form of political axe-grinding, even though the two are not mutually exclusive. I don't know Corax's motives, but I know questioning them is ad hominem and it's entirely possible they dislike Baldwin and have a point about his responsibility.

Suppose an actor was doing a scene where they push another actor off of a cliff. The person they are pushing is in a rig. The person doing the pushing has a passing understanding of how a harness is correctly fastened, but the stunt coordinator tells both actors that the harness is correctly fastened and neither actor checks. The first actor then pushes the second actor off of the cliff/platform/whatever. The harness was NOT correctly fastened, and the second actor falls to his death or is seriously injured. Does the actor who pushed the other actor bear responsibility for the death/injury? Legally I would say no. But morally? If it were me, I'd agonize over both being the person who pushed them AND not having checked the rig.
Same. Anyway, none of this is necessary to persuade me of the obvious nuance in this situation: I don't think it has any easy or clean answer, and obviously there is some point at which someone is not really able to check something technical (making sure a retractable knife retracts is something anyone can do, checking advanced rigging is not). I'm only pointing out that it's a reasonable question to ask.

It seems kind of nuts that we are expecting more from an actor than from these "experts".
Did anyone argue the he had "more" responsibility than the people in charge of the prop? Again, it seems to me the "sides" here are "Baldwin has some responsibility" versus "no he doesn't." And it also seems to me the latter position is maybe not a serious position in a vacuum but colored by prior interactions on other message boards.



Alec Baldwin is one producer on the set of this so claimed accidental death
he even erased all photos of himself on that set on his instagram
a tactic move to avoid association with this blatant murder
I don't really follow how this is a "tactic." Nothing's ever really gone on the Internet, and if I'd just been through that kind of trauma I might not want to think about it or have to even accidentally be reminded of it, either. If he even runs those accounts himself to begin with.

even that yoda aids him!
I did the who with the what now?



Again, it seems to me the "sides" here are "Baldwin has some responsibility" versus "no he doesn't." .
This is bull****, Yoda. No one has done this.



This is bull****, Yoda. No one has done this.
First off, take it easy. You (and to be fair, some others) have had many opportunities to escalate or deescalate the inherent tensions in this (and other) conversations, and so far the choice has been mostly to escalate, even when it clearly is not necessary.

Second, you responded very curtly and harshly to posts that, to my mind, made pretty much that exact argument, so I don't see how my summary is unreasonable. Unless, as I already noted, some historic baggage from some other site or past interaction is being brought to this exchange.



Second, you responded very curtly and harshly to posts that, to my mind, made pretty much that exact argument, so I don't see how my summary is unreasonable.
Cite a single post where someone has made the claim that either/or Baldwin is completely innocent or guilty. Otherwise your point is unreasonable.



I'm disappointed you didn't reply to anything else I said, since that all matters, too, and some of it is relevant and important to me (as a person and a moderator) even if you feel I've misrepresented you. And also because responding selectively is, as I'll explain below, part of the problem here.

Cite a single post where someone has made the claim that either/or Baldwin is completely innocent or guilty. Otherwise your point is unreasonable.
First, I must note the difference in connotation between "guilty" and "blame" or "innocent" and "blameless." There's a lot of terminology shifts going on that I think are being glossed over and contributing to the confusion.

Second, I'm pretty sure I know how this is going to go: I'm going to provide examples of strong implications which I imagine you will tell me are not you literally saying he's blameless, even though that's the most straightforward good-faith reading of what's being communicated. Examples like this:
"Actors are not held responsible for faulty harnesses or faulty cars or faulty landing pads, etc."

"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"

"he's always outsourced the responsibility for handling the camera that was filming or the lighting that was illuminating him"
The entire post that last line comes from is basically half a dozen sentences in a row that say some version of the same thing, too, with no real expression of the idea that there might be exceptions or nuance to consider.

What's more, these quotes were in several cases responses to posts which specifically address the issue of the nuance of responsibility, and even ask you outright about it!

In one Corax says "Why are you so desperate to establish that Baldwin has no blame in this?" This is a clear invitation to elaborate on your position and/or correct them that you do not, in fact, think this. Failing to offer that simple correction is itself odd, but substituting that correction for a laundry list of examples where actors are blameless is clearly at least trying to create the exact impression I got.



I'll be very clear for you, or anyone else who doesn't care to scroll back over the admittedly tedious posts.


I've qualified what I believe to be Baldwin's responsibility in this case to be, very specifically to his role as a producer, because I feel that this accident was primarily a result of poor production standards, an opinon strengthened by the links to those from the production who were in a position to know.


My objection to the responsibility of Baldwin, as an actor, has been well established, which is that the ultimate responsibility of the firearms that he was given belongs first and foremost to those with the professional designation and responsibility for ensuring the safety of those firearms.


Outside of these two issues, I don't see what any worth in both-sidesing any disagreement would have other a feeble gesture of diplomacy.



I think a lot of pointless arguing is happening around a simple failure to distinguish between gradations of overlapping responsibility. Saying an actor is "not responsible" for this can be true if it's taken to mean "not primarily or dispositively responsible," and I think as much has been admitted on all sides, but it's a much tougher case if you frame it as "do they bear any moral responsibility whatsoever?" In my experience, a lot of serious and important moral thinking is avoided by thinking in terms of what's normal or typical, and not what is optimal.

Of course, I realize people are not necessarily trying to steel man the opposing argument, which is why meaningful distinctions like this are sometimes being elided, in favor of needlessly ambiguous language allow for the most definitive-sounding declaration.

what the hell were your words above means by?
just, do get to the point! is Alec Baldwin a killer or not?!



I appreciate the clarification.

My objection to the responsibility of Baldwin, as an actor, has been well established, which is that the ultimate responsibility of the firearms that he was given belongs first and foremost to those with the professional designation and responsibility for ensuring the safety of those firearms.
I agree, but want to note the phrase "ultimate responsibility," since parsing that from just "responsibility" full stop is obviously the hard part, and the part about which reasonable people can disagree.

Outside of these two issues, I don't see what any worth in both-sidesing any disagreement would have other a feeble gesture of diplomacy.
Eh, I don't think gestures of diplomacy are useless, for the most part, but I wouldn't "both sides" anything just for the sake of it. I just don't think people are communicating properly, and if I'm being blunt, I think that's because people are sometimes replying for reasons other than the clear communication of ideas, as I alluded to earlier.



what the hell were your words above means by?
There's a couple hundred words there, so maybe you can help me out by narrowing it down. Which part would you like me to explain?

just, do get to the point! is Alec Baldwin a killer or not?!
Words matter. Does "killer" just mean "someone who took an action that led to death"? If so, then yes, he is. Does it mean something akin to "murderer"? If so, then no.

Also, I don't think you're entirely following the discussion here, since I've kinda been arguing that it's okay to consider him as having some responsibility, whereas you seem to think I'm apologizing for him or something, and seem to think any expression of nuance is wishy-washy, I guess.



just, do get to the point! is Alec Baldwin a killer or not?!
At this time, he appears to be no more a killer (as an actor on a set) than a person who ran someone over while fiddling with a set playlist on a road trip. Tragic and a fault of momentary inattention, but not malicious or intentional.

In terms of "moral luck" he does appear to be no worse than any of us on our worst day (or days) of driving.

In that sense, he is no more a killer than anyone who has ever done something stupid behind the wheel of a car that could've killed someone.

So, he is a "killer" in a sense that he has killed (and the way language works, if you kill once, you're in the category), but he is no more a "killer" than any of the rest of us (even though most if not all of us have never killed anyone).

He screwed up. And it might be manslaughter, but I could just as well be guilty of manslaughter for any of those times when I was not an adequately attentive driver.

The more interesting debate is between the rule of a make-believe industry and the rules that apply to the rest of us (in the real world). I guarantee that if someone (be it a good buddy, my daddy, a range officer, or Jesus) hands me a gun and promises it is empty and I shoot someone, killing them, that I am not getting a pass. I maintain, along with many others that safe-handling rules are universal. Others have a strong intuition to the contrary. This is interesting.

Of secondary interest is Baldwin's culpability as a producer, as he was wearing more than one hat on the set. Is Baldwin the actor more at fault? Is Baldwin the producer more at fault? Does responsibility not accumulate given that it is same person? Where is Baldwin the man, the agent, in all this?



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
Alec Baldwin is one producer on the set of this so claimed accidental death
he even erased all photos of himself on that set on his instagram
a tactic move to avoid association with this blatant murder
even that yoda aids him!

i posted these words
you talk about responsibility of an actor
get real!
a killer is a person who no necessarily pulls the trigger but ordered the specialists on safety use of weapons be removed and ordered
to begin work disregarding all potential dangers of death
who is the boss there?
get real!



Sure, and that's reasonable. But again, there seem to be arguments that suggesting Baldwin might have any responsibility is absurd, and is only being discussed as a form of political axe-grinding, even though the two are not mutually exclusive.
What I see from most posters are these points:

1) The responsibility of making sure that a weapon on a film set is safe to use falls on the person whose literal job is making sure that a weapon on a film set is safe to use.

2) It is unclear to many of us the type of safety training received by the actors and whether or not it would be appropriate for an actor to open a prepped weapon OR if an actor would be able to distinguish if a gun had been incorrectly loaded. My personal understanding of the difference between a blank and a live round is that they look different at the tip. It's unclear to me if you could tell the difference without actually removing the round. This is compounded if the weapon is historical.

3) Baldwin was working on this film in two capacities: as an actor and as a producer. Many of us (going back to point #1) believe that the safety surrounding props is a responsibility that falls on the people who prepare and provide those props, not on the actor. I mean, the assistant director who handed Baldwin the gun didn't check it either, apparently. But if Baldwin as a producer was aware of safety issues and went into the scene knowing that there had been misfires OR if he was one of the voices urging a faster shooting schedule at the expense of proper safety procedures and a qualified crew, then he has responsibility for creating an unsafe working environment.

Did anyone argue the he had "more" responsibility than the people in charge of the prop? Again, it seems to me the "sides" here are "Baldwin has some responsibility" versus "no he doesn't." And it also seems to me the latter position is maybe not a serious position in a vacuum but colored by prior interactions on other message boards.
I feel that there has been more emphasis on him not following "the rules" (and I again question how those rules apply in the very special context of a film set) than on the gross negligence of the prop person.

I honestly do not believe that Baldwin (the actor) bears responsibility here. At all. I say again that if he had opened a weapon and/or loaded then unloaded a weapon and then there was an accident/injury, people would be eating him alive. The director and the DP were going to let him point the gun in the direction of a camera person, and they did not check the gun. I go back to my lug nuts argument. I know someone who got her tires rotated and the place didn't tighten them correctly. While she was on the interstate several of the lug nuts came off. Is that on her or is that on the mechanic? (It only takes 3 minutes with a tire iron to see if they are on properly).

If Baldwin (the actor) bears any responsibility, I think that he shares it equally with the person who handed him the weapon and anyone else who was going to allow that gun to be pointed in the direction of anyone or anything.



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
Alec Baldwin is one producer on the set of this so claimed accidental death
he even erased all photos of himself on that set on his instagram
a tactic move to avoid association with this blatant murder
even that yoda aids him!

i posted these words
you talk about responsibility of an actor
get real!
a killer is a person who no necessarily pulls the trigger but ordered the specialists on safety use of weapons be removed and ordered
to begin work disregarding all potential dangers of death
who is the boss there?
get real!
There are obviously things that may come to light that would make Baldwin very responsible indeed, but...and this is crucial...they have no actually come to light yet. You can't simply speculate that the worst possible thing will come out in order to render your judgement in advance.

Even so, it seems obvious to me that, barring an almost cartoonish level of negligence in his role as producer (and "producer" is not a synonym for "king," by the way), there would still be some nuance about how much blame someone incurs for being reckless. There are responsible and irresponsible ways to cut corners. It's also possible to be reckless out of ignorance, which makes the calculation harder still. We agree that there are points at which the culpability can be very close to murder, but it would do you well to acknowledge that there are also points at which it's not, or at least at which the question is difficult (if it can be answered at all).

And, again, it's kinda weird that you'd pick me as the emblem to go after here, as if I were anywhere near the most apologetic towards Baldwin in this thread. My entry into it was literally to argue that considering his blame is reasonable. I guess you just jumped into the middle of the thread, saw that incredibly modest suggestion of nuance, and just decided to reply without reading anything else.