Alec Baldwin fatally shot someone on movie set with gun mishap

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope Baldwin also gets found guilty and sentenced, but I know he won't. He always gets off clean.

I have no love for Baldwin but there is no way I would hold an actor responsible for firing a gun that was supposed to be empty of live ammo, or throwing a dummy grenade that turned out to be real, or stabbing someone with a blade that was supposed to retract. This was a movie set and Hall or the armorer handed him a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to fire. The jury will not convict him.

I agree. And I think he pulled the trigger because he didn’t think it was loaded. It was not supposed to be. (I know he says he didn’t pull the trigger).

Every gun is a loaded gun until you verify otherwise. Any responsible gun owners on the jury, and he's toast if that's the defense

I don’t think actors should be responsible for safety of props. Bur anyone who was responsible for prop safety, or for hiring the people responsible for pop safest should be held accountable. He may be liable as producer, but not actor.
But there needs to be a trial to make these determinations.

Then the answer is not to use guns as props. Guns are deadly weapons. If you don't want to be responsible for guns, then just a fake gun, as most movie sets do. But Alec insisted that this particular gun be used, so he is responsible for the decision to have a gun on set.

Imagine I'm an airline pilot and I explain that it's okay for me not to use all the required safety protocols because planes now are basically drones that fly themselves. I'm just here for the captain hat and the view. Safety is on other people, like the plane manufacturer and the mechanics. Because airplanes are capable of flying themselves- I'm just there because it needs a captain. It's up to the plane to fly itself and the mechanics to ensure that it does. So it's not my fault for not doing the safety things. It's the mechanics fault for not doing their job that makes sure I don't have to do my job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope Baldwin also gets found guilty and sentenced, but I know he won't. He always gets off clean.

I have no love for Baldwin but there is no way I would hold an actor responsible for firing a gun that was supposed to be empty of live ammo, or throwing a dummy grenade that turned out to be real, or stabbing someone with a blade that was supposed to retract. This was a movie set and Hall or the armorer handed him a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to fire. The jury will not convict him.

I agree. And I think he pulled the trigger because he didn’t think it was loaded. It was not supposed to be. (I know he says he didn’t pull the trigger).

Every gun is a loaded gun until you verify otherwise. Any responsible gun owners on the jury, and he's toast if that's the defense

Hundreds of pages on this and you all still don’t get it. It’s not the actor’s responsibility to do this - the actor may or may not know ANYTHING about guns. When an actor on a set is handed a gun it’s not different than being handed any other prop. It was the armorer’s responsibility to make sure that the gun was safe and the armorer was just found guilty of not doing that. Baldwin may have civil liability as one of the many producers of the movie that hired this recklessly incompetent armorer, but he should not be criminally responsible.

Multiple people can be responsible. It's going to take a hell of a defense attorney to convince a New Mexico jury that Hollywood safety rules should supersede the one rule anyone who has shot a gun has been taught from the time they first handled a firearm be it hunting, range shooting, police or military.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope Baldwin also gets found guilty and sentenced, but I know he won't. He always gets off clean.

I have no love for Baldwin but there is no way I would hold an actor responsible for firing a gun that was supposed to be empty of live ammo, or throwing a dummy grenade that turned out to be real, or stabbing someone with a blade that was supposed to retract. This was a movie set and Hall or the armorer handed him a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to fire. The jury will not convict him.

I agree. And I think he pulled the trigger because he didn’t think it was loaded. It was not supposed to be. (I know he says he didn’t pull the trigger).

Every gun is a loaded gun until you verify otherwise. Any responsible gun owners on the jury, and he's toast if that's the defense

Hundreds of pages on this and you all still don’t get it. It’s not the actor’s responsibility to do this - the actor may or may not know ANYTHING about guns. When an actor on a set is handed a gun it’s not different than being handed any other prop. It was the armorer’s responsibility to make sure that the gun was safe and the armorer was just found guilty of not doing that. Baldwin may have civil liability as one of the many producers of the movie that hired this recklessly incompetent armorer, but he should not be criminally responsible.

The reason people don't "get it" is that it's not true. Movie sets are not some kind of magical exclusionary zone where people can ignore basic safety. People who work in the film industry deserve the same safety protocols as people in any other industry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope Baldwin also gets found guilty and sentenced, but I know he won't. He always gets off clean.

I have no love for Baldwin but there is no way I would hold an actor responsible for firing a gun that was supposed to be empty of live ammo, or throwing a dummy grenade that turned out to be real, or stabbing someone with a blade that was supposed to retract. This was a movie set and Hall or the armorer handed him a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to fire. The jury will not convict him.

I agree. And I think he pulled the trigger because he didn’t think it was loaded. It was not supposed to be. (I know he says he didn’t pull the trigger).

Every gun is a loaded gun until you verify otherwise. Any responsible gun owners on the jury, and he's toast if that's the defense

Hundreds of pages on this and you all still don’t get it. It’s not the actor’s responsibility to do this - the actor may or may not know ANYTHING about guns. When an actor on a set is handed a gun it’s not different than being handed any other prop. It was the armorer’s responsibility to make sure that the gun was safe and the armorer was just found guilty of not doing that. Baldwin may have civil liability as one of the many producers of the movie that hired this recklessly incompetent armorer, but he should not be criminally responsible.

Multiple people can be responsible. It's going to take a hell of a defense attorney to convince a New Mexico jury that Hollywood safety rules should supersede the one rule anyone who has shot a gun has been taught from the time they first handled a firearm be it hunting, range shooting, police or military.

You mean that A list actors CAN'T do anything they want, up to and including killing the crew by their wreckless negligence? The injustice!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Am I the only one who kind of feels bad for this girl?

Not excusing irresponsibility and of course it’s tragic that the woman died as a result. But she seemed totally unqualified for the role and someone should’ve known better than to hire her. It would be like picking up a random receptionist at a medical facility and putting them in charge of brain surgery.

She’s so young (or was at the time) and will have to live with this for the rest of her life…

Her father (too lazy to look up his name) is a well-known movie set armorer/expert. I believe this was nepotism at its very worst; supposedly she was trained by her father and thus her name alone likely got her hired. I also think this was her first jobs.

Her father is Thell Reed. He was an absentee father and Hannah only hyphenated his last name when she started working. I wouldn't be surprised if he had never trained her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope Baldwin also gets found guilty and sentenced, but I know he won't. He always gets off clean.

I have no love for Baldwin but there is no way I would hold an actor responsible for firing a gun that was supposed to be empty of live ammo, or throwing a dummy grenade that turned out to be real, or stabbing someone with a blade that was supposed to retract. This was a movie set and Hall or the armorer handed him a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to fire. The jury will not convict him.

I agree. And I think he pulled the trigger because he didn’t think it was loaded. It was not supposed to be. (I know he says he didn’t pull the trigger).

It’s irrelevant whether he said he did or not. He thought the gun had blanks.

That's one of the reasons you're supposed to check. Rule #1 of gun safety is to always assume the gun is loaded with live rounds. The implied task is to prove otherwise. If he had checked the chamber and inspected the rounds, as gun safety rules require, he may have noticed the live rounds.

Where I have trouble is understanding why it's totally fine for Alec to disregard these rules. And per the testimony, he openly ignored the gun safety briefing- sat around texting etc. And he was a producer, so he was in part responsible for the overall safety of the set.

This wasn't even the first negligent discharge on the set. Most of the crew walked off the set the day prior, and their letter makes a reference to the lack of gun safety. Again, Alec was a producer. Even if he were just an actor on set, he would know he's on an unsafe set with at least one previous instance of a negligent discharge. Under the circumstances, ignoring his responsibility to check the weapon, not aim it at people, etc, is even more difficult to understand.

He did check - he was told by the responsible person that it wasn't loaded with live bullets and he relied on that (so did the people who were shot, fwiw). You're saying he should have looked himself - but to an untrained eye, blanks don't look different from live bullets so that wouldn't have helped.

Hundreds of pages of people not listening to anyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope Baldwin also gets found guilty and sentenced, but I know he won't. He always gets off clean.

I have no love for Baldwin but there is no way I would hold an actor responsible for firing a gun that was supposed to be empty of live ammo, or throwing a dummy grenade that turned out to be real, or stabbing someone with a blade that was supposed to retract. This was a movie set and Hall or the armorer handed him a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to fire. The jury will not convict him.

I agree. And I think he pulled the trigger because he didn’t think it was loaded. It was not supposed to be. (I know he says he didn’t pull the trigger).

Every gun is a loaded gun until you verify otherwise. Any responsible gun owners on the jury, and he's toast if that's the defense

Hundreds of pages on this and you all still don’t get it. It’s not the actor’s responsibility to do this - the actor may or may not know ANYTHING about guns. When an actor on a set is handed a gun it’s not different than being handed any other prop. It was the armorer’s responsibility to make sure that the gun was safe and the armorer was just found guilty of not doing that. Baldwin may have civil liability as one of the many producers of the movie that hired this recklessly incompetent armorer, but he should not be criminally responsible.

Multiple people can be responsible. It's going to take a hell of a defense attorney to convince a New Mexico jury that Hollywood safety rules should supersede the one rule anyone who has shot a gun has been taught from the time they first handled a firearm be it hunting, range shooting, police or military.

You mean that A list actors CAN'T do anything they want, up to and including killing the crew by their wreckless negligence? The injustice!

There are lots of things that actors can't do.

Relying on the word of the experts? That's something that actors can and should do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope Baldwin also gets found guilty and sentenced, but I know he won't. He always gets off clean.

I have no love for Baldwin but there is no way I would hold an actor responsible for firing a gun that was supposed to be empty of live ammo, or throwing a dummy grenade that turned out to be real, or stabbing someone with a blade that was supposed to retract. This was a movie set and Hall or the armorer handed him a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to fire. The jury will not convict him.

I agree. And I think he pulled the trigger because he didn’t think it was loaded. It was not supposed to be. (I know he says he didn’t pull the trigger).

Every gun is a loaded gun until you verify otherwise. Any responsible gun owners on the jury, and he's toast if that's the defense

Hundreds of pages on this and you all still don’t get it. It’s not the actor’s responsibility to do this - the actor may or may not know ANYTHING about guns. When an actor on a set is handed a gun it’s not different than being handed any other prop. It was the armorer’s responsibility to make sure that the gun was safe and the armorer was just found guilty of not doing that. Baldwin may have civil liability as one of the many producers of the movie that hired this recklessly incompetent armorer, but he should not be criminally responsible.

Multiple people can be responsible. It's going to take a hell of a defense attorney to convince a New Mexico jury that Hollywood safety rules should supersede the one rule anyone who has shot a gun has been taught from the time they first handled a firearm be it hunting, range shooting, police or military.

You mean that A list actors CAN'T do anything they want, up to and including killing the crew by their wreckless negligence? The injustice!

There are lots of things that actors can't do.

Relying on the word of the experts? That's something that actors can and should do.

It seems like that is going to be a question for a jury. In no other circumstance can you rely on being told a gun is unloaded. A jury gets to decide if actors are special

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope Baldwin also gets found guilty and sentenced, but I know he won't. He always gets off clean.

I have no love for Baldwin but there is no way I would hold an actor responsible for firing a gun that was supposed to be empty of live ammo, or throwing a dummy grenade that turned out to be real, or stabbing someone with a blade that was supposed to retract. This was a movie set and Hall or the armorer handed him a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to fire. The jury will not convict him.

I agree. And I think he pulled the trigger because he didn’t think it was loaded. It was not supposed to be. (I know he says he didn’t pull the trigger).

Every gun is a loaded gun until you verify otherwise. Any responsible gun owners on the jury, and he's toast if that's the defense

Hundreds of pages on this and you all still don’t get it. It’s not the actor’s responsibility to do this - the actor may or may not know ANYTHING about guns. When an actor on a set is handed a gun it’s not different than being handed any other prop. It was the armorer’s responsibility to make sure that the gun was safe and the armorer was just found guilty of not doing that. Baldwin may have civil liability as one of the many producers of the movie that hired this recklessly incompetent armorer, but he should not be criminally responsible.

The reason people don't "get it" is that it's not true. Movie sets are not some kind of magical exclusionary zone where people can ignore basic safety. People who work in the film industry deserve the same safety protocols as people in any other industry.

Well, sets are a magical exclusionary zone where live bullets are prohibited. So whether Baldwin visually checked his gun or not, he could confidently know that there would never ever be live bullets in the prop gun.

The fact that there were live bullets on the set explains why the armorer (who brought them onto the set and then lost track of them and then failed to check the prop gun) was charged and convicted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope Baldwin also gets found guilty and sentenced, but I know he won't. He always gets off clean.

I have no love for Baldwin but there is no way I would hold an actor responsible for firing a gun that was supposed to be empty of live ammo, or throwing a dummy grenade that turned out to be real, or stabbing someone with a blade that was supposed to retract. This was a movie set and Hall or the armorer handed him a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to fire. The jury will not convict him.

I agree. And I think he pulled the trigger because he didn’t think it was loaded. It was not supposed to be. (I know he says he didn’t pull the trigger).

Every gun is a loaded gun until you verify otherwise. Any responsible gun owners on the jury, and he's toast if that's the defense

Hundreds of pages on this and you all still don’t get it. It’s not the actor’s responsibility to do this - the actor may or may not know ANYTHING about guns. When an actor on a set is handed a gun it’s not different than being handed any other prop. It was the armorer’s responsibility to make sure that the gun was safe and the armorer was just found guilty of not doing that. Baldwin may have civil liability as one of the many producers of the movie that hired this recklessly incompetent armorer, but he should not be criminally responsible.

Multiple people can be responsible. It's going to take a hell of a defense attorney to convince a New Mexico jury that Hollywood safety rules should supersede the one rule anyone who has shot a gun has been taught from the time they first handled a firearm be it hunting, range shooting, police or military.

You mean that A list actors CAN'T do anything they want, up to and including killing the crew by their wreckless negligence? The injustice!

There are lots of things that actors can't do.

Relying on the word of the experts? That's something that actors can and should do.

It seems like that is going to be a question for a jury. In no other circumstance can you rely on being told a gun is unloaded. A jury gets to decide if actors are special

You realize that everyone relied on that word, including the people who put themselves directly in front of the gun? Can you imagine why that might be so?

They weren't trusting Alec Baldwin's gun expertise. They were trusting the expert's gun expertise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope Baldwin also gets found guilty and sentenced, but I know he won't. He always gets off clean.

I have no love for Baldwin but there is no way I would hold an actor responsible for firing a gun that was supposed to be empty of live ammo, or throwing a dummy grenade that turned out to be real, or stabbing someone with a blade that was supposed to retract. This was a movie set and Hall or the armorer handed him a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to fire. The jury will not convict him.

I agree. And I think he pulled the trigger because he didn’t think it was loaded. It was not supposed to be. (I know he says he didn’t pull the trigger).

Every gun is a loaded gun until you verify otherwise. Any responsible gun owners on the jury, and he's toast if that's the defense

Hundreds of pages on this and you all still don’t get it. It’s not the actor’s responsibility to do this - the actor may or may not know ANYTHING about guns. When an actor on a set is handed a gun it’s not different than being handed any other prop. It was the armorer’s responsibility to make sure that the gun was safe and the armorer was just found guilty of not doing that. Baldwin may have civil liability as one of the many producers of the movie that hired this recklessly incompetent armorer, but he should not be criminally responsible.

The reason people don't "get it" is that it's not true. Movie sets are not some kind of magical exclusionary zone where people can ignore basic safety. People who work in the film industry deserve the same safety protocols as people in any other industry.

Do other industries that use guns have a requirement that there always be a professional whose sole job is to make sure the guns are safe, and you only touch the gun if they hand it to you after they check it?

Because, to me that's a reasonable requirement for Hollywood, but it isn't the requirement for my family member who carries a gun at work. So, saying "well they should follow the same rules" doesn't make sense to me, since Hollywood's rules are equally or more stringent, and designed for their specific situation.

I think the million dollar question here is whether there's evidence that Baldwin knew that the armorer hadn't been following the rules before he accepted the gun. If he saw the people playing around with guns, or heard the gunshots, or otherwise knew that the rules weren't being followed, then he had a responsibility to stop production, raise the concerns, and refuse to continue till they were addressed. The New Mexico definition of Involuntary Manslaughter includes situations where someone doesn't exercise "due care", and I would think that continuing production when the armorer is not doing their job is not exercising "due care".

On the other hand if he didn't know that she wasn't doing her job, then I think that normally someone who handles a gun handed to him by a professional who tells him that it has been checked and is safe to use is exercising due care, just as much as my family member is exercising due care when he takes his gun out of a safe where he put it, and whose access he has protected, and checks it himself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope Baldwin also gets found guilty and sentenced, but I know he won't. He always gets off clean.

I have no love for Baldwin but there is no way I would hold an actor responsible for firing a gun that was supposed to be empty of live ammo, or throwing a dummy grenade that turned out to be real, or stabbing someone with a blade that was supposed to retract. This was a movie set and Hall or the armorer handed him a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to fire. The jury will not convict him.

I agree. And I think he pulled the trigger because he didn’t think it was loaded. It was not supposed to be. (I know he says he didn’t pull the trigger).

It’s irrelevant whether he said he did or not. He thought the gun had blanks.

That's one of the reasons you're supposed to check. Rule #1 of gun safety is to always assume the gun is loaded with live rounds. The implied task is to prove otherwise. If he had checked the chamber and inspected the rounds, as gun safety rules require, he may have noticed the live rounds.

Where I have trouble is understanding why it's totally fine for Alec to disregard these rules. And per the testimony, he openly ignored the gun safety briefing- sat around texting etc. And he was a producer, so he was in part responsible for the overall safety of the set.

This wasn't even the first negligent discharge on the set. Most of the crew walked off the set the day prior, and their letter makes a reference to the lack of gun safety. Again, Alec was a producer. Even if he were just an actor on set, he would know he's on an unsafe set with at least one previous instance of a negligent discharge. Under the circumstances, ignoring his responsibility to check the weapon, not aim it at people, etc, is even more difficult to understand.

He did check - he was told by the responsible person that it wasn't loaded with live bullets and he relied on that (so did the people who were shot, fwiw). You're saying he should have looked himself - but to an untrained eye, blanks don't look different from live bullets so that wouldn't have helped.

Hundreds of pages of people not listening to anyone else.

I'm not listening to you because you're wrong. If Alec had paid attention during training instead of taking phone calls, he wouldn't have an untrained eye.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope Baldwin also gets found guilty and sentenced, but I know he won't. He always gets off clean.

I have no love for Baldwin but there is no way I would hold an actor responsible for firing a gun that was supposed to be empty of live ammo, or throwing a dummy grenade that turned out to be real, or stabbing someone with a blade that was supposed to retract. This was a movie set and Hall or the armorer handed him a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to fire. The jury will not convict him.

I agree. And I think he pulled the trigger because he didn’t think it was loaded. It was not supposed to be. (I know he says he didn’t pull the trigger).

Every gun is a loaded gun until you verify otherwise. Any responsible gun owners on the jury, and he's toast if that's the defense

Hundreds of pages on this and you all still don’t get it. It’s not the actor’s responsibility to do this - the actor may or may not know ANYTHING about guns. When an actor on a set is handed a gun it’s not different than being handed any other prop. It was the armorer’s responsibility to make sure that the gun was safe and the armorer was just found guilty of not doing that. Baldwin may have civil liability as one of the many producers of the movie that hired this recklessly incompetent armorer, but he should not be criminally responsible.

The reason people don't "get it" is that it's not true. Movie sets are not some kind of magical exclusionary zone where people can ignore basic safety. People who work in the film industry deserve the same safety protocols as people in any other industry.

Do other industries that use guns have a requirement that there always be a professional whose sole job is to make sure the guns are safe, and you only touch the gun if they hand it to you after they check it?

Because, to me that's a reasonable requirement for Hollywood, but it isn't the requirement for my family member who carries a gun at work. So, saying "well they should follow the same rules" doesn't make sense to me, since Hollywood's rules are equally or more stringent, and designed for their specific situation.

I think the million dollar question here is whether there's evidence that Baldwin knew that the armorer hadn't been following the rules before he accepted the gun. If he saw the people playing around with guns, or heard the gunshots, or otherwise knew that the rules weren't being followed, then he had a responsibility to stop production, raise the concerns, and refuse to continue till they were addressed. The New Mexico definition of Involuntary Manslaughter includes situations where someone doesn't exercise "due care", and I would think that continuing production when the armorer is not doing their job is not exercising "due care".

On the other hand if he didn't know that she wasn't doing her job, then I think that normally someone who handles a gun handed to him by a professional who tells him that it has been checked and is safe to use is exercising due care, just as much as my family member is exercising due care when he takes his gun out of a safe where he put it, and whose access he has protected, and checks it himself.

Generally, yes, when guns are used it is standard to have an armorer. This isn't a unique Hollywood thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope Baldwin also gets found guilty and sentenced, but I know he won't. He always gets off clean.

I have no love for Baldwin but there is no way I would hold an actor responsible for firing a gun that was supposed to be empty of live ammo, or throwing a dummy grenade that turned out to be real, or stabbing someone with a blade that was supposed to retract. This was a movie set and Hall or the armorer handed him a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to fire. The jury will not convict him.

I agree. And I think he pulled the trigger because he didn’t think it was loaded. It was not supposed to be. (I know he says he didn’t pull the trigger).

Every gun is a loaded gun until you verify otherwise. Any responsible gun owners on the jury, and he's toast if that's the defense

Hundreds of pages on this and you all still don’t get it. It’s not the actor’s responsibility to do this - the actor may or may not know ANYTHING about guns. When an actor on a set is handed a gun it’s not different than being handed any other prop. It was the armorer’s responsibility to make sure that the gun was safe and the armorer was just found guilty of not doing that. Baldwin may have civil liability as one of the many producers of the movie that hired this recklessly incompetent armorer, but he should not be criminally responsible.

Multiple people can be responsible. It's going to take a hell of a defense attorney to convince a New Mexico jury that Hollywood safety rules should supersede the one rule anyone who has shot a gun has been taught from the time they first handled a firearm be it hunting, range shooting, police or military.

You mean that A list actors CAN'T do anything they want, up to and including killing the crew by their wreckless negligence? The injustice!

There are lots of things that actors can't do.

Relying on the word of the experts? That's something that actors can and should do.

The word of the "expert" on set included a set of safety protocols that included each person inspecting the weapon upon receipt. So it doesn't sound like he relied on that expertise at all.

Alec is an adult. An old adult, so he's been an adult for a very long time. Other well known actors, including George Clooney (who has a career similar to Alec's) have disputed Alec's assertion that actors bear no obligations with regard to gun safety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope Baldwin also gets found guilty and sentenced, but I know he won't. He always gets off clean.

I have no love for Baldwin but there is no way I would hold an actor responsible for firing a gun that was supposed to be empty of live ammo, or throwing a dummy grenade that turned out to be real, or stabbing someone with a blade that was supposed to retract. This was a movie set and Hall or the armorer handed him a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to fire. The jury will not convict him.

I agree. And I think he pulled the trigger because he didn’t think it was loaded. It was not supposed to be. (I know he says he didn’t pull the trigger).

Every gun is a loaded gun until you verify otherwise. Any responsible gun owners on the jury, and he's toast if that's the defense

Hundreds of pages on this and you all still don’t get it. It’s not the actor’s responsibility to do this - the actor may or may not know ANYTHING about guns. When an actor on a set is handed a gun it’s not different than being handed any other prop. It was the armorer’s responsibility to make sure that the gun was safe and the armorer was just found guilty of not doing that. Baldwin may have civil liability as one of the many producers of the movie that hired this recklessly incompetent armorer, but he should not be criminally responsible.

The reason people don't "get it" is that it's not true. Movie sets are not some kind of magical exclusionary zone where people can ignore basic safety. People who work in the film industry deserve the same safety protocols as people in any other industry.

Do other industries that use guns have a requirement that there always be a professional whose sole job is to make sure the guns are safe, and you only touch the gun if they hand it to you after they check it?

Because, to me that's a reasonable requirement for Hollywood, but it isn't the requirement for my family member who carries a gun at work. So, saying "well they should follow the same rules" doesn't make sense to me, since Hollywood's rules are equally or more stringent, and designed for their specific situation.

I think the million dollar question here is whether there's evidence that Baldwin knew that the armorer hadn't been following the rules before he accepted the gun. If he saw the people playing around with guns, or heard the gunshots, or otherwise knew that the rules weren't being followed, then he had a responsibility to stop production, raise the concerns, and refuse to continue till they were addressed. The New Mexico definition of Involuntary Manslaughter includes situations where someone doesn't exercise "due care", and I would think that continuing production when the armorer is not doing their job is not exercising "due care".

On the other hand if he didn't know that she wasn't doing her job, then I think that normally someone who handles a gun handed to him by a professional who tells him that it has been checked and is safe to use is exercising due care, just as much as my family member is exercising due care when he takes his gun out of a safe where he put it, and whose access he has protected, and checks it himself.

Every range has a range master and the expectation is still on the person handling the weapon to verify that it is loaded or unloaded. The most basic gun safety rule is that every gun is loaded until you personally verify that it isn't. In gun safety classes, there are no exceptions to that rule. It will be up to Baldwin to convince a jury that hollywood is special