I’m not super up to date with the situation—Why is it that it happened in 2021 (from what I can find) and there’s a bunch of people talking about it right now?
The trial started this week so it’s somewhat topical. But there are no time limits for posts here. If you’d like that rule to change, please comment in the stickied post with your reasoning and suggestion for what the limit should be. Thanks.
Amongst all the huhbub and finger pointing, the actual first rule of guns is always check that the gun is loaded.
You check the chamber and you check the ammo.
At no point should there ever be live ammo on a movie shoot. Whether that Baldwin’s fault for hiring a shitty armorer, I don’t know. But there where many failures up and down the line. If the assistant director was also supposed to check, they also failed.
But at the end of the line, Alec Baldwin picked up the gun and didn’t or couldn’t identify that the gun was loaded with live ammunition and pulled the trigger while it was pointed at someone. And that person died.
You check the chamber and you check the ammo.
So actors, who aren’t experts, should be disassembling and unloading/loading the guns they’re using, after the armorer has declared the gun safe? Is that what you think will make this safer?
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“Well, George, the casting crew has gotten back to us. Your unique drawl, your frazzled look in an unshaven state, the way you delivered those lines - everything is perfect! You’re the new star actor this studio has been looking for, and perfect to play the villain of our upcoming serial!”
“Well, that’s incredible!”
“Unfortunately, since the character in question holds a gun in two scenes of the series, and you got 2 questions wrong on the firearms exam, we’re going to have to turn you down. We take safety very seriously.”
“Couldn’t…someone else just check weapons for me?”
“They could, but that might involve relying on another person for tasks they’re more suited for, and last I checked, this wasn’t Communismerica.”I know nothing about guns. I’ve never shot a gun. If I looked at a gun and was even able to figure out how to look in the chamber without killing myself or someone else, I wouldn’t know if the ammunition was live or a blank. And they use blanks all the time in movies.
Why expect Alec Baldwin to know about guns?
He’s at fault for hiring the armorer, not firing the gun.
Look I don’t know shit about acting or movie sets or armorer’s or any of that shit but…
I’m going to give my opinion anyway.
Same rules as climbing. Check your own gear, and check your partner’s gear.
The armorer can unload, check, and reload the gun in front of the actor. Then the actor can unload, check, and reload the gun under the training and supervisions if the armorer. Any actor seeking to hold a real gun should also need independent, verified training that comes from outside the studio. We don’t let actors fly planes or perform surgery to make the shot slightly more realistic unless they have valid training, why should guns be any different?
There is also no valid reason (cost is not a valid reason) for why there would be a real bullet that fits in a real gun (the lead projectile part) anywhere on set. Even if you need a shot with one, don’t make it out of metal or anything strong enough to survive the blank going off.
Whoeve loaded the gun is partially responsible. Alec Baldwin the producer is the most responsible. And Alec Baldwin the actor is partially responsible.
There is also no valid reason (cost is not a valid reason) for why there would be a real bullet that fits in a real gun (the lead projectile part) anywhere on set.
There is a valid reason: you can get a realistic kick back from firing a real bullet compared to a blank. There is a safe way to do those kinds of stunts, but the accident here happened because things weren’t done safely.
You can crash a car by being unsafe; you wouldn’t get a bunch of people up in arms saying “There is also no valid reason (cost is not a valid reason) for why there would be a real car that fits in a real lane (the space between the white painted lines) anywhere on the road”
They are actors. They can act. Movies break verisimilitude in countless other ways (many of them much stupider).
If the actor were driving the car directly at someone on the road without a license or any driving training or experience then you might have a point with the second part.
Yes, if you’re a rock climber.
If you’re an actor doing a rock climbing scene in a movie, you don’t know how the gear should be set up. You rely on the crew and rock climbing expert on set to check your gear. If you check or modify the gear to test it in some way, you may inadvertently make it unsafe because you don’t know anything about Rock climbing gear and safety.
If you are climbing rocks in a movie, you are a rock climber.
If you are belaying someone fir a shot who falls and dies because their gear was not checked, then you are responsible in the exact same way.
If you have insufficient training to check it under the direct supervision of an expert without fucking it up, then you shouldn’t be anywhere near it.
Whatever happened was horrible but also, and my brain can’t stop thinking about this, will the movie ever come out? I don’t think it did
They resumed filming after Bladwin was found not guilty and subsequently wrapped, but there’s no release date or anything yet
Oh yeah the execs will sit on it until they feel safe that the release will not reflect badly on them.
He wasn’t found “not guilty”, it doesn’t even sound like charges were brought against him, his lawyers just started that he wouldn’t be charged which means that there is a possibility of charges being brought against him in the future if new evidence comes to light.
Why the fuck do they use real weapons on a set and not prop weapons? That’s the part I don’t understand at all…
How would a fake gun make the sounds? Guess you could add in editing afterwards but the cleanest, easiest and most realistic would always be to use a real gun with blanks I would have thought. But I’m not a movie producer, so idk
Could also be that even if you’re able to get similar quality gun shots off a fake gun, it would cost a lot more in production etc
Ah, didn’t realize that’s what they did. I thought they just fired fake guns (eg something like an airsoft gun with gas blowback or something fancy )and edited the sounds in later.
From what understand, guns are silly loud. Much louder than they sound in movies.
But I’ve never fired or even held one, so what do I know :)
You’re right, big loud. If that is what actors are doing they should all be wearing earpro.
I don’t actually know how they do it in movies but from this one example I’m assuming it was industry standard but I could be wrong.
Other movies might do what you said e.g. airsoft gun or fake gun, with edited sounds later
I do find it hard to believe the industry standard is to use real guns with blanks but it may be that way. It’s a lot simpler, but obviously more dangerous
And yes guns are very loud, after a gun goes off beside you, you will have a sort of numbing in your ear for a few seconds and you can’t hear anything out of it lol
Have you ever heard a large firecracker pop? It’s very similar.
Prop can also mean it’s a real gun.
Iirc Hexum’s gun was loaded with blanks. He held it to his temple not realizing the explosive pressure from the blank was enough to send a piece of his skull through his brain.
More info from the wiki
On October 12, 1984, the cast and crew of Cover Up were filming the seventh episode of the series, “Golden Opportunity”, on Stage 18 of the 20th Century Fox lot. One of the scenes filmed that day called for Hexum’s character to load cartridges into a .44 Magnum handgun, so he was provided with a functional gun and blanks. When the scene did not play as the director wanted it to in the master shot, there was a delay in filming. Hexum became restless and impatient during the delay and began playing around to lighten the mood. He had unloaded all but one (blank) round, spun it, and—simulating Russian roulette—he put the revolver to his right temple and pulled the trigger, unaware of the danger.[8]
The explosive effect of the muzzle blast caused enough blunt force trauma to fracture a quarter-sized piece of his skull and propel this into his brain, causing massive hemorrhaging.[3][9]A 44 magnum? Did he not know how insanely loud those are even with blanks?
I might not know jumping in a jet engine will kill me, but the noise is enough to scare me off trying.
No link?
If you manufacture a prop gun in such a way that it is indistinguishable from the real thing in how it looks, sounds, and functions, you’ve just made a real gun. If you’re able to do all that and make it a completely safe prop without the capability of killing someone when loaded with real ammunition, you could make bank.
It might be cheap?
Until you accidentally kill someone.
’Murica, where real guns are cheaper than fake guns.
Being paid for your work, where time spent editing is more expensive than doing it practically.
You usually want them to be shot, at least with blanks. Nowadays you could probably fake that well with CGI, but using blanks is probably easier (and thus cheaper).
On automatica, they have to put partial obstructions inside the barrels to provide enough back-preasure to cycle the weapons without a bullet. That also means they cannot fire a live round.
Revolvers don’t need the same modification to operate with blanks, but after The Crow and this, they really should have it done anyway.
Well, that or have the actors learn this information:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjk3j2bsxVw
BEFORE filming starts. Make them take a class on it for all I care and don’t let them touch real guns if they fail. Simple as. If an actor (or literally anyone) can’t even learn Col. Jeff Cooper’s Four Rules they don’t deserve to touch something they could kill someone with. And this clown should know how fucking easy that should be, not making stupid excuses about job titles precluding you from responsibility of safety precautions.
Because they are morons
If you handle a firearm, it is your responsibility to know whether that firearm is loaded, simple as that. Hollywood shouldn’t get a pass just because Hollywood has been irresponsibly handling firearms for its entire existence. The responsibility lies both on the armorer and Baldwin, they both failed in this moment.
How’s the expectation to have firearm training come in if a kid is playing with a toy gun. Same with actors who think they’re handling a fake gun.
If there is a possibility that there are real guns on set or they cannot distinguish, then they need to learn how to distinguish or not agree to point one at another human.
If you handle a prop on a movie set, it’s not your responsibility to know that this time it’s not a prop but real loaded gun this time. It’s inconceivable to me how it’s even possible that a gun even there, but I guess I am not American enough to understand that
Notice he didn’t answer the question with a yes or no…
The answer is an automatic yes in itself because weapons safety is taught nonstop in the army, from the moment you join and every single time you are up for weapons requalification.
With all due respect to our servicepeople, just having served in the armed services in no way guarantees you’re an expert with firearms, competent at firearm safety, or qualified to be a professional armorer.
Anyone who’s been around them knows, the military takes all types.
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The users above you are making some damn tenuous arguments.
Pretty sure the law doesn’t give a shit what conventions Hollywood has developed and followed over the years. You have a gun in your hand, you pull the trigger, you are responsible for the outcome. Don’t like it? Learn gun safety, ignore what the person handing you the gun claims, check that it’s unloaded yourself. Hollywood conventions need to change to align with reality.
Edit: I’ve been out of the loop. I wasn’t aware they dropped charges against Baldwin. That’s really fucked up in my opinion, as per the above.
It absolutely does matter. Alec Baldwin also asserts that he never pulled the trigger, and the FBI’s analysis found a flaw in the weapon that could cause it to fire without pulling the trigger.
In order to be convicted of a crime, the state needs to prove mens rea (i.e., the intent to commit the crime). You can’t be convicted of a crime unless the state can prove you either intended, or should have known, your action would be a criminal act.
If I’m at a gun range, the instructor who is teaching me hands me a gun and says it’s safe to fire downrange, and I shoot it, but it turns out someone is in fact downrange out of my visibility and is injured as a result of my shot, could I be convicted of assault with a deadly weapon? The clear answer is no, because I reasonably relied on the expertise of someone whose job it was to ensure the situation was safe before I performed the dangerous action.
Similarly, there was someone on the set whose job it was to ensure the gun was safe to use. That person handed Baldwin the gun and asserted it was safe to use. Baldwin reasonably relied on that person’s expertise when he handled the gun and did not do anything unreasonable with it while handling it, so it doesn’t make sense to charge him. If he had some role in the presence of live ammunition, then he might be liable in some way, but in his role as an actor, he bears no responsibility.
Last I saw, they had proven the gun could be discharged without touching the trigger. They also use dummy rounds in revolvers to make it look like the gun has real rounds instead of blanks (cheaper than CGI and less likely to miss one), the only way to tell they aren’t real is to remove each round and shake them as they have rattles. I don’t expect an actor to be an expert in firearms, just like I don’t expect them to be experts on politics or climate change.
How does that apply to a weapon that is supposed to be loaded? It’s a movie set, it’s not always intended to be unloaded, it’s intended to be LOADED but with blanks. That’s part of the reason why a movie set has personnel dedicated to ensuring the safety of every firearm. Additional reasons include: they’re swapping out identical guns for different takes, they’re doing multiple takes, actors have dramatically different levels of experience with handguns, they’re EXPECTED to point the gun at people, etc etc etc
A Hollywood movie set isn’t the same as your basement dry-fire LARPing sessions just because they both involve acting.
Edit: I’ve been out of the loop. I wasn’t aware they dropped charges against Baldwin. That’s really fucked up in my opinion, as per the above.
Really? Last time I checked they were still investigating the case and involuntary manslaughter charges are still on the table?
Wow the 82nd, this is like getting D, there are 81 airborns before yours.
I don’t know how the US army structured, it’s a joke right? Like there no corelation between how good the Brigade(?) and it’s number right? Lmao
The numbers are random and non-sequential, i.e. the existence of SEAL Team 6 doesn’t imply the existence of 5 other SEAL teams. Equipment serial numbers are the same.
If you did assign numbers sequentially, enemy forces can get a guess as to your numbers based on the serial/unit numbers of captured equipment and soldiers
Hey, this is where my ability to remember stupid shit I don’t want to comes into play!
SEAL Team 6 DOES imply that there are 5 other SEAL teams… if you don’t know any better. It’s literally the reason it was called team 6 and not 3.
At the time, there were two SEAL Teams, SEAL Team ONE and SEAL Team TWO. Marcinko named the unit SEAL Team Six in order to confuse Soviet intelligence as to the number of actual SEAL teams in existence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEAL_Team_Six
Yes, you knew that. Not everyone that read your post did, but now they do.
I do agree, but the reason Baldwin is even being looked at is because he was also the producer, if I’m not mistaken. So it could be related to some negligence on that end. But yeah, as far as what he was doing as an actor, it doesn’t seem like he should have any responsibility.
No, the reason Baldwin is being looked at is because he’s a Democrat and does an impression of dear leader that makes the orange shitstain look like the buffoon he is.
Yep, whoever brought live ammo to the set and loaded it into the gun on a day they probably knew it was going to be used while pointed at another person - that’s the real culprit in all this. 50/50 this was a deliberate hit on baldwin and the poor sod at the other end of the barrel and not just negligence.
There is an interesting conversation to be had here about gun safety on a movie set, and there should absolutely be accountability taken for what has happened. However, I can’t help but notice that the vast majority of those calling for Alec’s head specifically are MAGA Republicans, which makes me a bit less inclined to take their side. They have some good points, but arrived at them by starting with “he’s guilty” and working backwards, which I just can’t get behind.
I think he’s got some culpability but isn’t deserving of the public execution his politically-motivated detractors want.
Careful having a reason to Viewpoint like that will get you downvoted.
How exactly do comments like this encourage the reasonable discourse you seem to want to have?
I was agreeing with you. So I figured you’d know.
I agree that the only reason he SHOULD have been looked at is his role as a producer but I don’t think that was the case at all. The ad got a plea deal iirc. It seemed more like the police wanted to get a famous feather in their cap and focused on him as the shooter which was obviously bullshit. Alec Baldwin is a dickhead at least and his wife is weird but blaming him for that was dumb from the get go
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I would say it’s getting attention because he’s an arrogant prick whose arrogance led directly to a murder and we’re all curious if that even means anything anymore.
Wtf does riffing on Trump have to do with it?
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Calling it some right-wing conspiracy is probably where the downvotes are coming from.
- Some serious shit was actually occurring
- Alec Baldwin was a huge arrogant asshole about it at first, trying to cover his ass as a producer regarding #1
- Trump, as Trump does, makes a pretty singular inflammatory comment about it, which points all his brainwashed minions at Baldwin.
So mostly I think the point is that there is room for both on this.
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What?
There’s a few reasons why he was charged, both as an actor and producer. Gun safety just can’t be fucked around with.
In the document, prosecutors accused Baldwin of “many instances of extremely reckless acts” during the film’s production.
They wrote that Baldwin “was not present” for mandatory firearms training before filming began. He was instead provided on-set guidance but prosecutors allege he was “distracted and talking on his cell phone to his family.” The training session was scheduled for an hour but was only 30 minutes long due to Baldwin’s “distraction” on the phone.
… The prosecutor’s statement described several “acts or omissions of recklessness” on the set of Rust. This included foregoing the use of a prop gun during unscheduled rehearsals, willful ignorance toward on-set safety complaints and a lack of armourer-performed safety checks.
https://globalnews.ca/news/9451182/alec-baldwin-rust-manslaughter-charge-phone/amp/
I’m no lawyer or anything, but Baldwin has been an actor in professional movies with prop guns for a long time, I think it’s going to be hard for them to pin it on him (as an actor) for supposedly blowing off a single firearms course, and even that’s unconfirmed right? I think it’s unlikely that they’ll charge him as a producer as well, because it sounds like they hired all the right people for the job and had firearms training and everything.
This whole thing just sounds like lawyers passing the buck back and forth, so who even knows what actually happened at this point. Will be interesting to see what comes up over time.
“Yeah he blew off this years mandatory training, but he showed up to last years training, it can’t be his fault!”.
Idk that doesn’t really seem like a valid excuse
We’re talking manslaughter charges here, Baldwin’s lawyer doesn’t have to prove he’s not at fault, the prosecution has to prove without a reasonable doubt that he is at fault. Very different things.
He has both criminal and civil charges being brought against him though, and the civil charges have a much lower standard. He might not be charged with manslaughter, but still be liable as the one at fault
Yeah for sure, but I mean the context of this conversation is him being actually charged.
I kind of agree but if an incident happens on a site where the shooter wasn’t paying attention to training and never attended the initial safety briefing then that’s their own problem.
Working in construction, if I never turned up to a health and safety briefing ( and let me tell you they’re repetitive as fuck) and something went wrong but my excuse was “I didn’t need to go cos I’ve been to these before” it wouldn’t go in my favour whatsoever. I don’t think it’s a reasonable excuse either. If there’s potential for lives to be at stake, you should be paying attention. At the very least, even if not for other people’s lives, just go so you can say you listened and followed every instruction but the mistake still happened. That way youve covered your own back.
But if he has so much experience with guns on movie sets, then he knows how to property handle firearms safely, and if he followed proper gun safety he wouldn’t have shot anyone
As a construction worker or an engineer, you need to take a safety training for each new construction site you go on, even if it’s your 40th worksite. So I feel like it’s not so hard to pin Baldwin for not taking the hour course properly.
In a civil suit maybe, but for criminal charges you’d have to prove that he did blow off the course and the shooting was a direct result of him blowing off the course. Both are just very hard to prove.
Weren’t they using the guns for target practice for fun at some point?
I’ve heard that too, but I think at this point even that’s unconfirmed and we still aren’t sure who was actually shooting live rounds from them.
Also is that not allowed? I honestly have no idea how that works. You’d think a movie set gun shouldn’t have live rounds in it ever, but I guess the production could be renting the gun from someone and they’d take it home every night…
According to the Associated Press, since 1990:
43 people died on sets in the U.S. and more than 150 had been left with life-altering injuries.
But only two of those deaths in that time were from firearms.
I’ve done some digging, and I can only find 3 people who’ve died from firearms accidents in Hollywood’s history: Jon-Erik Hexum, Brandon Lee, and Halyna Hutchins. Does anybody know of another production worker killed by firearms?
Can any industry or profession that regularly deals with firearms compare with this kind of safety record? People in law enforcement, the military, and regular gun owners who lecture Hollywood on firearms safety probably need to STFU.
Bro really looks like a call of duty character
Haha he really does
There’s a few reasons why he was charged, both as an actor and producer. Gun safety just can’t be fucked around with.
In the document, prosecutors accused Baldwin of “many instances of extremely reckless acts” during the film’s production.
They wrote that Baldwin “was not present” for mandatory firearms training before filming began. He was instead provided on-set guidance but prosecutors allege he was “distracted and talking on his cell phone to his family.” The training session was scheduled for an hour but was only 30 minutes long due to Baldwin’s “distraction” on the phone.
… The prosecutor’s statement described several “acts or omissions of recklessness” on the set of Rust. This included foregoing the use of a prop gun during unscheduled rehearsals, willful ignorance toward on-set safety complaints and a lack of armourer-performed safety checks.
https://globalnews.ca/news/9451182/alec-baldwin-rust-manslaughter-charge-phone/amp/
The issue is, as I understand it, that Baldwin was handed the revolver from a producer or someone of similar standing and he should have handed it to the armorer for checking, regardless of what he was told.
Doesn’t matter. “Prop” guns don’t exist and every gun is unfit unless physically checked by yourself personally.
No idea why you are getting so much hate. Anyone who has been taught how to handle a firearm knows to treat every weapon as if it was loaded. It doesn’t matter if it’s a training firearm which can be a very bright color and has parts visibly drilled out so you can see it will not function, guns firing blanks, an airsoft gun, even something like a pneumatic nail gun, etc. Verify the source of ammunition is empty and there is not a round in the chamber visibly and physically.
I’m not saying everyone in the world should know this, but anyone handling any form of firearm should. Alec Baldwin has been in enough movies and shows where guns were handled that he must have been taught this and seen it as the protocol multiple times.
This is gun safety and it’s not a bad thing,.I’m not a huge gun fan myself but promoting firearm safety isn’t anything to look down on.
ITT: “Basic gun safety isn’t necessary if you have a SAG card.”
OK Rambo.
Actually, prop guns do exist and I’m not talking about the ones that shoot blanks.
Or have you never seen a cosplayer with a gun?
There are realistic looking prop guns that are built without a firing mechanism. Without, meaning it never existed in the design.
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Why don’t they remove the firing mechanism from prop guns? The hammer that strikes the bullet?
Prop guns often fire blanks for the sound and flash, so they still need a firing pin.
It doesn’t have to be like that. We could design a different firing mechanism.
Million dollar idea right here
Yep. It would cost a million dollars to develop and still no one would use it.
We don’t need to. Only 3 people have died by guns on film sets in over 30 years, and every time it’s cause some idiot used real ammo in it at some point. Just never use real ammo in your prop guns, and they are always fine.
That’s not what happened. The guns were used with real ammo at a range to go shooting, then used as prop guns later without properly checking that there were no live rounds or lodged bullets in the guns.
And I’m not minimizing them, I’m telling you the actual solution isn’t modifying the firing pin, or changing the rules, since the rules work. These deaths were due to idiots breaking the rules, but the rules have worked to prevent thousands of deaths, and if followed no one will ever dies.
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An actor that has to do stunts gets stunt lessons. An actor that has to drive gets driving lessons. An actor that has to box gets boxing lessons. Am actor that has to speak a different language gets language lessons. And on and on and on… And then we have: AN ACTOR THAT HAS TO HANDLE GUNS DOES NOT NEED TO HAVE GUN HANDLING AND SAFETY LESSONS!?!
An architect designs a bridge. The materials include a number of steel beams that dont actually meet the support requirements for the bridge’s expected traffic. The bridge collapses.
This guy, to the survivors of the collapse: Have you ever even taken a bridge safety course?
This analogy is flawed. The engineer would be a gunsmith. The bridge collapsing would be the gun catastrophically failing. A bridge is not deliberately designed to inflict damage on animals (mostly humans) the way a gun is.
I wasn’t aiming at crafting the perfect analogy. I wanted to capture the absurdity and fucking asininity of the responders comment.
The point is that it’s not up to either the bridge’s users (the actors in the film) to “take a safety course” - it’s up to the bridge designers/builders (the film set’s armorer if we’re talking about direct blame or the executive film staff if were talking about corner cutting or poor funding) to make sure the bridge (the prop gun) is safe to use.
If Baldwin is culpable for corner cutting as an executive staff member (and for example, hiring a shitty armorer to save on costs), so be it. I don’t give a shit about him. But being mad at someone for not checking a gun when the responsibility lies on a hired expert and this is just how Hollywood operates and in a century of filmmaking there have been a handful of freak accidents?
Here’s a more applicable example.
Two carnival clowns are having a faux sword fight. One clown hits the other clown, only to find out that his sword is razor sharp. The second clown is impaled and dies.
Do you think we would give the clown the benefit of the doubt?
Is there a clown armorer in the clown troupe who was supposed to diligently do his job and check that the swords are fake?
I’m not against making the clowns take a class about pressing their thumbs to the blade or trying to slice a piece of paper in half (checking that the bullets in the gun are crimped and, therefore, blank), but if the clown industry’s SOP is to always have a clown armorer on staff and one of the clown armorer’s main jobs is to make sure that all the swords are plastic, then who’s to blame here? Who even stored a real metal sword with the fake plastic clown swords? This is a massive failure in clown procedure.
All of what you said can be true and yet, we would probably convict the clown anyway. The clown is poor, “stupid”, and disposable. Alec Baldwin is protected by his class, wealth, and fame. There are two standards of justice here and Baldwin will be given the benefit of the doubt because of his power.
I’m not so sure we’d convict the clown - but I also wouldn’t argue that the wealthy and famous don’t have their own lane when it comes to legal matters. Even if we didn’t convict the clown, Baldwin’s own road to vindication and absolution would be much, much easier.
And for the record: I don’t care about him in the slightest. If he got life in prison over this, all I’d care about is whether it was a just verdict and sentence.
I agree. I don’t know for sure if we’d convict the clown. I also don’t care about Baldwin. And finally, I also think his privilege protects him.
That’s pretty much what this sounds like to me.
