Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter case dismissed, cannot be filed again
Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter case dismissed, cannot be filed again
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The understanding with any firearm, working or inert, is that it is your responsibility to check the weapon. You don't assume the person handing it to you checked it. You always assume it is loaded and capable of killing whatever you point it at. No excuses, no passing the buck. If you pick it up or it is handed to you it is your responsibility to check it, no one else's.
Edit: Yall sure do like making excuses. Any gun any time anywhere no exceptions, it's not hard and it could save a life.
Censorship at its finest.
On a movie set where everything is fake and you have an on-set armorer whose job it is to make sure everything is, indeed, safe, it's a little bit different.
There's no expectation that a gun on a movie set would be real and firing real bullets.
I keep trying to explain that to people too. The whole point of having an on-set armorer is so the actor can stay in their headspace and not have to worry about checking to see if a gun is loaded with live ammo when their character is supposed to assume it is.
True, but also, safety is everyone's responsibility. Safety is always the first priority.
You either keep yourself in the headspace where your character is shooting a loaded gun and you give a good performance, or you do firearm safety checks. It can't be both. Maybe you've never done any acting, but it really can't be both.
I've done acting, and I'm familiar with safe handling of firearms. You can absolutely do both.
Again, not if you want a good performance. And I am guessing your acting did not involve shooting a realistic weapon on a realistic set in a major motion picture.
I'm not aware of any studies on the matter. If you are speaking from your own experience, it's not any more definitive than mine.
I am speaking from my experience of working on multiple film sets.
safety is everyone's responsibility.
People's responses to this comment really highlights the defects in the US gun culture. Justifying Alec's handling of the gun is the issue that we have, when guns are around you act like all of them a load and you handle them as such until you personally verified that it is unloaded and even then you deff don't fuck around with it.
When people act like this, accidents really should not happen. When they do, people should reflect on why it happened, instead of focusing on cover up and blaming lower level wage slave.
At a range, sure. At home, sure. On the street, sure.
On a movie set, with someone who's entire job it is to make sure this shit doesn't happen handing it to you? No
The friction is that Alec is not just an actor on that set, he's also a producer so he has extra responsibilities.
But in that case, the cops and prosecutors fucked up and the judge has taken the right course of action as prescribed by the courts.
Producers should have zero input on this. "I put money into this film. I insist on being allowed to play with every firearm on set" is patently stupid.
Their responsibilities begin and end with ensuring that people have been hired to be responsible for that. They did. Those people were (in my opinion) criminally negligent. But (if memory serves) the AD almost immediately turned and begged for a deal and the armorer makes the average gravy seal look intelligent. Which, like most of these tragic and pointless deaths, speaks more toward industry wide accreditation and vetting processes.
Because, again, just because someone has money doesn't mean they understand gun safety. And the last thing we want is someone who played Call of Duty while getting a blowie last night insisting they know better.
I think the only nuance I would make is that the investigation should determine if Alec Baldwin, the producer, did his due diligence with the responsibilities that he has on set.
I did not follow the trial, so I don't know what has been done in this case.
The friction is that Alec is not just an actor on that set, he’s also a producer so he has extra responsibilities.
This is true, but I don't think it's a producer's responsibility to check if a gun is loaded with real ammo or not.
No, but there is a point to be debated that if you hire an incompetent person that kills someone on your set, you could face consequences.
But yes, I agree with you, this isn't the producer's job to check if a gun is loaded with real ammo or not.
The friction is that Alec is not just an actor on that set, he’s also a producer so he has extra responsibilities.
Yes.
But in that case, the cops and prosecutors fucked up and the judge has taken the right course of action as prescribed by the courts.
No. If the prosecutors fucked up on an otherwise valid case, discipline them and retry the case. Regardless or innocence or guilt, everyone should have a fair trial.
That's how the court system works. A fair trial also means for the accused. Otherwise, nothing stops the prosecutors of binding the accused in the court system until he runs out of money.
The moment that the prosecution kept an evidence from the defense, the trial wasn't fair for the accused.
I get the frustration, but the other way around opens up the court system for a lot more abuse than we see now.
If you want to argue about changing the court system, I agree with you, but it is out of scope for that case.
Ok, so you're an actor. You pick up the gun, you see bullets in it. You were trained that these are dummy rounds. You are operating in a professional environment where you were trained to expect what you have found.
What do you do?
Ok say you object, ask for a review. They review it. You pick up the gun, you see bullets in it. Now what do you do?
Dozens of actors starve while trapped in loops exactly like this every year, yet we never hear about those tragic deaths. :(
I write a comment you generally agree with, and reply in a timely manner.
What do you do?
Half cock the pistol swing open the load gate and spin the cylinder 6 times. If you see a primer then you stop and ask a question. This isn't a 30-minute project, it takes 30 secs. Dummy rounds don't have primers, they even drill them so that it is obvious. 30-sec check.
All guns are loaded until you verify that they are not.
They have rounds with primers and bullets but no powder for close up shots. So even checking isn't 100%. That's why the armorer is the one who fucked up. Now maybe Baldwin may have played a role by cutting corners in production, but he's officially off the hook for that now so...
You see what you see. They verify, as a professional, that you are good.
If you treat every gun on a movie set as loaded and capable of killing anybody you point it at, you’d never have guns in movies.
If I hire a plumber, I have to assume he knows what he’s doing since I don’t have the expertise and experience to check behind them. I would not expect or assume an actor would know anything about firearms.
Basically you’re an asshat and a moron.
The actor that played gimli is over 6 foot tall. There's never been a 200 foot tall lizard attacking Tokyo. You can shoot a movie with guns safely without violating the most basic safety rules.
If you hire roofers, tell them to fuck off when they give you a safety orientation, and you've already seen them drop two hammers off the roof, can you really say it's not your fault when you get clobbered?
Other actors seem to do it just fine enough.
Would you not expect someone driving a semi truck on a movie set to know how to drive safely even if the production is paying some dude to be an "Automobile Safety Coordinator"?
And there's no need for ad hominems.
This case is different. An actor shouldn't start fucking with a movie prop minutes before a they film.
The propmaster effectively pulled the trigger in this case.
Removing my post doesn't make it less true and is just censorship at its finest. You check every gun every time no excuses.
I mean if Rittenhouse can drive over state lines to counter a protest ,kill 3 people, claim self defense, and be found innocent, than certainly a man cutting corners by trying to save money on a film he's producing, staring in, and directing certainly can have his case dismissed with prejudice because of willful mishandling of evidence by the police and gross misconduct of the prosecutor.
Plus Trump is a King, so....