Alec Baldwin

[Ginger]

That's what Michael Chiklis said - no need for real guns ever. Shortly after this incident, a cop show announced that they would only be using fake guns. CGI is so cheap now that all they need to do is add the flash from the muzzle electronically.

Mar 14, 2005 2:10:14 GMT -4 dragonflie said:

I get the culpability if the expectation was/is that there are NO rounds (live or dummy) in the guns. That should be easy enough for anyone to check and should be standard practice around any weapon.

I do believe George Clooney when he said it already is standard. He said the armorer opens up the gun to demonstrate that it's empty. Then they shine a flashlight down the barrel to make sure nothing is lodged in it (which is what killed Brandon Lee). And then they even point the gun at the ground and squeeze the trigger several times to make extra sure. That's what you do when you care about safety.

I think there's a limit to how much "that's not my job" can absolve you of when you are in a position to see safety violations going on all around you, and are committing some of them yourself.

[tiggertoo]

Ugh, the mention of pointing the gun at his own head reminded me of that actor who did point the gun at his own head. He died. I think there was a dummy round and he just didn’t realize how lethal that could be. That was decades ago, why is this still a thing? Special effects are incredible these days. It can’t be that hard to add the flash or whatever in post production.

[piscessiren]

Jan 23, 2023 20:14:07 GMT -4 tiggertoo said:

Ugh, the mention of pointing the gun at his own head reminded me of that actor who did point the gun at his own head. He died. I think there was a dummy round and he just didn’t realize how lethal that could be. That was decades ago, why is this still a thing? Special effects are incredible these days. It can’t be that hard to add the flash or whatever in post production.

Jon-Erik Hexum in 1984

[Ginger]

The Atlantic has a really interesting interview with an armorer named Thomas Pimentel.

I keep being reminded of two things, and this armorer brings both of them up in the interview. One is an episode of the Office Ladies podcast in which they discussed how much safety procedure was employed just because they had a single lit candle in an episode. They had to have a safety meeting with the entire cast, and had to have a Fire Marshal on set to supervise. If they do all that for a candle, how can anyone say there is no time or money for safety with guns and bullets?

The second thing I think of is the big rifle shootout in the movie Heat. All of the actors involved trained on how to use those weapons on a shooting range for a full month, six months before the movie started. Val Kilmer was so good at changing the magazine on his rifle that he said a marine sergeant told him he shows it to his marines and tells them they need to be able to do it that fast.

That's a movie where I think you could argue that the realism of the weapons was important. But that's also a movie that took the time and money to do everything right.

These are good points:

The statement said Baldwin “relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds.” What’s your reaction to those statements?

Pimentel: So first of all, if the assistant director was the one who handed him the pistol, there was no professional involved who knew anything about firearms. So that’s hugely concerning.

Baldwin has been doing this long enough. He’s been in a lot of movies, action movies and things like that. If someone hands him a gun, what’s stopping him from looking down and looking through that chamber and saying, “oh, I got rounds in here”? “Why are we dealing with rounds? Are they dummy rounds? Can I inspect the dummy rounds myself?" He’s totally okay to ask that.

Nyce: Do you think safety is partially the actor’s responsibility?

Pimentel: Of course it is. If you do a movie about Ford versus Ferrari, you’re going to drive cars. You get in a race car, and you learn how to drive race cars. You do everything that you have to do to get as competent and proficient in that particular field as possible. Handling firearms is no different.

[Sunnyhorse]

I think he's culpable. I grew up with a dad who hunted and took my school's Hunter Safety class at age 13 or so. You are responsible for knowing how to handle any gun you pick up and making sure it's not loaded. Even with an armorer on the set to supervise, I feel like it's the duty of the person who's gonna be pointing that gun at other people to open up the gun, or have it opened, to verify that it's clear of rounds. Sure, it's easy to point to the armorer and say, "Well, we pay him to do that stuff," but you could kill someone if the armorer's in a hurry or having a bad day or missed his/her/their Adderall that morning. I work in an emergency department, and we frequently administer medications to other staff members' patients or pull meds from the medication cabinet for those other staff to administer when necessary. Unless the situation is dire (i.e., Code Blue), you don't just push a medication in a syringe that someone else drew up and handed to you if you didn't at least watch it being prepared to ensure that it was correct. Even in a code, there are verbal checks going on, one staff member is scribing events for the chart, and there's some measure of accountability. If nurses are going to be prosecuted for errors, which seems to be the way we're headed in this country, then Alec Baldwin can take the hit for not checking the cylinder of that revolver.

[Margo]

Jan 25, 2023 18:45:17 GMT -4 Sunnyhorse said:

If nurses are going to be prosecuted for errors, which seems to be the way we're headed in this country, then Alec Baldwin can take the hit for not checking the cylinder of that revolver.

I hope the other things that happened on set convince the jury the convict him. It's one thing to not check on a movie set where everything is going according to plan. It's another thing when there have been other accidents and the crew has walked out in protest.

[kissandrachablis76]

The armorer makes another excellent point in the Atlantic article. He talks about the time, training and commitment that actors put into the small (meaningless) details of the character they are playing, compared to the time, training and commitment put into firearm safety.

These people are so concerned with “My character’s left-handed, so I have to spend six weeks eating soup with my left hand.” There are so many microscopic details that they pay attention to, and yet they gloss over firearm safety and realistic acting with firearms.

This statement was eye-opening for me. I had never thought about it like that. It really put things into perspective.

The article also shines a bright light on just how far outside the norms of on-set firearm safety protocol the set of Rust was. Truly, everyone on that set was in danger of being killed at any time.

[granolamom]

Charges have been downgraded to remove the "firearm enhancement" charge for both Baldwin and the armorer. Apparently the firearm enhancement charge would have led to longer possible sentences.

[cremetangerine82]

Feb 20, 2023 18:58:43 GMT -4 granolamom said:

Charges have been downgraded to remove the "firearm enhancement" charge for both Baldwin and the armorer. Apparently the firearm enhancement charge would have led to longer possible sentences.

I hope the armorer gets the 18 months and never works on a movie or TV production again. I hope Alec gets some prison time because he's responsible for not checking the firearm before discharging it.

[Ginger]

I definitely hope the armorer never works in the industry again.

Feb 20, 2023 18:58:43 GMT -4 granolamom said:

Charges have been downgraded to remove the "firearm enhancement" charge for both Baldwin and the armorer. Apparently the firearm enhancement charge would have led to longer possible sentences.

For once, I'm Team Alec on this one. The prosecutor's statement was snarky and completely inappropriate:

In a statement to NPR on Monday, Heather Brewer, a spokeswoman for the New Mexico First District Attorney, said the decision to drop the firearm enhancement was made to expedite the case.

"In order to avoid further litigious distractions by Mr. Baldwin and his attorneys, the District Attorney and the special prosecutor have removed the firearm enhancement to the involuntary manslaughter charges in the death of Halyna Hutchins on the 'Rust' film set," Brewer said.

She added: "The prosecution's priority is securing justice, not securing billable hours for big-city attorneys."

They charged him with a 5 year mandatory minimum. That's five years of his life at stake. Challenging that was hardly him creating a "litigious distraction" with his "big-city attorneys". Give me a break. And the DA backed down because she was wrong and she knows it. The law wasn't in effect at the time of the incident, so charging him with that was a really embarrassing blunder on her part.

This DA appears to be really unprofessional. There was no need for her to go on a bunch of right-wing networks to do TV interviews about this case. These things are supposed to be fought in the courtroom, not in the media.