Interesting to me that some people ascribe less responsibility to AB because he was an actor and in the process of making a movie. If you took a similar scenario and placed it occurring in a private home or a public park or even a training facility for firearms, would there be sympathy for the shooter? It seems strange to me. If my job description requires I handle a firearm, I ought to be required to pass a gun safety course on it. Has AB ever had such training? In my view, you don’t have to be a firearms expert to handle a revolver safely nor does being a firearms expert make you immune to negligent discharges. Isn’t that why the armorer was suppose to be holding firearm safety training for the crew and cast of the movie? Wasn’t AB responsible for making sure that happened and was conducted with the diligence it deserved?
It appears they do exist: The Batman Shot Much of the Movie via Remote-Controlled Cameras Definitely seems like a no-brainer. Whether they fit into the budget of a $6-7 million Western vs a $185+ million big-budget superhero flick is another matter.
Probably. Are you saying Alec Baldwin is the sole person at fault here, since he was a producer on the film?
Alternatively, never film a movie using live rounds. If they didn't use "real" firearms, they couldn't fire blanks. There would be no recoil, no flash, no smoke. Stated differently, it wouldn't look real without a blank, which requires a functioning firearm to operate properly.
The question about safety training is part of the case going on right now. Alec Baldwin skipped a mandatory firearms safety training for 'Rust' and was on the phone with his family during a private, on-set session, prosecutors allege
I think so, but the bigger question for AB was whether his failure is mere civil negligence, or rising to criminal negligence resulting in involuntary manslaughter? I think most here agree that his conduct is at the very least 'negligent', but its much harder case to make for criminal manslaughter. I am not saying that the DA can't establish all the required elements for involuntary manslaughter, but it wont be an easy case to make based on what has been publicly revealed to date. A failure to stay alert in weapons training class, in setting the right serious safety tone on the set and in not following gun safety protocol has been alleged by the DA to date. I suspect AB will take a plea deal.
I thought that was already mandated, yet the system broke down and here we are with a shot victim. I still have not read anything regarding why there were live rounds on that set, beyond some speculation that there was some off-set recreational shooting by some of the crew.
Agreed. If a member of the crew wanted to blast off rounds in the desert, that's fine if they use their own firearm and ammo, but there should never be live rounds on the set. I too am baffled as to why this was allowed. Beyond sloppy.
This is the whole point. The actors job is to act, that's it. Just like they have stuntman and explosive experts that handle their own jobs. On a movie set, everybody handles their own job, period. They don't concern themselves about the jobs of others. Actors are just there to do their part and follow the directions of the Director. As Vidiot said, actors get handed a weapon and from that point they follow directions. Actors are in no way qualified to be firearm experts. An actor is concerned with many things besides his lines. He has to be aware of each step he takes, how fast they take, where his body is pointed, where he is looking... Many movies have many firearms on the set used in a scene at one time. They are handed the gun and the scene is shot. It is very expensive to run a set. Time is always of the essence. Once things have been set up, from there everything is a go. Since scenes are typically reshot several times, it is common that there are several guns. They don't stop to reload or move out of position. The armorer or assistant takes one gun and hands the actor a freshly loaded gun. However... Taking this out of a movie context. How many people have been shot with unloaded guns? The bottom line is, that the law doesn't take into consideration what a movie production does or fails to do. If someone points a gun at someone, fires at them and kills them it is some form of manslaughter. Accidental manslaughter is still a crime, no matter the circumstances, unless it can truly be proved in court to be an accident. Not being privy to all of the facts, everything is only speculation. I would doubt that AB had any intention of shooting anyone. But what does surprise me, is that he would not keep his mouth shut! Surely he would have his PR person and his attorney in this immediately. He would have been advised to make no statements to anyone, without his legal representative. Here is someone who has plainly refused to keep silent. There is definitely something wrong with this picture?
Armorer claims the weapons and ammo supplier provided boxes of mixed round. A lot of unanswered questions in this case.
Lots of unanswered questions? It doesn't matter where the ammo came from. That is why there is an Armorer on the set. The final responsibility is that of the Armorer. It is their job to insure firearms are safe at all times. Are we to believe that an Armorer could not discern one type of ammo from another? Growing up, there were western theme parks where they staged gunfights with blanks. Where I am now, before it became Dollywood, it was one of these type themeparks. I knew people who acted in these gunfights.
Alec wasn't just an actor, though. He was also a producer with responsibility for injuries and deaths on the set.
Sure it does. If we’re talking about the failures that led to the death, it’s quite possible no one person is solely responsible, but it’s rather it was a cascade of failures by a number of people that led to the death. How that jibes with New Mexico law is another matter. But for a jury? You better believe it will matter. Every bit of doubt will be on the table. All it takes is one juror. Back to the point though, the weapon supplier also was acting as a mentor to the armorer, which complicates matters. This mentor encouraged the armorer not to report a negligent discharge to producers. The mentor also was the one who got the armorer hired under condition that he work with her as a mentor. I understand the desire to quickly judge this situation, but we don’t have enough detail to truly understand what happened on the set yet.
By your logic, Vic Morrow and the children killed during the filming of the TWILIGHT ZONE movie were at fault for their own deaths, because they should have known not to perform so close to helicopter blades and explosions . . ?
Seems like if a trial happens the prosecution is going to have to establish AB enabled a culture of negligence on the film set that directly resulted in one death and one injury. It might succeed but its a tough one to make stick especially when you are dealing with the lowest level of manslaughter. If you had a more serious crime attached, maybe a jury settles. Just my thoughts but I wouldn’t plea to anything.
This is a good parallel to the Twilight Zone movie. John Landis was criminally charged with the accident because as the Director he was in charge. He was not convicted.
But you seem to be arguing that everyone should know enough about firearms to ignore a director or armorer -- the very people responsible for firearm safety on the set -- announcing that a gun is safe, and then either performing his or her own inspection, or ignoring the director's instructions. I don't think that's realistic. As you say, this isn't a firing range or a hunting party. There is zero expectation that there is any live ammo, especially after the individuals personally responsible for gun safety declared the gun good to go. An actor would have no more expectation that the gun would fire a live round than he would that a light saber prop would cut someone in two. As far as I know, an actor was told a gun was safe by the director and/or armorer, and to point the gun at the camera by the director and/or photographer. How is the actor responsible in the slightest? Now if people want to make legal hay with Baldwin's role as producer, that's a different discussion. But an actor following instructions?
An actor should never be told to point a firearm at another person. I’m certain of that. And any actor who does not know better than to point a firearm at another person, has no business handling a firearm. An actor is not compelled to follow dangerous instructions. That said, I know plenty of incidents where people failed to keep their firearm pointed away from others and killed or serious injured another. But my position is that because of the aforementioned situation, it’s obvious AB didn’t meet his responsibilities as a producer to create a culture of safety on set and in fact contributed to an atmosphere that invited such a tragedy. Obviously, the DA found it necessary to file charges and I’m sure he weighed the evidence carefully. Now a jury is a different matter.
so what about the other probably million times this has happened during the film industries existence without any issue?
I have to defer to people in the industry. So, post #62 @Vidiot….directly to your point said this, “I've been on film sets where they had real guns (the most recent at Melody Ranch in Santa Clarita), and they kept them locked up in a small safe inbetween setups. The armorer in charge of the weapons would remove the gun, spin the chamber, hold it up in the air while announcing, "the gun is unloaded," and then carefully load in the blanks, noting that blanks were now in the gun and for people to be aware that explosives are about to be fired. He also went over the firing procedure with the actor and made sure they understood never to point a gun at anybody, and even during the filming they always kept the gun about 1 or 2 feet to one side, which you couldn't tell on camera. They clearly bent over backwards not to hurry and to check the gun constantly so they knew whether any blank rounds were loaded.” I have to believe film sets that use real guns exercise the kind of due diligence as described above. This is the right way to go about it, an assumption that every gun is loaded. Declaring a gun cold does not mean you disregard basic safety rules. And the ones that don’t are very fortunate they don’t end up like Rust. I‘ve been around negligent discharges where no one has been hurt because the firearm was pointed in the right direction.
vidiot is correct the guns are usually pointed a foot away from people but there are old westerns and gangster films you can tell a gun isn't always pointed a foot away from someone especially the old tommy gun sweeping people use to do in gangster films
