And Rust is back in the news, going back into production, but this time... no real guns on set: 'Rust' Filming Restarts With Alec Baldwin, Fake Guns, Rubber Bullets - Variety I said from day one, "ya know... this movie would've worked just fine with fake guns and VFX, which can look every bit as good as blanks on a movie set."
This is somewhat old news, but in an article published at the BBC site (five days ago), it states that the manslaughter charges have been dropped. Alec Baldwin: Manslaughter charges dropped over shooting "This decision does not absolve Mr Baldwin of criminal culpability and charges may be refiled," the statement continued, adding: "Our follow-up investigation will remain active and ongoing." So he is kind in the clear for now, but depending on the ongoing investigation, charges could be brought against him again.
I don't see how that's relevant in a manslaughter charge. They're not accusing Baldwin of murder. Trying to prove it was intentional is not the issue. It was a total accident. Still, a man holding the gun that fired and killed a woman would normally be held accountable. The other person charged with manslaughter wasn't even holding the gun. This is basically proof of a two-tiered justice system. If you're elite enough, you escape justice.
Allegedly. And yet not nearly as bad as pointing a gun and killing someone, which is actually the subject of this thread.
You made it political with your comment about elites and two-tier justice. As always, you can’t help yourself. If you continue, you know what happens next.
Nonsense. Elite is an apolitical term. I didn't make it political. One of the accused is still facing charges while the man who held the gun that killed the victim is off the hook. I at least offered an explanation. What's yours?
Holding a gun is in an actor's job description. It's only real because someone else ****ed up. How obvious does it need to be?
No, they wouldn't. And yes, I'm an attorney. Manslaughter is NOT normally what you get charged with when there is an accident, as appears to be the case here, which is why just about every attorney on TV thought that the initial charges were weak and were an example of a DA trying to get attention. (typical cases of involuntary manslaughter would be when a parent or guardian leaves a kid locked in the car on an extremely hot day and the kid dies. Or when a doctor or some other professional who owes a specific duty of care to someone else recklessly disregards that duty and the result is a death). I personally withheld judgement on this matter when it first made the news, because we didn't know all of the facts. At this point, there does not appear to be material facts that the public doesn't know. Nobody has asserted that Baldwin had any motive to kill, or that he knew or should have known that the gun was loaded. No motive, plus no knowledge that his firearm was loaded or likely loaded cannot = a homicide conviction. He's an actor - he doesn't need to check whether it's loaded to avoid criminal charges if he fires it at someone. That's somebody else's job. And even if you DO know that it's loaded, shooting somebody can still be an accident for which there is no criminal liability. See: Dick Cheney, quail hunter.
This is up to how the law would be interpreted. Say I gave someone that gun and told them it was not loaded or loaded with blanks. That person then points said gun at another, cooks the hammer and pulls the trigger. BANG! The gun fires and kills another person. Is that a crime? It might be, as specially if it was deliberately being pointed at that person. You don't point any gun at another person and pull the trigger. Just because this action took place on a movie set does not necessarily justify it in terms of the law. So when I say this, it wouldn't matter who pointed the gun and pulled the trigger. In this regard, I don't think that Baldwin would be any more responsible than another actor standing in his place. On the other hand, actors have been firing guns on movie sets even before there were sound movies. So this would be a usual occurrence within the scope of making a movie. Just a matter of interpretation...
I don't personally see it as a political term. I looked it up. Here is the short definition: "a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society." Such as: "the elite of Britain's armed forces" Elite could be applied to many different groups. For it to be expressly political, it would have to be used within a specific political context. Moving on... This is a problem I have had since the very beginning. The person who was ultimately responsible for safety on the set was charged in almost the first few minutes. Almost immediately he was given a plea deal in exchange for testimony and immunity. For that deal, he was given 6-months of unsupervised probation. In my opinion, that deal should have never been made as specially that early in the game. Basically, by doing this, the prosecution destroyed its own case from the outset. The armorer on the set has been attacked by the media from the beginning. My position is that she was not inexperienced with handling firearms on movie set. She grew up with the trade as her father was very well known in the business and she grew up around firearms on many movie sets. She was 24-years-old at the time. Most people in the infantry are younger than this. She has photos if herself with movie props, so what? Lots of people who work on movie sets do the same thing. Had she had possession of the gun, loaded the gun and handed the gun directly to Baldwin, that would be one thing. But, that clearly was not what occurred. She gave up possession of the gun when she gave it to the individual who was responsible for overall safety on the set and the one that the prosecution offered the plea bargain to. She neither had possession of the gun nor was the weapon even within her line if sight when it was given by the other person to Baldwin. She clearly bears no responsibility! This other individual was responsible for checking the gun before he handed it to Baldwin. That was his responsibility. That individual was Assistant Director Dave Halls. Basically in dropping charges against Baldwin they are either saying that they no longer believe his guilt or that they lack sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction from a jury, beyond a reasonable doubt. In this case, both are probably true. This means that this should also apply to the armorer. Any responsibility that she might have was given up when she lost control over the weapon. She was not even inside if the church when the shooting occurred. She was in no position to effect the outcome one way or another. She would have no way of knowing what Baldwin was or was not going to do. This was a rehearsal, no gun was supposed to be fired. No cameras were rolling. Her charges should be immediately dropped.
Listen, this post ends the political discussion. “Elite” in this context is a code word, a dog whistle. There’s a history. You can go through your Webster’s dictionary and look up snowflake and woke and find those words also defined with no political context. But anyone using words like “elite” with polarizing political figures like Baldwin, then crying innocence, is insulting out intelligence. Especially those with a history here of injecting their politics into conversations and trying to do it on the sly. And I would say the same to the “other side” if it was say, Clint Eastwood, instead of Baldwin, that was the subject here and labeled “elite” or such.
The short answer is "almost certainly no." The longer answer is "definitely no, if you have the job of ascertaining whether the firearm had blanks, and owe this duty to the person firing the gun."
Yeah, the gun wouldn't be loaded and the young lady would still be alive Clearly, this was a terrible accident, and from what I've seen so far, the verdict is sound. Baldwin obviously has political enemies in the US, due to his comedic lampooning, but do they really want to see a man wrongly convicted for something he patently would never have had any intent for?
Well, the only people in such circumstances would be other actors with firearms on the set. I have a hard time believing that any actors would be treated differently, based on who they are, but there is no way to actually know.
Similar thing happened to Brandon Lee on the set of the last movie he made "The Crow" only he was killed from being shot by a blank that had a lead tip stuck in the barrel from a previous scene even still...the situation with Alec Baldwin as tragic as it is.. still begs the question why was there live rounds on the set and in the gun ?
Since you understand the law better than me...I have a what if question. I can't recall if the actual scene required him to fire the gun but let's assume it did not. With all the other facts as a given i.e. actor not responsible for checking, say the actor is given a weapon with a live round and they think it has dummy or blanks because that's what they were expecting. Scene does not require them to fire weapon, but they do, either during the scene or after e.g. kidding around. Is there a potential for a criminal charge in either of those those circumstances if someone is injured, fatally or otherwise? (Asking out of curiosity about the law and not specifically about this case)
