Alec Baldwin shoots and kills cinematographer.

MauleSkinner said:
But if an actor DOES know about the subject, does that not make him more responsible for his actions?
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MMA fighters and military/LEOs get held to a higher standard, like if involved in a fight while not on duty. They often have knowledge/training on hand-to-hand combat which makes them more lethal than the average joe. I could see where they could say that Baldwin's extensive experience with firearms as an actor and a producer could hold him to a higher standard as he should know how it's supposed to be conducted when on set.
 
Ed Haywood said:
That's not the law. Criminal manslaughter requires recklessness or gross negligence.

If you are using your hammer correctly and it fails due to a defect, the death is NOT your fault as a matter of criminal law.
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You're correct, I left out the negligent or reckless action.

Was there a non-reckless way for Baldwin to have checked the camera angle without pointing a functional firearm at a person? Was it reckless for him to have pointed it at a person and pulled trigger even if he believed it was blanks? Is ignorance of being reckless an excuse?

Firearm safety says that action is always reckless, 100% of the time.
 
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172andyou said:
Keep making it about me, boss. Whatever gets you through the morning. If you want to make the claim that Alec is legally responsible to know how to handle firearms, I'm all ears. Proving I'm not qualified to be an armorer is easy. Proving that Alec is legally responsible to be an SME is hard.
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It's been adequately covered in the 30+ pages of this thread. He pointed a gun at someone and pulled the trigger. He's responsible. You posted your defense of him based on your misunderstanding the norms of on-set firearms handling, and it's been pointed out that your defense fails because your understanding of these norms is incorrect.
 
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172andyou said:
Alec had every reason to believe that he was holding a dummy gun.
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Then Alec was an idiot for not understand there are no dummy guns.

Is ignorance of being reckless an excuse for it? That's the standard you're claiming.
 
bflynn said:
Was there a non-reckless way for Baldwin to have checked the camera angle without pointing a functional firearm at a person? Was it reckless for him to have pointed it at a person and pulled trigger even if he believed it was blanks? Is ignorance of being reckless an excuse?

Firearm safety says that action is always reckless, 100% of the time.
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I've never done any film work, but I have acted on stage. I also know firearm safety. I would NEVER point an actual handgun or rifle directly at a person, no matter what the director told me to do. If the director asked me to enact a direct aim, I would politely refuse and explain that I simply cannot allow myself to violate that safety rule, even with a supposedly inert firearm. The benefit just does not match up to the risk.
 
bflynn said:
Was it reckless for him to have pointed it at a person and pulled trigger even if he believed it was blanks?

Firearm safety says that action is always reckless, 100% of the time.
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I have fired tens of thousands of blank rounds directly at hundreds of people. I have done this with some of the best trained firearms experts in the world. Were we reckless?
 
bflynn said:
Was it reckless for him to have pointed it at a person and pulled trigger even if he believed it was blanks?
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Ed Haywood said:
I have fired tens of thousands of blank rounds directly at hundreds of people.
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Bit of a nit, but that’s the difference between believing it and knowing it, I guess.
 
Lindberg said:
It's been adequately covered in the 30+ pages of this thread. He pointed a gun at someone and pulled the trigger. He's responsible. You posted your defense of him based on your misunderstanding the norms of on-set firearms handling, and it's been pointed out that your defense fails because your understanding of these norms is incorrect.
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See below

Or the behind the scenes footage from basically any action movie ever

Ed Haywood said:
I have fired tens of thousands of blank rounds directly at hundreds of people. I have done this with some of the best trained firearms experts in the world. Were we reckless?
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172andyou said:
Or the behind the scenes footage from basically any action movie ever
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I'll ask you again how many movies you've actually worked on. If you're getting your information from "the making of" specials, it's unpersuasive. Multiple people in this thread have BTDT and said that's not how it works.

And I don't think @Ed Haywood is referring to movie making. Based on his post history, I suspect he's done a lot of stuff that would be considered reckless in most normal contexts.
 
Ed Haywood said:
I have fired tens of thousands of blank rounds directly at hundreds of people. I have done this with some of the best trained firearms experts in the world. Were we reckless?
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If you'd done it without the informed consent of everyone involved you would have been. And even then, people have been found reckless in similar circumstances.
 
I do not think the people in front of Ed Haywood did informed consent.

I know that I did not as a draftee in basic training. They fired 30 caliber machine guns over us as we crawled through dusty dirt fields, in day light, then watered to change to mud, for the night version. There were logs around "shell holes", which contained 1/4 sticks of dynomite, with a shovel of mud on top, to shower us with mud.

They assured us that the bullets were no lower than 36 inches from the ground, and as long as we went under the barbed wire, not over, we were safe.

They were not using blanks, we could hear the loud ZIP of them passing over our heads, and the height was clear, every fifth was a tracer.

The rules in the military are quite different from civilian life.
 
Ed Haywood said:
I have fired tens of thousands of blank rounds directly at hundreds of people. I have done this with some of the best trained firearms experts in the world. Were we reckless?
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*shrug*

Yes. And lucky.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Nope. Professional.
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If you're talking about military, that's a little different because military exercises aren't restricted by state law. But still if you were reckless or careless, you would expect ucmj proceedings.

I don't believe any civilians operate at the same standards.
 
bflynn said:
But still if you were reckless or careless, you would expect ucmj proceedings.
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I actually did see a similar event once. An Army sergeant in my unit hid a magazine of live ammo in his ammo pouch so he could cheat on an upcoming qualification range. During a blank fire ambush exercise, he loaded the live magazine and shot a dozen rounds on full auto into the target, a HUMVEE with 2 soldiers inside. By some miracle neither was hit.

I was the first officer on scene. When I questioned him, he denied having fired the rounds. He hid his blank adapter, which was blown off his weapon and obviously damaged. It was rather funny because I had his whole squad lined up in the woods at night, and there were 7 guys with blank adapters attached and him without. I searched him and found it in his pocket. He said, I **** you not, "ummm that's not mine."

He was chaptered out of the service for having unauthorized ammo and lying about it. He was not punished for shooting at the vehicle and soldiers, because that is what he was supposed to do.

Point being, every day in the military tens of thousands of troops shoot hundreds of blanks directly at each other. It is not unusual for those same troops to shoot live rounds on the same day. This is not considered dangerous or a safety violation, because control measures are in place to reduce risk. Same as a movie set.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Point being, every day in the military tens of thousands of troops shoot hundreds of blanks directly at each other. It is not unusual for those same troops to shoot live rounds on the same day. This is not considered dangerous or a safety violation, because control measures are in place to reduce risk. Same as a movie set.
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Military service carries inherent risk, including training exercises, as this risk is the cost of exerting force and winning wars and preserving freedom. A risk that's considered appropriate for that goal might not be appropriate for an activity that's purely for entertainment, like making a movie.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Point being, every day in the military tens of thousands of troops shoot hundreds of blanks directly at each other. It is not unusual for those same troops to shoot live rounds on the same day. This is not considered dangerous or a safety violation, because control measures are in place to reduce risk. [Same as a movie set.]
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I disagree with the highlighted portion.
 
Half Fast said:
Military service carries inherent risk, including training exercises, as this risk is the cost of exerting force and winning wars and preserving freedom. A risk that's considered appropriate for that goal might not be appropriate for an activity that's purely for entertainment, like making a movie.
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Might also point out that those in military training when shooting and being shot at with live ammo were aware of the fact ...
 
One key point wrt firing blanks directly at someone. There is a minium distance beyond which blanks are harmless. Don't be pulling the trigger when someone is too close.
 
Bob Noel said:
One key point wrt firing blanks directly at someone. There is a minium distance beyond which blanks are harmless. Don't be pulling the trigger when someone is too close.
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Maybe don't be pulling the trigger when you're aware there is live ammo on site and you haven't checked your gun personally?
 
Salty said:
Maybe don't be pulling the trigger when you're aware there is live ammo on site and you haven't checked your gun personally?
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Nobody was aware there was live ammo on site. That is very much against the safety rules. LEO investigators were unable to determine how the live rounds got there. That was a major point of contention in the Armorer's trial.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Nobody was aware there was live ammo on site. That is very much against the safety rules. LEO investigators were unable to determine how the live rounds got there. That was a major point of contention in the Armorer's trial.
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Nobody admitted to knowing there was live ammo on site. Big difference. Guarantee someone knew.
 
DaleB said:
Nobody admitted to knowing there was live ammo on site. Big difference. Guarantee someone knew.
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Unless it was inadvertent. There were a total of 6 rounds found. The way they were distributed suggests they might have gotten mixed into the ammo supply by mistake.

"Investigators found a live round in that box. It was one of six known to be on the film set, which included the one that killed Ms. Hutchins; two that were discovered on top of the prop cart; one that was in a gun belt assigned to an actor and one in the gun belt assigned to Mr. Baldwin."


One possibility: the arms and ammo were previously used in the filming of Yellowstone 1883. The cast of that series went off site during filming for a "cowboy action shoot" with live ammo. Not a huge leap to imagine a few of those rounds getting mixed into the ammo returned to the dealer, who failed to sift them out before supplying to Rust, where the armorer also failed to identify them.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Nobody was aware there was live ammo on site. That is very much against the safety rules. LEO investigators were unable to determine how the live rounds got there. That was a major point of contention in the Armorer's trial.
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I thought I read people were shooting live rounds after filming for the day on Rust. Maybe I'm imagining it

Not sure if it's been discussed, but apparently her contract as armorer had expired the 17. The incident happened the 21st, while she was contracted as props assistant.
 
Racerx said:
I thought I read people were shooting live rounds after filming for the day on Rust. Maybe I'm imagining it
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That’s what I remembered.
 
I don't think that ever came out during the Armorer's trial. If that happened, it may come out during Baldwin's trial.
 
My recollection is that the Assistant Director said "cold gun" as he handed Baldwin the prop. Doesn't that mean that it shouldn't even have blanks, but completely inert rounds? And that gun should've been checked by the armorer and the AD before being handed over to the actor.
 
AV8R_87 said:
My recollection is that the Assistant Director said "cold gun" as he handed Baldwin the prop. Doesn't that mean that it shouldn't even have blanks, but completely inert rounds? And that gun should've been checked by the armorer and the AD before being handed over to the actor.
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And then checked by the actor...
 
RyanShort1 said:
I HOPE you sump your fuel before flight. You may not be a line service guy, or knowledgable about fuel, but there are bare minimums that should be expected of you, and of anyone handling a REAL gun.
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I'll play the devil's advocate here. I don't sump my tanks at work. I don't do the weight and balance. I am responsible for the safety of the flight, but I'm going to assume that the people who are responsible for the fuel on the jet have complied with all the required purity tests. I'm also going to assume that the loaders have weighed all the cans properly and have locked them into the correct positions.
 
Half Fast said:
Military service carries inherent risk, including training exercises, as this risk is the cost of exerting force and winning wars and preserving freedom. A risk that's considered appropriate for that goal might not be appropriate for an activity that's purely for entertainment, like making a movie.
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No "might" about it.
Salty said:
Maybe don't be pulling the trigger when you're aware there is live ammo on site and you haven't checked your gun personally?
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You, I, and any gun person knows this. Muzzle discipline becomes automatic. But it's not automatic for an anti-gun Hollywood liberal who was never taught this... it could be like a young child who finds Dad's hidden gun and shoots his friend; it's the parent who's at fault.
DaleB said:
Nobody admitted to knowing there was live ammo on site. Big difference. Guarantee someone knew.
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I recall hearing that they were using the prop guns for plinking, shooting bottles and such, after hours. Or maybe it was on the Yellowstone set where the guns had previously been used.
 
Salty said:
Maybe don't be pulling the trigger when you're aware there is live ammo on site and you haven't checked your gun personally?
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ok, but I was talking about blanks, not live ammo.

If there is live ammo in the gun, then DUH, don't pull the trigger...
 
Dana said:
You, I, and any gun person knows this. Muzzle discipline becomes automatic. But it's not automatic for an anti-gun Hollywood liberal who was never taught this...
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AB has worked in hollywood for decades and many of his movies had guns. I would be amazed if there wasn't a single armorer that could say, "I taught all actors on set, including AB, the basic rules of gun safety."
 
AV8R_87 said:
My recollection is that the Assistant Director said "cold gun" as he handed Baldwin the prop. Doesn't that mean that it shouldn't even have blanks, but completely inert rounds? And that gun should've been checked by the armorer and the AD before being handed over to the actor.
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But the armorer wasn't even on-set when this occurred, was she? How does the armorer check a weapon when they weren't present? Wouldn't that have stopped production if the rule was in place? Lots of holes in that swiss cheese.
 
Racerx said:
I thought I read people were shooting live rounds after filming for the day on Rust. Maybe I'm imagining it
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There is no evidence of that, according to the prosecution investigators at the trial of the armorer.
 
Half Fast said:
You realize that even blanks are deadly at close range, right?
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Yes. Which is why I talked about not pulling the trigger if anyone was too close

I suspect that some didn’t read the entire post
 
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