Alec Baldwin shoots and kills cinematographer.

another scenario (I don't know why I'm doing this, I really don't care about anything other than that poor woman)........you come in for your pitstop during a nascar race. you have tire changer specialist dudes, fuel filler upper specialist dudes, whatever the F else they do during a pitstop specialist dudes.....do u get out and check what each one did? NO, they are supposed to be specialists in what they do, that's what they're paid to do. you slam on the gas when they are done doing their thing and expect what they did was done at a professional level. then the crew has their little circle jerk because they changed tires in under 20 seconds or whatever it is. if the tank explodes the next lap, or a tire goes flat, you don't blame the driver.

with all that being said, and again I'm done 'arguing' because it's so stupid and typical these days, especially when we don't know the facts, but what I don't understand is if the crew isn't supposed to be in the line of fire, what happened there? oh, that and also how the F an actual bullet ended up in the gun, if in fact that's what happened.

anyways, back to my jack daniels.
 
eman1200 said:
sorry, that's silly. as pilot you're responsible for fuel, no one else. on a film set, there are SPECILISTS who's sole job is to handle the firearm stuff so the other specialist, known as an actor, doesn't have to.
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Sorry eman, but the actor should be as well versed in safety as the armorer. This set sounds like it was a disaster, and people who know were afraid and complained about it. 3 "misfires" before this tragedy, in one week. "Misfires" mostly likely caused by untrained people pulling a trigger when they should not have.

From one of the articles, the assistant, grabbed the weapon from a table of three (inexcusable leaving guns out unattended), declared it safe without even looking at it, gave it to Baldwin, who didn't check it. So many things wrong, but once again, the fatal error, was Baldwin pointing a gun in a direction he had no business pointing it, then pulling the trigger. Just inexcusable. It rightly would have scared the crap out of the cinematographer if it hadn't gone off. Unfortunately it did go off. Inexcusable.
 
Lachlan said:
I wonder how the support vs castigation of Baldwin would differ if he hadn’t appeared on SNL so many times making fun of that loud-mouthed, chubby, spray-tanned real estate guy that caught the hoax China Flu?
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I honestly doubt it would be much different.

Alec Baldwin established himself a well known a-hole LONG before he took a political side.

I personally can't stand the orange man you refer to and laughed my butt off at the SNL impression, but that doesn't mean I like Alec Baldwin.
 
luvflyin said:
Haven't been here for a few pages. To lazy to get caught up so just gonna ask. Has there been anything on whether or not there was a bullet in the round. Or was it stuff from a blank that hit the victims?
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Latest reports are sure making it sound like a projectile. A lot more use of the word 'bullet' than 'blank round'.
 
PaulS said:
I have no reason to doubt that report, she died, and the director was rushed to the hospital with injuries. But anything is possible.


I get the sabotage angle, and it may be true and should be investigated. But the story is that Baldwin, this lady and the director were discussing how a scene should be filmed. Baldwin, said "like this?" as he pulled the gun, pointed it at her, then pulled the trigger. At a minimum, that is criminal negligence, even if the gun was empty and he had verified it was empty.
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This is starting to sound more and more like there was an actual bullet in the gun.....which begs the question - what in the hell were they doing with actual bullets on the set mixing them up with prop guns? There are some significant controls that were disregarded.
 
Fearless Tower said:
This is starting to sound more and more like there was an actual bullet in the gun.....which begs the question - what in the hell were they doing with actual bullets on the set mixing them up with prop guns? There are some significant controls that were disregarded.
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I think "prop guns" is a misnomer too. These are real guns, used as movie props.
 
PaulS said:
3 "misfires" before this tragedy, in one week. "Misfires" mostly likely caused by untrained people pulling a trigger when they should not have.
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Normally, a “misfire” is when a gun doesn’t fire when you pull the trigger.

Seems like what you’re referring to here is more an “accidental discharge”.
 
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Fearless Tower said:
This is starting to sound more and more like there was an actual bullet in the gun.....which begs the question - what in the hell were they doing with actual bullets on the set mixing them up with prop guns? There are some significant controls that were disregarded.
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To me, this is the bizarre thing. How in the world does even a single round of live ammo make it onto the set? If I was in control of the firearms on a movie or show, I'd shut the whole thing down if a live round (not a blank) found its way onto the movie lot/set.
 
Katamarino said:
If you asked Michael Hall or Bryan Cranston for their views on serial killers or violent drug dealers, they'd probably express general disapproval. However, they both portrayed them sympathetically on screen. Are they hypocrites?
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As you've framed is, yes they are, because no matter their personal views, if they portray them as a person someone aspires to be like, that's problematic. However, there is a difference between portraying someone sympathetically, and portraying them as the moral superior.
How about actors who take part in car chases but support speed limits, or who play medieval heroes while not being proponents of open-carrying broadswords in Wendy's?
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Again, depends on how it's portrayed. Then, too, in times of unrest, I'm pretty sure carrying broadswords would have been quite normal for travelers in any culture with highway robbers and no one would've blinked.
I am sure that you can provide ever-more-specific rationalisations for why "Well, that's different", but in my opinion this criticism of Baldwin for hypocrisy is just an attempt to have a go at a guy whose politics the critic doesn't like, driven by emotion and not logic. I suspect the fact that he makes fun of certain people's political hero/cult leader has a lot to do with it too.
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So an attempt to deny the credibility of my arguments as a lead-in? Bad tactic.
Also, my criticism of Baldwin would be the same if he was a Trump sycophant.
There's no credibility in an argument that depicting use of firearms in late 19th Century New Mexico has any meaningful parallel with opposition to 21st century gun violence, no matter how brashly Baldwin might express his views.
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Uh, there's a LOT of room for disagreement about that.
 
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kyleb said:
To me, this is the bizarre thing. How in the world does even a single round of live ammo make it onto the set? If I was in control of the firearms on a movie or show, I'd shut the whole thing down if a live round (not a blank) found its way onto the movie lot/set.
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Maybe a weapon rented from someone else?
 
RyanShort1 said:
Maybe a weapon rented from someone else?
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It just seems like you've gotta unload every firearm that comes on-set and individually check every blank round you bring on the set, just in case. The penalty for screwing this up is a big one.
 
eman1200 said:
sorry, that's silly. as pilot you're responsible for fuel, no one else. on a film set, there are SPECILISTS who's sole job is to handle the firearm stuff so the other specialist, known as an actor, doesn't have to.
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How many film sets have you been on? And Baldwin didn't get the gun from a specialist, he got it from the 1st AD.
 
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I suspect in the future we will see the “Baldwin Defense” when it comes to negligent shootings…
 
BladeSlap said:
Listening to it on NPR yesterday

Blamed on using real guns, blamed on everyone, props, even lack of worker pay!, everyone and everything except the guy who pulled the trigger.
If someone handed me a actual pistol and told me to shoot it at people for a video, and trust us it has blanks, I’d still inspect every round.

Personal responsibility is for everyone minus the elite, even B lister elite I guess.
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It sounds like you've had experience with guns and training in firearm safety. Maybe the same is true of Baldwin, but do we know that?
 
Palmpilot said:
It sounds like you've had experience with guns and training in firearm safety. Maybe the same is true of Baldwin, but do we know that?
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It doesn’t matter. By picking it up he assumed responsibility for what resulted from his actions. Of course factors may mitigate it some but does not eliminate his responsibility.
 
Palmpilot said:
It sounds like you've had experience with guns and training in firearm safety. Maybe the same is true of Baldwin, but do we know that?
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It should be a requirement if he is going to handle them as part of his job.
 
Palmpilot said:
It sounds like you've had experience with guns and training in firearm safety. Maybe the same is true of Baldwin, but do we know that?
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If he didn’t have training, that’s his fault too.

For how quickly people here blamed a guy who went out with friends only to get stabbed, major soft spot for a B list actor who at best, through gross negligence, shot someone to death.

Negligent homicide?
 
Palmpilot said:
It sounds like you've had experience with guns and training in firearm safety. Maybe the same is true of Baldwin, but do we know that?
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Yes. He would have had it before he ever handled a gun on set, even if not before.
 
wsuffa said:
This is an interesting read, and talks a bit about the armorer

https://wjla.com/news/entertainment/baldwin-was-told-gun-was-cold-before-movie-set-shooting
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A crew member who was alarmed by the misfires told a unit production manager in a text message, “We’ve now had 3 accidental discharges. This is super unsafe,”
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:eek:

I think I've had 2 in a lifetime and both were malfunctions with the gun pointed safely downrange. One was a faulty decocking feature on a super cheap CZ-52 handgun(a known flaw I was ready for). The other was a dirty firing pin on an SKS causing a slam fire... again a known issue I was ready for.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
It doesn’t matter. By picking it up he assumed responsibility for what resulted from his actions. Of course factors may mitigate it some but does not eliminate his responsibility.
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For whatever reason, you know that you should never accept the assertion of another that a gun is safe. I know that because I've read this thread. I'm just not sure that it's realistic to expect that level of awareness of people who are not trained on gun safety.
 
BladeSlap said:
If he didn’t have training, that’s his fault too....
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Perhaps, but I would say that if the crew didn't provide the training, then they were more at fault.

On the other hand, he was serving as producer too. Whether producers typically get into that level of detail, I don't know.

For how quickly people here blamed a guy who went out with friends only to get stabbed...
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I was not one of them.
 
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Palmpilot said:
Perhaps, but I would say that if the crew didn't provide the training, then they were more at fault.

On the other hand, he was serving as producer too. Whether producers typically get into that level of detail, I don't know.
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It really doesn’t matter. In the end, the person holding the gun is responsible for its use. Period.
 
Palmpilot said:
People who haven't been trained on gun safety may not know that.
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Awww ... then they must be a special kind of stupid to play around with deadly force and not have the presence of mind to ask, "how does this thing work?"

That's nearly akin to teaching yourself to fly except when teaching yourself to fly you generally only injure/kill yourself.
 
Normal gun safety isn't that complicated.

Always assume every gun is loaded at all times and keep it pointed in a safe direction.
Always be sure of your target and what's beyond it
Keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot.

Get all that right and there won't be any accidents, most gun training courses I've been to hit that in the first couple minutes. Then a little bit about the terminology, different actions, how to field dress if it's hunter's safety, and your state's laws. After that half hour is up you pretty much spend the rest of the government mandated training time swapping stories. I'm embellishing... but only slightly.


Of course, when making a movie where it becomes necessary to actually point guns at people I'm sure the rules have to be different. Just pointing this out for those who aren't familiar with it.
 
The conversation here is a little like expecting non-pilots to know the safety protocols that pilots know. If he had known about the protocol of checking a gun yourself even when the person who hands it to you says it's safe, it seems like he would have been more likely to do so.

Regardless of what level of fault he is judged to have, the other links in the accident chain need to be considered too.
 
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