I would expect anyone (any actor or actress in the case under discussion), to be adequately trained in the operation and use of any firearm of which they assume possession. If they are unwilling to undergo the training necessary to do so, then find someone else who is willing to take that training.

Firearms are not rocket science. As stated many times earlier in this discussion, I can train anyone in the use of any firearm with pretty minimal effort. They are simple devices. If they can manipulate their smart phone, they can learn to safely handle any gun. These people have a lot of downtime, free time in which if their next shoot 'em up role was dependent upon doing so, they could very easily seek out and complete the necessary training. It would take less than a day of their time.

And no, no one here has "accepted the realities of movie/tv set gun handling until now." What a terribly inane statement. It assumes we were even aware of Hollywood movie set practices, which I'm quite sure most of us were not even aware of (I sure wasn't) until this incident brought them to light. I don't know any competent shooters, anyone even remotely familiar with firearms that would have "accepted the realities of movie/tv set gun handling until now". What sheer and utter nonsense.

Bottom line is, Mr. Baldwin was not responsible for the fact that he was handed a loaded gun while being told it was unloaded. Not his fault in the least. It was, however, entirely Mr. Baldwin's fault that that firearm remained loaded while he (with three very deliberate actions), first cocked the hammer, then pointed it at a living human being, then pulled the trigger. It would have taken literally two seconds to verify it was unloaded or, in this case, determine that it was loaded. And very, very minimal training to understand how to do that.

So, yes, we're back to page one. And back to our two camps arguing the same points - those who understand basic gun safety and those who do not. Those who do not will continue to make excuses for others who do not, for others that have "accidents" that kill people. Those who do will have none of it. Carry on...

thats what i have said from day one.
first person going to jail is armorer. and being a small fish in big pond (her unknown and baldwin popular) she will be the fall "girl" and i am surprised baldwin has not thrown her under the bus. which leads me to believe AB had more to with the gun than being a dumb actor.
AB as producer should be held responsible for what goes on on set and making sure the armorer does her job

I don't think I understand what you mean by this

Tobra i'm saying if these rules are so inviolable then where has the uproar been over all the gun play in movies to date. Multiple rules broken non stop since the beginning of the industry. And we've been told right in this thread by guys who work directly with the industry that this simply isn't how it works.

The rules being insisted on here simply do not work in a film setting and we all know they don't work. And until now we've been fine with that.

So when did a SOP trump a law?

What law has been trumped?

3rd degree murder.

Again, none of us had any reason to be aware of how guns are handled in this industry. This is the incident that brought it to light for many (most? all?) of us.

Myself, I always assumed that each and every firearm seen in a movie was a non-functional prop gun, or had been otherwise disabled prior to use in a movie. I would have never guessed that they use real, fully functional firearms. Now, having been made aware that they actually do (by this incident), I would have assumed that they follow all accepted gun safety protocols when they do.

I was obviously wrong on both counts. Now that I have been made aware of these two facts - that they do use fully functional firearms, and that they do not follow accepted gun safety protocols, you are seeing my "uproar". As much of one as I can generate on a car forum, anyway. And I think you are seeing others chiming in with me, others who had no idea either. All of us who actually handle firearms as a regular part of our lives are somewhat shocked to have learned these two truths, and we have loudly expressed both our shock, and our disapproval.

It's obvious their rules didn't work. And, now that we know what those rules are, no one is "fine with that". We have been quite vocal about the obvious need to drop their own contrived, ineffective rules and adopt those rules that have been generally accepted in the shooting sports. Because, yes, it's equally obvious, to those of us who have spent a good deal of time around firearms, that our rules work.

To Hughs'e point, I believe there is a profound difference between performing a simple safety check and "fiddling" with a gun. They are simply not the same thing. The former could save a life (would have in this case), the latter could cost a life. The former is expected at my gun club, the latter is very much frowned upon. And, well, if we are dealing with folks who do not understand the difference between competent, safe gun handling and fiddling around with a gun, perhaps we should not be handing them firearms. At least not real ones.

Sorry, guys, that I'm being such an unyielding hard ass about all of this. You have all known me long enough to know that the shooting sports are a large part of my life. It pains me to see this sort of thing, with innocent people getting hurt or killed, in my view, quite needlessly. "Our" rules are in place for a reason, they work, and would almost certainly have prevented this incident. All Mr. Baldwin had to do was check the gun. That is all he had to do...

I was unaware of the protocol on movie sets with respect to firearms, until I learned of it here. I always just figured they did not use real guns in movies, ones that would only fire blanks, camera angles and tricks. I did that when I was a kid making super 8 home movies. It really never occurred to me they were pointing real guns at each other.

I think if you go back and look, it was apparent I was about as fine with it as Mr Higgins is, not at all.

Jeff

Think about it you have extras and actors opening a breech, racking a slide, dropping a mag,etc. who is to say what they actually did? Strict control is supposed to be followed in that the armorer show the revolver to the actor demonstrates it has blanks or dummies for a close up shot of the front of the revolver. The actor is told exactly what to do, if there are deviations the armorer yells “cut”.

Lexan shields, remote cameras, pointing the barrel to the side have all been discussed earlier. ABs fault is as a producer if it was just a title. He may well have not been involved in budgets or staffing. Don’t misunderstand me I don’t like him at all he’s arrogant, rude and a general schmuck.

Now I've seen in the interview he claims he was just a "Creative Producer", which is Hollywood speak for "We'll just divert some of my income as a 'double dip' where I get residuals through SAG and the Producer's Guild".

His claim will be that his only duties as Producer were establishing the "look and artistic tone" of the film and script approval. No responsibility in business and funding or day to day logistical planning for the production.

He's looking hard for an "out".

brandon lee was killed on set from a live round.
that was a very long time ago.
not sure who else has died on set from a gun shot.


involuntary man (woman) slaughter is about all you can hope AB is charged with.
as a producer he may be charged with more, definitely civil lawsuits
he is too famous, nothing will come of it, not to mention he is part of the correct party (gee that sounds so much like nazi germany)

I think the story on Brandon Lee was a blank round pushed something jammed in the barrel hard enough to kill him. I don't recall that it was a live round.

That was when I learned a blank gun can kill you.

just did a quick search, headlines said "bullet"

idd another quick check.

brandon and one other actor are the only ones ever killed on set from a prop gun. the other one put a 44mag to his and pulled the trigger. it did have a dumby round init but i guess that close your just a dumb A$$.

the industry has been pretty safe as far as guns

Hmm... I'm trying to sort this out... Are you saying that even extras are given real, live, operable firearms? I am well and truly dumbfounded by that, assuming I'm not misunderstanding part of this. Does this really happen? Is it a common practice? I can see (barely) some justification for giving one to the main subject(s) of the scene being shot, under very limited circumstances, but to the extras?

I'm absolutely fine with this, if I understand you correctly. We do this at the range at times, when handing guns over to one another so a buddy can try out one of ours. It's very common that we both look while one opens the action, swings the cylinder out, drops the mag and checks the chamber, or whatever. That way both are satisfied that the gun is "safe", so it doesn't change possession without that verification.

It sounds as though that did not happen in this case. Someone handed Mr. Baldwin a gun and declared it a "cold gun", not bothering to even check for himself when doing so. First missed opportunity. When conducting the transfer of possession, these two guys did not check it together, verifying to one another it was indeed "cold". Second missed opportunity. In such a situation at my range (or any other for that matter), it becomes imperative that the individual receiving the gun check it for himself, regardless of what the other guy said. Third missed opportunity...

As I've stated earlier, I really don't care what titles Mr. Baldwin may have held on this set. The only thing I care about is the gun that he held. He could have been the water boy - the instant he comes into possession of a firearm, he becomes responsible for anything that happens with it until he relinquishes possession. That is the "Golden Rule" of firearms responsibility. The only persons exempt are small children. I know some are saying "and Hollywood actors", but, obviously, I disagree.

As far as we know.

We also know they are not going to be forthcoming or honest about it

Jon-Erik Hexum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon-Erik_Hexum

Those two and Halyana Hutchins in over one hundred years of film making and hundreds of thousands of rounds fired.

Alec Baldwin.. I didn’t pull the trigger
 

QED right there.

Or as they say in sports...’scoreboard’

We all know what happened: Mr Baldwin is guilty of, at the very least pulling the trigger regardless of his claims to the contrary.

IMO in "our world" he wont be held responsible for any wrong doing by law enforcement but it will cost him money.
- Morally he's on his own.

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pulling the trigger does not mean a conviction for "murder"
at the most he could get involuntary man slaughter but not for pulling the trigger.
perhaps as producer, perhaps for not following procedure in that HE had possession of the gun and the armorer did not get to check it. perhaps HE brought live ammo on site and he was shooting the gun.

if he got convicted as an ACTOR for just pulling the trigger do you think another actor would ever touch a gun on set. there is a reason for the armorer. always presume the person you handing a gun to is an idiot.

Depraved indifference, man 2.

"Ballballs" will never accept responsibility for what happened.

The question now arises (finally) as to why no one is investigating how live rounds got on set and ultimately into the gun, and how many, etc.

Because that's the only question that really matters?

No one would have died if the gun was in fact "Cold" - Someone made it "Hot" & it certainly didn't get that way on its own.

it took them this long to figure out that the gun could NOT be fired WITHOUT pulling the trigger when every gun owner already new that
it may take them decades to find out how ammo got in the gun

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This guy really is a scumbag.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/08/alec-baldwin-says-trumps-comments-fatal-rust-shooting-taken-years-off-life/

i understand he has been fired from like 6 jobs now.
no body wants the dirt bag.

i HATE that he was in hunt for red october.
when ever that movie is on i have to watch it. well i dont go out of my way but if i am flippin and its on....

also heard the armorer wants "her" story out.
she is claiming she did nothing wrong. not THAT will be an interesting story to hear

I have a question, was there only 1 round in the cylinder or 6? If 6 were the other 5 blanks or live rounds?


I know that’s 2 questions.

Rich

good question
i wonder if we will ever know.

who had control of the gun immediately after
could they have tampered with the gun as far as whats loaded.

biden philosophy...dont talk about it and it will go away

Great Question! Here is a follow up question to your two questions. . .

Was the weapon clean when it was handed to Mr. Baldwin? Had it been cleaned after the prior day’s (film) shooting? (or after work “plinking”?)

Same question, asked twice.

The weapons are cleaned daily and safety checked after each film take. As far as number of rounds, I'm sure that since the gun was being pointed at or near camera where you could tell if it was loaded, there should have been 6 rounds in the cylinder.

Now what I'd like to know is out of those 6 rounds how many were "live". You would have to be ignorant to load 6 rounds into a revolver and not realize they were "live".

Note my addition in bold.

My point has to do with the chain of custody of the weapon. If the weapon had been used for “plinking” the previous night and had not been cleaned and inspected by the armorer prior to its use the next day then it is completely plausible the weapon still had live rounds in it from the recreational use.

Did the armorer clean and render the weapon safe, only to have someone to remove it, shot live rounds then replace it without cleaning an clearing it?

Hopefully the investigation has these answers.

^^thats probably how most sets have gone in the past but apparently not this one.
just my assumption but if they were just rehearsing should there have EVEN been any dummy loads in it.i would say NO.
i am betting there were 6 "live" rounds in that gun. how many had been fired is another story. maybe that was the last of the live rounds, maybe it was the first of 6.

i really think they (AB) had been shooting that gun and it was never emptied after the last shots.

i would not be surprised if he was shooting the gun THAT day and probably kept it in HIS possession thinking since HE had it the gun was "safe" and never unloaded it. perhaps even thinking all 6 rounds had been fired
the armorer keeps saying she wants the "truth" out about what happened.

And if that is the case, there may be multiple CA firearms laws broken regarding the transfer of both a firearm and ammo...

The woman who calls herself an 'Armorer" should never have been hired as such due to her extreme lack of experience. AB as a producer directly or indirectly had a hand in her hiring and that is where his culpability is.

Cutting corners and saving money is nothing new in Hollywood but no matter the budget of your film there are positions where you can't try and save a buck. Armorer and Stunt Coordinator are 2 of those positions.

My friend was originally supposed to be the Propmaster on the film. He declined due to lack of prep time and the fact that the producers wanted to get the weapons and ammo from a local Az or NM supplier as opposed to ISS who supplies the majority of weapons worldwide for film.

They also have their own manufacturing facility near Palmdale that makes blank ammo. When you rent a weapon from them you are required to only use their blank ammo.

Thanks for the invaluable insight from an industry insider Craigster.

So... a multi-billion dollar per year industry. Spends an ungodly amount of money on sets, props, special affects, and pays its actors tens of millions of dollars.

Why, on God's green earth, have they not yet arrived upon a standardized process for rendering all guns used in filming non-functional? From an engineering/technical point of view, this is an exceedingly cheap and simple problem to solve.