Not to derail the current thread, but wow, FN1. He declined the suggestion to tie his legs together, but was not asked to tie his legs together.

I wasn't there, and I don't know the whole story, but that one tidbit makes the guy sound like a wanker that was looking for a payday. It was suggested that he do something, that would likely have prevented the injury, but he declined. Then after the fact he tried to sue because he wasn't asked/told to do it.

Dad was considered a master, she worked for him.....like an apprentice. Prop guns should be locked up until given out by the armorer, not a douchebag asst director. Any live rounds that can be used on set should be banned so as to have security with personnel with appropriate training.

Absolutely dead flat wrong. Sorry. And I really don't care what a jury decides, if it ever gets that far. Some absolutes do not have to be decided by a jury, and we have all seen the paths too many juries take these days. Especially with the privileged.

Baldwin the man is 100% liable. I don't care is he was the janitor. He held the gun. He pointed it at people. He pulled the trigger.

The individual who had the gun in their hand is always 100% liable for what happens with it. No ifs, ands, or buts.

I've been an active member of my gun club for 40 years. The club was formed in the 1940's. There has never been an injury, much less a death at our club range. Some accidental discharges (and those members are always held accountable) but, because they were following every other safety protocol, no one has ever been hurt. That's a pretty remarkable record, really, and it only stands due to our strict adherence to basic gun safety rules. And the fact that we hold the individual with the gun responsible for what happened with it.

You guys arguing over whether the producer, director, armorer, prop man, of whoever else might be responsible for what happened with that gun have completely missed it. Your attitudes are wholly inappropriate if you ever handle firearms. Your attitudes can, and have, gotten people hurt or killed. You are the only one responsible for the gun that is in your hands. I don't care who you are, what the circumstances are.

I wonder if they forget it's a gun and feel it's a harmless prop?

Reminds me of this movie. Except the husband.

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When I hand a "hot" gun to an actor that I have used my expertise to load properly, if there is a misfire or accidental discharge that is completely on me and me alone.

If I hand a "hot" gun to an Assistant Director or an actor and they start messing with it and it discharges, all bets are off. You've brought another factor into the equation and fingers will start pointing.

I appreciate your beliefs and passion, and I'm a gun advocate. But you need to think legally, its called "Chain-of-Custody". IF something goes wrong, the armorer (ideally) should be able to testify that they gave the actor the gun, he/she never opened, altered it, pushed some button, nothing.
All they did was hold it until they did what they were instructed EXACTLY what to do.

Do you really want some actor to open and inspect ANY gun? My S&W, M&P 40 has a very exact procedure for removing the slide and reinserting it, it has a very small spring that has to be moved in a certain way to put the slide back in. I had to read the manual to understand it, and probably looked at it 3-4 times to make sure I got it right.

In aviation, nearly every accident has a chain that is broken resulting in the accident.

This thread has been very informative. I had no idea, I guess I should have, on how it really works.

Thanks, folks.

I also got the impression that Jeff's post reflected firearm policy more than firearm law. Baldwin is 100% responsible for pulling the trigger, no doubt. But was it a criminal act? That depends, it looks like.

Hugh, you do not need to take that pistol apart to see if it is loaded. I do not believe that is required check any of the weapons involved in this case to check.


It just seems a bit alien to be that the liability for this is so far removed from the party that would be guilty in pretty much every other venue.

I guess this sort of thing is why lawyers are held in such low regard.

If this were a cap and ball, how many actors would know how to check it other than to be able to see if there was "something" in there or not. A cold gun should have been easy enough to check, but if the chain of command policy is set then that may not be possible to do.

Jeff, I get your point. I follow:

I'm not sure that it's entirely possible to absolutely follow those rules when making a movie with guns. I assume that the only rule that can be fully followed is #4. But, I'm not in the movie business, and I could be wrong. Maybe they have angles and ways of doing things.

I thought this (Craigster posted this as their rules) is interesting.

https://web.archive.org/web/20211022034823/https://www.csatf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/01FIREARMS.pdf

(this is not the full content of the document in the URL ^above^. This is just an excerpt. This is probably only 1/3-1/2 of the content of the document. There's a whole section of numbered rules on the use of blanks.

Jeff's post is about firearm safety which we all follow. Firearm safety protocols are different on set. In Jeff's case, I may bring my recently acquired antique Winchester 73 to the range. All the guys are interested and want to take a look. Each person opens the breech and peers down the barrel as it's passed around and congratulating me on my excellent purchase. This is practicing good firearm safety.

On set, just before filming I bring the Winchester 73 out of the safe and open the breech and make sure it's clear. I stand by the gun, nobody touches it, don't even look at it. No-one touches the gun until I have loaded it for the scene we are ready to film and then (and only then) is it handed to actor as we are ready to roll film. Director yells "cut!" and I immediately retrieve the gun from the actor and make sure it is safe and clear. This is firearms protocol.

I'm thinking were I an actor using a real gun I would educate myself on it.

I'm with Toby on this. Just because somebody is an actor at work doesn't relieve him of reasonable duty to safety. And that's not because I think Baldwin is a horrible person, either. This is a very high profile incident having huge implications not only for gun ownership, gun safety, etc. but for the notion of equal protection of the law.

Craig- is the primer side of a blank color coded in some way? Otherwise, even if Baldwin opened the cylinder, how could he tell? Do we expect him to remove all of the shells and check for bullets? And even that doesn't prevent a blank from then pushing a slug stuck in the barrel out.

Of course, he was told "cold gun" which as I understand means nothing in it, so if he opened it and saw shells of any kind, an alarm bell goes off. If he were told "hot gun" and opened it, he'd never know.

I think there's a lot we don't know yet. I'm not assessing blame on anyone but the
AD at them moment. The AD shouldn't have handled the gun under any circumstance.

Isnt the point of a movie to point guns at people for camera?, action movies are going to start to get weird if people are pointing guns at the ground, in accordance with gun ownership practices.

And on top of that, not all revolvers have a cylinder that comes out.
ie, this is not possible on all revolvers.
https://cdn.thingiverse.com/assets/7...eed_loader.gif

Not that it's that hard to check the other kind, but I don't think most folks would know how.
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And then there's also the break action...
https://thesportingshoppe.com/wp-con.../final-5-1.jpg

Thanks again to Craigster and Hugh for there comments and vast knowledge. It gives
me a greater appreciation and insight on how involved and the technical expertise
needed to to the shooting scenes for movies. In particular the movie Heat. The shooting
and gun battle scenes in that movie were pretty incredible. The technical knowledge and
safety issues involved in filming those scenes, I had not really thought about before. They
must have had the best of the best when it comes to the armorer on that movie.
Kudo's to all the technicians and professionals who make it all happen.

That never stopped the storm troopers.

lol!