With all due respect, how many casualties have there been in "professional aviation" since 1985 vs with Hollywood firearms.

Hollywood firearms = 3
Professional aviation = ?

Can say the same about actors who think they can act like they know how to play pool..

To the movie set shooting death? Nobody here really knows anything...so why bother?

An assistant director handed him the gun, not the armorer. She was probably nowhere around. This is why it is so, so important to follow the basic gun handling safety protocols we have all been taught from when we were kids.

It was imperative that this assistant director check any gun he picks up. He did not do that. It is imperative that Alec Baldwin check any gun he is handed. He did not do that.

No matter what we are told, no matter what we think, we check any gun we pick up or any gun that is handed to us. Every time, without fail. No matter what anyone tells us about its condition. Period. Ignore this most simple and basic of gun handling rules, and people die.

Certainly do at gun club. We hand a gun over with the chamber open so the person recieving it can see it's unloaded.

But with non gun people on a movie set they hire a person specifically for the job to make it safe. That's the armourer and she wasn't doing her job. The assistant director (wrongfully) assumed armourer had done her job.

Craigster,

No offense taken. What are the odds? In other words the number of flight hours versus hours using firearms in the entertainment industry? I don't know the answer but considering the literal tens (if not hundreds) of millions of flight hours in aviation versus how many in entertainment. I bet an honest and accurate analysis would require at least high six figures to probably seven figures to arrive at an honest and accurate answer vice pulling an answer out of the air or setting up something that arrives at a per-determined answer.

Are there problems (sometimes severe) in aviation? Most definitely. The KAL into SFO, Air France 447 on the commercial side not to mention the military side (Osprey asymmetrical ring vortex, NADEP Cherry Point causing a couple of FW losses plus 2 CH-53Es). All these had known problems that took a while to manifest before the loss of life before higher implemented the known fixes. Some were out of cost cutting while others (the KAL and admitting the Osprey issues) were higher unwilling to admit to problems and the NADEP CP causing crashes...

Aviation, especially military aviation is inherently dangerous. You train and test to reduce the likelihood of a mishap. The more dangerous the more rigorous the training; day VFR at altitude requires less skill, training, and proficiency than say night 100-200' on NVGs.

S/F, FOG

Crowbob,

Essentially not requiring actors to perform to the level of a five year old with a half hour of instruction as a bare minimum = “We're special and don't/can't conduct ourselves like the rest of the USA.”

Mr. Baldwin is over 18 and to the best of knowledge is not legally mentally incompetent. The bottom line he is responsible for the death. I am not a lawyer, do not know the laws there, and have not looked into the laws to have an opinion on murder, type of homicide, etc.

Morocco 2006 I was TAD, one of the jobs was to help with Medical and Dental Civil Action Projects (medical and dental folks conducting clinics) in addition to setting up some exercise stuff. The Hills Have Eyes 2 folks were not happy that my people by passed some airport security (with host escort) while they were bringing money and should have had at least equal treatment. The Hills people were working near one of our future clinic sites and were setting some demo/pyro that looked sketchy to me, when I asked both my EOD and Engineers they agreed it was definitely not something we wanted to be around and so we left the area early and returned later.

S/F, FOG

Baldwin thought he had a prop in his hands when he really had a real gun with real ammo.

Hollywood is fantasy land. Its all lies and half truths and completely cutthroat. If someone wants to survive in the business they have to go with the flow and learn to close their eyes when its required.

Larry Elders has a story about a caterer. There was some event in LA and Elders was one of the speakers. The caterer got the job for the food and he often gets work in the entertainment business. After Elders gave his speach, the caterer went up to Elders and had a friendly chat and shook his hand.

That public handshake was enough to get the caterer blackballed in Hollywood.

This shooting will change nothing in Hollywood. A cinematographer that nobody heard of got killed in an accident on a set of a movie that nobody will ever see.

I do agree that the armorer failed here, but being young (your early 20s is NOT underage) or someone's "style" should not matter. For example there are a lot of young men and women in our military that have far greater "life or death" responsibilities at the same age with same years of training and they do a very good job at it. And yes, some of them may not meet our idea of what a clean cut young person should look like...

What totally blows my mind is that live ammo entered the filming location and a prop gun. Do you guys think the gun was used for off the clock target shooting? I can't imagine that live fire drills would even be done with the same weapons, not even weapons stored together? I can't see how else that would have happened, unless there was something nefarious going on.

Agreed and what has me puzzled is. If I got this correct? The guns were left on a cart while evryone went to lunch. Why weren't these locked up? In the armoers trailer or in a gun safe on that same cart or at the very least a trigger lock on each gun?

Heck we would never get away with something like that. If one of us left a gun laying around unlocked and someone picked it up and shot someone all Hell would break loose and Baldwin would be yelling the loudest. Whoever picked that gun up and handed it to Baldwin should be chraged as an accessorie.

Not pointing fingers at you Aigel. This is in general just using your post as a lead in. It bothers me the term "prop gun" as is being used, as if they were not real guns or some how different as if a fake. They are real guns that were being used as "props".

He pointed a gun at people and pulled the trigger.
After reading Craig's posts I'm ok that the actor doesn't get to personally check.
However, were I to engage in any acting activity that would involve pointing a real gun at people I would ask to be personally shown what was in what I was handed and how it worked.
Even then, I'm still not sure I'd be comfortable pointing a real gun at people and pulling the trigger.

There seems to be an incredible amount of misinformation and I'll doubt outside of this going to court that I can form much of an honest opinion.
If using the race car analogy with what presently might be known a better one would be the team owner taking the race car out on a joy ride and running people over in the paddock.

Got Craister's buddy banned for life.

No way Mr Baldwin is held to that standard. Has it been a week yet? I bet he is sleeping like a baby by now

Higgins makes a nice point. Movie set or not, the law is the law. What is the compelling reason for that to not be true?

When handing an "empty" gun to anyone, I pull the clip, and rack the gun to ensure there is nothing in there, I also visually inspect it.

Why is there live ammo on a movie set ?

Hollywood vs professional aviation is like comparing a flea to a Blue Whale in terms of scale, Craig. It is miniscule. Bump up the scale of Hollywood to match professional aviation and I suspect Hollywood would be a relative blood bath.

In the real world we all know to point a gun at someone with your finger on the trigger is a really stupid idea, even to point a gun at anything you don't want to destroy is just not acceptable, unless you are willing to kill the person.

In the movies, it is supposed to be make believe. I wonder how many people did John Wick kill in the three movies? Keanu Reeves did not kill anyone, as not one person was killed in reality.

The actor that is handed a gun for a scene expects several professionals to have checked it. The producers are the folks in charge of who is hired for the tasks from sweeping up to catering to weapons. The Armorer has but one real job, make sure the guns are safe at all times. No just most of the time, all the time. The armorer and anyone that touched the gun before hand is responsible, as is the producer. All need to receive some level of punishment.

The actor may well be playing the part of a pilot, but no one at all expects him to actually fly the aircraft. That is movie magic. No one expects the actor to be a real doctor and know how to preform medical procedures, or how to be a real killer. It is supposed to be make believe and the actor relies on the professionals to do their jobs to keep everyone safe.

He was handed a real gun being used as a prop gun. It is imperative that anyone on that set, wherein real guns are being used as prop guns, fully understand that there are real guns about and treat every gun they see as a real gun. No wiggle room whatsoever on that one.

Beyond that, whenever we are handed a gun that someone tells us is a "prop gun", "toy gun", "unloaded", "cold", or whatever - we check to see if it is loaded. Each and every time. Without fail. No excuses. It takes literally a second or two regardless of gun type.

As I've stated before, therein lies the problem. Regarding the topic under discussion, they have arrogantly deluded themselves into believing that they can have their own rules regarding firearms, while ignoring or dismissing the "real" rules. And, again, those "real" rules never change, even if Hollywood thinks they can change them. We are discussing the direct result of this arrogance right now.

And, yes, I can understand the absolute cutthroat, "go with the flow" nature of the business. I can see where it might be rather "career limiting" to challenge a man like Alec Baldwin on set. On anything, even something as important as his gun handling. There very well could have been some lowly water boy or someone who would have liked to challenge Baldwin, saying "sir, please check that gun". I can see where Baldwin's ego (and many like him) would see that poor guy dismissed and black balled.

That's all well and good, it's their business and they can behave any way they like. Except when it comes to firearms. Regardless of ego, regardless of stature, regardless of situation - those rules never change. When they do, people die. Which is exactly what happened here.

Jeff, if the armorer was not on set then why did producer actor Alec Baldwin have the gun?
Just taking a guess in the absence of fact denying it; because Alec Baldwin, the producer actor, said make it so anyway.


"I can see where it might be rather "career limiting" to challenge a man like Alec Baldwin on set."

kills in various movies with focus on John Wick series.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2019/05/total-number-of-john-wick-kills-in-all-3-movies-revealed.html

For a catastrophic event to happen it usually takes 3 smaller ones to lead up to it.
It looks like this is what happened here.
Take any one of them away and it doesn't happen.

I still have a couple of questions for Craig and/or Hugh- did Alec screw up by pointing the "cold" gun at people, or is that allowed on a movie set? My understanding he was rehearsing a cross draw. I can't see how pointing a gun at others could be avoided. Is there a protocol to protect the crew with a "cold" gun?

Is an actor allowed to pull the trigger on a "cold" gun? Basically, did Alec break any known protocols as an actor here?

It seems that normal gun protocols don't completely match with movie set protocols, for obvious reasons. I don't see how all actors being given a 30 minute training on normal gun protocols can be expected to work very well. So, movie sets have their own protocols that appear extremely solid in their own way. There was negligence or maybe malfeasance on this set of a very high order.