I’d like to know how many rounds were in the gun. It seems to me there is no reason to have live ammo anywhere on the set, let alone loaded into a firearm. Considering the film was, at least somewhat, a period piece aiming for authenticity, the firearms and ammo are not going to be typical or modern. I would think even security people would not have ready access to such antiques.

So how did the ammo get on set and why was it even there?

I can appreciate how Baldwin would have relied on being told the gun was ‘safe’. The gun would not be expected to be empty so even had he checked it, he would have expected to find it loaded and ready to fire.

Whether Baldwin should have recognized the rounds to be blanks or live ammo is, IMO, debatable. That would be the armorer’s responsibility.

However, with the ongoing labor dispute, and the regular crew having walked off, it appears perhaps nobody checked the credentials of the non-union replacement crew. If so, would that count as criminal neglect, gross negligence or simple negligence? Clearly the well-established safety protocols were violated.

I’m thinking Baldwin is exposed, at the very least, to massive civil litigation.

This may be where I am ignorant of movie props but it was my understanding that
-there are different loads of 'blanks' and some can cause injury just from the charge and the wad
-there are very strict rules that the actor is not allowed to do anything besides accept the weapon, do the scene, hand it back the moment the acting ends. There are supposed to be experts to hand them a cold gun and take it away immediately. This may be an indictment of Hollywood rules and not a specific actor.

Even if Baldwin is of zero value to humanity (as some of us have espoused), we cannot crucify him for following the contract rules when making a movie.

If I am wrong then I ask some of our Hollywood experts to please chime in.



To everyone else's point, yes, I am responsible to check a weapon in my possession. When in a LGS, I stand 3 feet away while the clerk checks and clears the weapon. The hand it to me and I do the same thing every single time. The question is if the actor has the right to do that or would they be violating the movie making rules?

How is this not manslaughter, even if accidental?

She was just a few years older than my daughter.

Tragedy does not automatically equate to guilty.
I would say the armorers responsible for not certifying the weapon was safe should be charged. If this happened off the set or if Baldwin was fooling around then yes, prosecute!

Also, as some have stated there have been walk-offs due to disputes. I would be ironic if the person killed was the one who chose to circumvent the rules (if there are such rules).

My niece and her family recently went through a horrible experience with an "unloaded" rifle. Her neighbor had passed away and his widow was selling his gun collection. The woman knew absolutely nothing about fire arms. A guy shows up to look at the guns to buy them. He picked up the rile, points it at the wall and pulled the trigger. The weapon discharged sending the projectile through the wall, across the yard, through my niece's wall, through a mirror on the inside shattering it and through the back of a heavy dining room chair. By then the bullet had fragmented and the pieces of it and wood splinters sprayed into the face of her toddler son sitting in a high chair. Fortunately his eyes are OK and the doctors were able to remove most of the shrapnel from the kids face. However there are a few pieces in sensitive places that they have not taken out. The police showed up but no charges were filed. Now it is up to the lawyers.

Kill someone in a car crash. Gun is a tool. Mysterious third person armorer. Talk about grasping at straws. It's more likely that baldwin put the round in the gun himself.

I think I read where the deceased was in support of the walk-off but was somehow contractually obliged to work.

No mysterious armorer.

The film’s armorer, a term for the person in charge of gun props, was Hannah Gutierrez Reed, age 24.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10123003/I-wasnt-sure-ready-Doubts-head-armorer-24-charge-guns-Alec-Baldwin-film.html

Gutierrez-Reed is the daughter of legendary Hollywood armorer Thell Reed who trained her from a young age
She recently served as head armorer on a film for the first time, on The Old Way, starring Nicolas Cage
In a podcast interview after filming ended, she said she wasn't sure if she was ready to be a head armorer

The woman that was killed is married to a lawyer at Latham & Watkins in Los Angeles. It’s the second biggest law firm in the world and one of the most prestigious in the US.

NO! There are very strict rules on a Hollywood set.

Regardless of how the live rounds got in the gun and who put them there, Baldwin is done. He may not have known the danger but clearly he should have. And he was ultimately in charge of production, as I have read.

no doubt there will be a civil lawsuit.

In any handling of a gun in normal situation, the person with the gun in hand is responsible for safe operation.

For a movie where an actor is handed a gun by a professional it is assumed the pro knows his or her job. There should no live rounds on the set or even nearby. Baldwin is not to blame and no one can expect an actor to check a movie prop is loaded with a real bullet or a fake.

The prop master is the guilty party here.

With no doubt there will be lawsuits, and police investigations. We can wait to see when happens when the law does it's job, and the lawyers state suing.

This seems impossible.

If the gun is a DA, then the trigger pull to cock and fire is hard. If the gun is single action, someone needed to pull the hammer back. So it was multiple failures for this to occur.

Until someone can speak up who is a movie production pro, I am going to repeat myself!
GH85Carrera are you an industry expert? If so, please clear this up because it will end all the opinions based on no legal and factual circumstances.

This is the problem right here. The actors should have been put through NRA type training. Rule 1, assume the firearm is loaded, don't trust someone saying it is safe

It has to be pretty much impossible that this was a blank right? It passed through one person and entered another. Crazy and sad.

It has been reported that the armorer had three guns on a table or cart, an Assistant Director selected one of them and gave it to Baldwin and announced that it was a cold gun.

Of course it’s manslaughter. The question is who do you charge?I don’t see how Baldwin in an actor role, is responsible. Now Baldwin the producer? That’s another story. Maybe not criminally but definitely liable.

Yes, it sounds like a live round was in the weapon. As I've said before, there is no reason to have a live round anywhere near the set much less on the studio lot. We just don't use them for any purpose. We use dummies, and blanks in different loads (1/4, 1/2, 3/4, full).

Here are the safety protocols for weapons on set:

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