Stupid fucking dick-with-ears.
Alec Baldwin fired blank at crew member before fatal ‘Rust’ shooting: prosecutors
Alec Baldwin once fired a blank round at a crew member on the set of “Rust,” prosecutors alleged in new court papers, as they accused the actor of being reckless with firearms while filming.
Gee, wonder if that mightn’t be the same type of “blank round” that did for Brandon Lee some years back, perchance? Or Jon-Erik Hexum? Or Terry Kath, say? Naaah, couldn’t be, it’s unpossible.
Prosecutors in the New Mexico involuntary manslaughter case against the “30 Rock” star said they plan to bring evidence at his trial — slated to begin on July 9 — showing that Baldwin had a history of flouting safety protocols on set, which led to Halyna Hutchins’ tragic shooting death in 2021.
One such reckless moment came when Baldwin, 66, pointed his gun and fired “a blank round at a crew member” while he held the person target in his line of sight, prosecutors alleged in the Monday filing.
Other examples of Baldwin ignoring safety procedures between Oct. 12, 2021 up until the day of the shooting included him using his gun as a pointer; firing the weapon after filming was over in violation of safety rules; holding his finger on the trigger in scenes that didn’t require it; rushing armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed to reload his gun faster; and being on FaceTime with his family and making videos for them during firearms training, the court papers claimed.
And before filming even started Baldwin — one of the producers and the leading actor in the movie — “asked to be assigned the ‘biggest’ gun available,” the filing alleged.
In one clip, he “can be seen engaging in horseplay with his gun and pulling his gun when the scene did not call for the pulling of his gun,” the papers claimed. “When he pulls his gun the muzzle of the gun is pointed directly at another actor.”
Prosecutors said many clips show an angry and aggressive Baldwin, who can also be seen halting filming to yell and swear at the crew.
“Mr. Baldwin can be seen screaming intermittently throughout the attempts at filming the scene,” the filing claimed. “He exercises complete control over the set by stopping the acting sequence, cursing loudly and rushing the other cast and crew.”
Taken altogether this “intrinsic evidence” of Baldwin’s “other acts” leading up to Hutchins’ death shows that the incident wasn’t an “accident or mistake” — as Baldwin has maintained all along, prosecutors said.
Indeed. Looks a lot more like a pattern of behavior from where I’m sitting. Although YMMV, of course and as always.
The funny-but-not-ha-ha-funny aspect of all this is the observable demonstration of Mike’s Iron Law #462 represented herein: clearly the jerk Baldwin, subconsciously or otherwise, regarded the prop guns he recklessly and obnoxiously brandished at people on-set as the “penis substitutes” shitlibs like him so love to mock gun-fanciers for supposedly using to compensate for certain, ummm, shortcomings, shall we say. Y’know, same as stump-jumping 4WD pickups, Harley Davidsons, Texas-sized cowboy belt buckles, and high-performance American V8 engines also are.
Totally ignorant about guns of every type and description; unmindful of the most elementary precepts of firearm safety; blinded by his bloated, unchecked ego to the very real peril his childish monkeyshines put others in; negligent, preening, profoundly self-absorbed, inconsiderate, unprofessional—the real marvel here is that Alec Baldwin’s damn-fool jackanapery didn’t get some other cast- or crew-member killed long before now. Truly, the man’s a menace. One can only wonder what other horror-stories about his on-set misconduct remain untold, except in sotto voce whispers amongst the pitiable souls condemned to work with the bratty little asswart over the years.
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Defense: “Whose job is it to acquire all weapons and ammunition for filming?”
Armorer Reed: “Mine.”
Defense: “Whose job was it to ensure no live ammunition was ever anywhere on set?”
Armorer Reed: “Mine.”
Defense:”Whose job was it to load Baldwin’s prop gun with dummy cartridges for the rehearsal?”
Armorer Reed:”Mine.”
Defense: “Whose responsibility was it to check that you had only loaded dummy rounds into Baldwin’s gun for that rehearsal?”
Armorer Reed:”Mine and 1st A.D. Halls.”
Defense:”What responsibility does Baldwin or any other actor on any set have for loading or checking the loading of any prop weapon on any set, ever, since before you were born?”
Armorer Reed: “None whatsoever.”
Defense: “What was Baldwin’s job as an actor, for both the rehearsal, and the actual scene being rehearsed that day?”
Director Souza:”To draw his pistol, cock it, point it directly at the camera, and pull the trigger.”
Defense: “With dummy rounds for the rehearsal, and a blank round for the actual scene?”
Director Souza:”Yes, that’s correct.”
Armorer Reed:”Yes, that’s correct.”
Defense: “So, did you load Baldwin’s prop gun before the rehearsal?”
Armorer Reed: “Yes, I did.”
Defense:”And did you and 1st AD Halls double check that loading?”
Armorer Reed:”I don’t know.”
1st AD Halls:”No, I didn’t.”
Defense: “So how did a live round get onto the set, and into a prop gun for that rehearsal?”
Armorer Reed: “I have no idea.”
Defense: “And how did five other LIVE ROUNDS get onto multiple other locations on the “Rust” set, including on the armorer’s cart, and in the cartridge loops on Mr. Baldwin’s prop gunbelt?”
Armorer Reed:”I have no idea.”
Defense: “If Armorer Reed had done her job in preventing live rounds on set, and loaded only dummy rounds for the rehearsal, and 1st AD Halls had double-checked the loading of dummy rounds, what would have happened when Baldwin followed the script in rehearsal, pulled his pistol, cocked it, pointed it right at the camera, and pulled the trigger?”
Director Souza:”Nothing.”
1stAD Halls: “Nothing.”
Armorer Reed:”Nothing.”
Defense:”And when 1st AD Halls handed Baldwin the weapon, and told everyone on set including Baldwin, loudly and clearly, it was a “cold weapon”, meaning it was loaded only with dummy rounds, was there any way on earth for Baldwin, or any other actor, to know that it was in fact a “hot weapons”, not only loaded, but loaded completely against all movie industry policy and practice for 50 years and more with a LIVE ROUND, and that neither of the responsible parties responsible for checking and double-checking it had not, in fact, done any such thing?”
Director Souza:”No.”
1st AD Halls: “No.”
Armorer Reed: “No.”
Defense: “And once Reed and 1st AD Halls failed to do their jobs, was there anything that would have prevented Baldwin, or any other actor following the script for that scene and rehearsal, from having the same disastrous incident as the one that took place?”
Director Souza:”No.”
1st AD Halls:”No.”
Armorer Reed:”No.”
Defense Summation
Defense stipulates for the public record that our client is an @$$Hole.
That’s neither criminal, nor negligent, and no matter what other wild fairytales hitherto unheard of in any affidavits on file in this case until 5 minutes ago, none of our client’s conduct caused the incident in question, nor could have prevented it, for Baldwin, nor for any other actor dropped onto such a criminally mismanaged set, staffed by such incompetent retards as Halls and Reed.
No further questions.”
Helen Keller could win this case for Baldwin.
Anyone who doesn’t understand weapon handling procedures on a production set, and talks about elements of firearms safety doesn’t know what they don’t know.
Outside of personal combat, the only place you’re not only allowed to point guns at other people, but encouraged to do so, without getting prosecuted, is on productions.
The 4 Rules are given a wave and a middle finger: the whole point of productions is to point weapons right at other people, and pull the trigger.
John Wick says “Hi!”
And the reason the total body count in movies, to date, from people pointing weapons at other people and pulling the trigger hundreds of thousands of times is two, since ever*, isn’t because Keanu Reeves is super nice and a JSOC-ninja operator, while Baldwin is an @$$hole idiot.
It’s because the John Wick movies hired the best trainers, armorers, and prop people in the industry, while the low-budget @$$holes making hiring decisions on non-union schlock like Rust – none whom was named Alec Baldwin – hired a shit-for-brains 20-something blue-haired drug-popping functional retard with delusions of grandeur, with less than a handful of days on a previous motion picture (where she also spectacularly fucked up – you could look it up) whose sole claim to competence was that her dad had twirled guns once upon a time.
That’s on par with letting Chelsea Clinton be the president because of who her daddy was, only even more dangerous.
AD Halls had a prior grievance and fuck-up in the industry: for playing with the guns on set which was ZERO part of his job category, and fucking up. thus time he got a plea deal after killing somebody.
Hannah Reed was an even bigger fuck-up, who couldn’t even have gotten in the property guild, which includes armorers, because she didn’t even have the requisite 30 days’ experience on actual union productions.
She was, literally, greener than a ripe lime, and didn’t know Jack or Shit about firearms (and still doesn’t), let alone the printed and freely available industry safety practices for weapons and ammunition, which have been around since before she was born.
Good Christ, they beat everybody over the head with those things!
Halls knew them, but Reed (and whatever 20-something PropTart they also hired on on that misbegotten pic) evidently did not.
The miracle isn’t that they shot two people and killed one; it’s that it took them 11 days to do it. The Vegas over-under odds for that one would have been two days, so at least she beat the spread.
Baldwin’s a five-star dick, and the karma on this is epic. Take the “W”, and leave it at that.
Prosecuting him for other people’s criminal incompetence and gross criminal negligence is beyond retarded, and a horrible miscarriage of justice.
Cheering such judicial fuckery on isn’t going to be nearly as fun when they do the same thing to you someday for not breaking the law either.
Halls pled out, and Reed is doing a felony nut-plus for her culpability.
Besides the exquisite payback of never being able to shoot his mouth off about guns until he dies without getting jeered into oblivion, the only thing Baldwin is guilty of is working on a show crewed by the biggest fucktards in the industry, from the absolute lowest end of the shittiest dung heap of available hires.
When you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
*(John Eric Hexum, while absolutely dead, cancelled himself (“It’s only blanks. BLAM!, because actors – every swinging Richard – are functional idiots, and handing anything to them, including sharp objects like pencils, on any show ever, borders on criminal negligence.)
And FTR:
Brandon Lee was killed because a prior scene had fired a squib round, lodging a wad or slug partway down the barrel.
On a subsequent scene later on, a blank round was loaded and fired: with enough force to eject the unknown object down the barrel and into Lee’s abdomen, resulting in his death.
It’s why the bores of prop weapons are punched and visually examined between every scene ever since – provided your armorer has more than 5 seconds’ experience.
Jon-Erik Hexum shot himself with his own prop weapon loaded with a blank, sitting in his chair between scenes, and shooting the shit with his fellow actors, before blowing his own head open. (Famous last words: “It’s okay, they’re just blanks. See? BLAM!“) Which, when pressed against his own temple and fired by him, launched a .38 caliber slab of his right temple through his brain, killing him right in front of his fellow actors and people on the set. This was a Darwin Award, First Class.
It’s also why subsequently, armorers/weapon handlers take the prop weapons away from all actors between takes, and unload them, because actors are notorious idiots.
Terry Kath‘s death was similarly self-inflicted stupidity, and had exactly zilch to do with blanks or the movie and TV production industry.
If we’re going to bring stupid people doing stupid things with guns into the argument, Hollywood currently loses about two people per century to firearms mishaps. Despite 10,000 westerns, The Godfather, Saving Private Ryan, Heat, and 40,000 other movies.
Idiot gun owners in just the U.S. lose about two people a day, for as long as anyone reading this has been alive.
A Hollywood set with gunfire is thus about 5,000,000% safer, provided the armorer isn’t Hannah Reed – in which town she’ll never work again, and with her felony rap sheet, she’ll hopefully never be legally allowed to touch a gun before she dies of old age.
Aesop, hollyweird does not get to ignore the same law the rest of us have to follow because they create their own rules for the set. End of story.
Baldwin, and only Baldwin, pulled the trigger of a loaded weapon while pointing it at another human being.
If I decide to make a movie, create some rules, and then do the same thing I’ll be guilty of manslaughter at best. Same goes for your california commies. They are not exempt.
People doing other stupid shit doesn’t shield Baldwin.
Hollywood doesn’t ignore any laws.
In fact, they take firearms safety so seriously that they require two people, one of whom a nominal subject matter expert on weapons and ammunition, to take full and complete charge of all weapons firing, handling, unloading, and custody of every single functional weapon on set.
For Rust, that armorer was Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, already found guilty of gross criminal negligence in failing to do the exact job for which she was hired, by failing to follow virtually every single published point specified in the two industry safety bulletins that deal exclusively with ammunition and firearms on set.
1st AD Halls was supposed to be her backstop, and he pled out after admitting he had done exactly none of the requisite acts that job entailed. Additionally, by custom and practice since ever, Halls as the 1st Assistant Director is the final arbiter and enforcer of all safety on all sets, everywhere in the industry. So his was a double failure.
Baldwin, by contrast, broke zero rules, and fulfilled his exact job function as an actor: he showed up, and performed the functions in the script.
The guilty party has already been sentenced.
Charging Baldwin is like skipping 27 fully culpable incompetent drunken maintenance workers and charging the flight attendant because the wing falls off the airplane.
It’s beyond asinine to even attempt.
That’s not skipping over rules, it’s creating a duty to act where none exists. You can’t be negligent for not doing something you’re not only not supposed to do, but not allowed to do, for the exact safety reasons in the first place.
Jon-Erik Hexum is the exact reason actors have no – zero, zilch, nada – input or responsibility for firearms, beyond following the script as broken down and blocked out, per scene.
If the prosecution had credible evidence Baldwin loaded the lethal round in the weapon, or been wildly pointing live-loaded guns at people and pulling the trigger, shooting out lights, bottles, and everything else, you’d have a case.
When two other people load a weapon, put it in his hand, and tell him, everyone on the set, God, and the Universe, that it’s only loaded with dummy rounds, you have your two guilty parties to whatever happens subsequently.
You don’t get to drag Baldwin in on a fishing expedition for notoriety and style points for the prosecutors, which is all this has ever been about.
You could exchange Baldwin for Keanu Reeves, Tom Selleck, or John Fucking Wayne for what happened, and the outcome would have been exactly the same, and none of them would be legally nor morally culpable, to even as little as a scintilla.
That’s not a loophole, it’s basic tort and criminal jurisprudence all the way back to Hammurabi.
Millions of uninformed idiots, including lawyers who should know better, throwing toddler tantrums because the letter and spirit of the actual law offend everyone’s wish to burn asshole Baldwin at the stake is no excuse.
Every syllable of the Blame Baldwin movement, since Minute Zero, has been nothing but infantile mental masturbation contrary to all common sense, and fueled by the wit and wisdom of a two-year old five hours late for his nap.
There’s no way to sugar-coat that.
And worst case, if 12 shanghaied idiots in a NM courtroom can’t see that, justice won’t be blind, she’ll be bent over and getting gang-rape butt-fucked by midwit IQs, something in nobody’s interest anywhere in the country, since ever.
It’s a rare day (in June) that I’d ever disagree with Aesop, but…
(and maybe it’s an invalid correlation) the person operating the motor vehicle (the nut behind the wheel) is responsible for any and all damage (99% of the time): not the people who fuel the vehicle, not the people who wipe the windshield …
When I was learning to fly a plane, the first thing my instructor taught me was the “walk-around” checking the operating systems before we ever stepped into the cockpit. Yeah! I tend to be a bit OCD.
“When push come to shove” as a good friend likes to say, it’s my responsibility when my finger’s on the trigger.
“the first thing my instructor taught me was the “walk-around””
Taught the same way by every instructor, power or glider. YOU are the responsible party, every time. It’s true no matter what local “rule set” someone else creates – those rules never reduce your responsibility, they are intended (usually) to add additional levels of security.
Why does the pilot do the walk around?
In this example, Baldwin is the passenger, not the pilot.
In Flying Tigers or Flying Leathernecks, was the walk-around the responsibility of John Wayne, or the airplane flying expert??
Did the final walkaround responsibility in either Top Gun fall on Tom Cruise?
Or an actual naval aviator???
C’mon, go ahead, tell us which it was.
That’s why the analogy you attempted fails, totally.
When you go to the range, you’re responsible, because it’s your gun, and you have sole responsibility for what happens.
On a movie set, it wasn’t Baldwin’s gun, it was the production’s gun! And more to the point, it’s the PRODUCTION’S responsibility to see to it that NO LIVE BULLETS EVER GO INTO THE GUN, nor FLY OUT OF THE GUN. That’s why the responsibility has to belong to the weapon expert(s) the production hires, every single time, by law, custom, and legal obligation, and that person’s name isn’t and can never be Fucktard The Actor, Alec Baldwin, or anyone else in creation who isn’t either the Prop Master or the Armorer.
Your seat-of-the-pants uninformed “feels” don’t trump reality, common sense, legal responsibility, or published safety procedures, which have the force of law in US legal precedent and jurisprudence going back centuries.
Bummer for your fond wishes, but them’s the realities of this case.
“In this example, Baldwin is the passenger, not the pilot.”
Sorry, no, absolutely not. He is the one holding the weapon, he is the pilot.
Movie bullshit doesn’t apply. However, combat aircraft operate with a completely different set of rules than general aviation. The pilot does not have the luxury of preflight so it is skipped in favor of response right now. There is no failure. Alec Baldwin was not a military responder. He was an actor with a deadly weapon in his hand. He shot and killed the person he aimed it at. There was never any need for a fast response. Period.
You can argue until hell freezes over that others were responsible. All of that is true. What is not true is that Alec Baldwin bears no responsibility. That is false.
Alec Baldwin was not a military responder. He was an actor with a deadly weapon in his hand.
Nor was he a robot, nor a puppy, nor a 5 year old child, at least not legally speaking. He may not be responsible in a strictly legal sense, but I don’t agree that that absolves him completely in a moral sense. Baldwin was notorious for treating prop guns as if they were mere harmless toys on this set, pointing and firing blanks at other cast and crew members, waving the thing around like the egomaniacal bully he is.
As such, although certainly the ultimate failure lies with those whose job it was to prevent this, I have a hard time giving the actual trigger-puller a pass completely, particularly when he was so determined to clown, throw his weight around, and generally act like the asshole he is.
In effect, Baldwin threw lit matches at a bucket full of gasoline, and somebody else got blowed up. Yeah, the person charged with keeping the assholes away from the matches may bear ultimate legal responsibility, but that doesn’t necessarily excuse the asshole with the matchbook either. And if the law covering Hollywood film sets says it DOES excuse him, then maybe it’s time to take a hard look at adjusting those laws to ensure that assholes aren’t allowed anywhere near prop guns–or matchbooks–on set, for any reason whatsoever.
If said adjustment means disqualifying those types from Hollywood action movies, well, tough noogies for them then. Maybe they should consider growing the fuck up and acting their age if they don’t like it.
“He may not be responsible in a strictly legal sense, but I don’t agree that that absolves him completely in a moral sense.”
Granted, if california law has absolved itself of the usual and turned over responsibility to the movie set and movie set regulations, then I owe Aesop an apology. Perhaps that is the case, and then we are just in the moral territory.
I have firearms. I have a pistol loaded in a fingerprint gun safe (grandchildren). I never have one in the chamber as an additional safety. I know there is not one and every time I remove the magazine to transport the pistol I check the chamber is clear. Every time. The pistol is empty, no mag, nothing in the chamber and yet I never place my finger on the trigger and I never point it at someone. Never. You develop good habits so that when the mistake does happen, and it will happen, in your home or on a movie set, the end result is not the accidental death or injury to someone.
Humans are fallible, some more than others. The pilot is responsible for his plane, the person holding the weapon responsible for that weapon. That’s the way it works in the real world. If california/hollywood rules allow for something different then it’s just another example of the failure of that state.
“Granted, if california law…”
New Mexico law of course. I find nothing indicating New Mexico releases the gun holder of any responsibility based upon the incident occurring on a movie set with movie set rules.
You check the gun. Every time. Because it’s your gun.
Exactly as Reed was supposed to do, because they’re ALL HER guns. Every single day, every time they come out of her safe, on set.
You have just proven the case against the exact person already convicted of accidental manslaughter by gross criminal negligence, for failing in that exact duty.
Game. Set. Match.
But you still want to try and swing a vine to somehow rope Baldwin into not doing not his job regarding not his gun.
It doesn’t work like that.
You have the culprit already convicted. You don’t get to swing a dead cat and indict everyone else on the same set you don’t like, which is what you and the prosecutor are trying to do.
No. The “owner” of every gun is the adult that has the weapon in their hand. Doesn’t matter if it’s a pistol, rifle, knife, or crossbow. All the same in the eyes of the law everywhere I have read the state law. No one gets to make their own law just because they are shooting a “movie”.
“It doesn’t work like that.”
That applies to your novel theory that any company can create their own set of “rules” and then absolve the only truly responsible person, the holder of the weapon.
According to you, I can today create a new LLC, call it BarryMovie, write a set of rules and hire an incompetent to enforce the rules, and when I shoot someone dead I’m in the clear. That is exactly what you are saying and that is exactly wrong.
Those allegations have been absent until five minutes ago.
I find them dubious, at best, and wholly irrelevant to the actual incident or prosecution’s case.
If he was clowning when the shot happened, you might argue some moral culpability.
There’s still no legal precedent that being a dork is a felony.
Baldwin, nor any other actor, ever, has any legal duty to load nor certify the safety of the prop weapon(s) which production employees load, certify, hand them, and supervise, at all times, by custom and practice going back a century and more.
What you’re alleging amounts to an indictment that Baldwin trusted the people he worked with to do their jobs at the most minimal and basic functional level. That’s not a very convincing case.
Tell me how many times you tear your car engine down to nuts and bolts and put it back together before you turn the key and drive it, and do the same thing with every technological marvel you use, including the computer you’re typing this on, and we can talk.
Reed and Halls fucked up, massively, because they’re both massive fuck-ups.
The chain of culpability goes from them, to the Unit Production manager who hired Reed, and the Director (the one who got shot) who hired Halls, and the Line Producer (also not named Alec Baldwin) who supervised both of them.
Please, charge those two to four additional assholes, and you’ll not hear another peep on the topic from me except loud cheers.
Alec Baldwin’s only responsibility for this incident stems from being a 1/12th or 1/13th (stories differ) member of an LLC, which is a civil matter, not criminal in any way whatsoever, and which damages are limited by law to the production’s assets (currently half of an uncompleted schlock p.o.s. film), and probably bog-standard liability insurance coverage.
The entire point of an LLC is to prevent jackpot paydays for anything that happens, up to and including someone getting killed accidentally.
You could look it up.
(And not for nothing, Hollywood – Big Hollywood, high-budget Hollywood – routinely knocks of a person/year since ever, for all sorts of ways and reasons. It’s a dangerous industry by nature.)
If you can prove that the production company acted in a grossly negligent manner, you’d have cause for further civil action against the three or four producers who head that lash-up as well (yet again, none of whom are named Alec Baldwin).
That this case was even pursued criminally against him, knowing all that, let alone set for trial, is already a legal travesty of justice, and a ringing indictment of the general shitheadedness and incompetence of the entire NM justice system. There’s no legal basis for holding Baldwin responsible when you already have one of the two culpable parties on record accepting full blame for gross criminal negligence, and the other one convicted after trial for the exact same thing.
When two people in the back of the plane admit they unscrewed the wings in flight, you don’t get to charge the pilot for the crash simply because he was the one left holding the stick.
It’s that simple.
And Baldwin’s still a world-class jackass, whatever happens.
But if we’re criminalizing that, you’re going to need bigger prisons.
Be careful what you wish for when you cheer on the justice system for prosecuting people you don’t like, because you don’t like them, rather than because they broke a law.
What goes around, comes around.
As to Hollywood, they’ve known actors were idiots since movies were silent, and they already have subject-matter experts in charge of everything to do with guns, ammo, and gun handling.
Shrieking that “we need more gun laws” in Hollywood, after exactly the third on-set death and the second shooting of one person by another accidentally in 133 years of motion picture history makes the whiny bitches of Sandy Hook seem like circumspect and responsible parents by contrast. Meanwhile, just since the Rust shooting to right now, there have been over 1000 accidental gun deaths from everyday gun owners in only the U.S.
So, using your standard, how many thousands of new gun laws should those deaths mandate…?
Mind well the company you keep, and the precedents you would set.
Shit happens. Especially when you hire shitheads.
I’ll match you paychecks the DP that was killed supported every liberal cause you hate, and paid more money into it than you do for the opposite.
And Baldwin, for all that, probably will carry the personal guilt over being the instrument of her death to his grave, even if he’s correctly found not criminally guilty.
Take the karmic “W”, and walk away from the table ahead of the game.
Close, Barry.
He was an actor with a deadly weapon in his hand because the two people wholly and legally responsible for preventing exactly that from ever happening TOTALLY FAILED THEIR EXACT DUTY TO MAKE IT SO.
That’s the entire crux of the case.
He was scripted to aim and fire it at the camera, operated by the DP, and with the director standing behind her.
So to charge Baldwin with manslaughter, you’d first have to prove neither the DP nor director was suicidal, because they both read the script, and knew exactly what Baldwin was going to do, yet neither of them dived for cover, cried out in terror, or did any other wild thing, because exactly like Baldwin they had both been loudly and publicly assured by the 1st AD that the gun was harmless, and only going to go CLICK.
Prosecuting a guy for doing his job when two other people wholly and solely responsible for his weapon’s safety grossly and criminally failed to do that job is beyond asinine, and far beyond the bounds of legality going back thousands of years of recorded human history.
Total number of live rounds loaded in live weapons intended to be fired at people on all movie sets since ever: zero.
Total number of times that’s been violated since ever, since Edison invented the movie camera: two. Counting this time.
This isn’t soccer or basketball; the responsibility isn’t on who touched it last.
It’s the production’s weapon, and which the production’s experts certified was safely and correctly loaded.
That responsibility doesn’t pass to whomever they hand the gun to, ever, and any suggestion it does or could is simply and flatly recockulous.
But pray, tell us how Baldwin bears any responsibility for a live round being inserted in not-his-gun for a movie rehearsal.
Lay it out, and cite the precedent where the innocent party completely in ignorance of the responsible parties’ gross criminal negligence should still be punished as if he had full foreknowledge, and acted wholly without any negligence or malice, because reasons, and is therefore still culpable solely because he’s an anti-gun asshole.
That’s all this case has been since Day Zero.
I like your writing so this isn’t a criticism of it. OTOH, buckets of words even when well embellished do not remove the responsibility any adult has when operating any weapon. The user of the weapon is the last in the safety chain. No actor and no company employing an actor should ever hold any weapon that they themselves have no understanding of and have not personally checked. That’s how the real world works. It’s not a basketball game and it doesn’t require taking an engine apart to every last nut and bolt.
It’s quite simple and I can train any person on what/how in <5 minutes. When they are handed the weapon it will then take less than 30 seconds to guarantee it will not fire a live round and their training will teach them that even a blank is deadly when held close.
You know all this.
Anyway, the horse is dead, I shall stop beating it 🙂