The ruling increases the likelihood that Mr. Baldwin will stand trial this summer in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the film “Rust.”
I am not willing to make that concession. Firearms are too simple to operate, and their risks too well known to argue that the person handling them can have zero responsibility for their operation.
If I pick up a knife on set, and I make no effort to verify its blade is dulled, or it’s retractable blade functional, I am responsible if I cut or stab someone with that knife.
If I pick up a hammer on set and bash someone over the head with it, not bothering to check that it’s a rubber hammer, I’m responsible for the injuries and damage I cause.
A gun is no different. If I haven’t verified that the gun is non-functional, I’m responsible for whatever comes out of the barrel. People have been killed by blanks, either fired at closer range than they are safe, or behind projectiles stuck in barrels.
The industry safety standard is summarized in 4 redundant rules, intended to prevent the discharge, or, if that fails, to ensure that discharge does not cause injury or unacceptable damage. A handler violating any of these rules is negligent, but they have to violate all of them before someone gets hurt.
Yes, the movie industry does, indeed, allow us to violate safety rules. Many industries do this with all sorts of dangerous operations.
But, we can do this only when the safety measure provided by that rule is replaced with an equivalent protection. Baldwin broke all four rules, and did not replace any of them with an equivalent measure.
Baldwin broke all four rules, and did not replace any of them with an equivalent measure.
Baldwin didn’t, yes, because he hired an incompetent armorer. In normal circumstances the armorer is the person doing everything you just said needed to be done.
A gun is no different. If I haven’t verified that the gun is non-functional, I’m responsible for whatever comes out of the barrel
A gun is different, it requires ammunition. If a gun is to fire a blank then the gun must be functional, the ammunition simply is designed to not fire a round that’s meant to kill someone.
To expect every handler of a firearm to be knowledgeable enough about guns to safely unload, confirm what ammunition is in use, and then proceed accordingly when they also have to act and deal with what comes with that is insane. That’s why there’s a person whose professional job it is to do all of that and then tell the actor what can and cannot be done with the weapon.
Baldwin is guilty because he failed to employ a good armorer who could do their job. If it was a random actor not involved in the hiring process of the film then they’d be perfectly innocent in this situation, to think otherwise is straight up victim blaming.
Baldwin didn’t, yes, because he hired an incompetent armorer. In normal circumstances the armorer is the person doing everything you just said needed to be done.
Properly handling a firearm is not a job that can be outsourced. The armorer is also criminally responsible, but primary responsibility always falls on the person handling the weapon.
A gun is different, it requires ammunition.
Rule #1: All guns are loaded until positively proven otherwise. The requirement of ammunition is presumed until proven otherwise.
To expect every handler of a firearm to be knowledgeable enough about guns to safely unload, confirm what ammunition is in use, and then proceed accordingly when they also have to act and deal with what comes with that is insane.exactly the standard expected of every single person, handling every single weapon, every single time.
FTFY. The standard of behavior when you do not positively know if a firearm is loaded or unloaded is Rule #1: All guns are loaded until positively proven otherwise.
The industry standard is that if your mind wanders while an unloaded gun is in your hand, that “unloaded” gun is to be treated as if it grew a cartridge while you weren’t paying attention, and is to be treated as a loaded weapon until reverified.
Baldwin is guilty because he failed to employ a good armorer who could do their job.
No, Baldwin is civilly liable for that. He is guilty because he negligently discharged a firearm, resulting in the death of another person.
Safe handling cannot be outsourced to a “professional”. The purpose of hiring an armorer is to add an additional layer of safety, not to replace the handling skills of the actor.
If you want to make it so that the actor is not responsible for his actions, you hire a specifically trained individual who is capable of performing those actions. In the business, this person is known as a “stunt double”. You hire a stunt double to perform actions that the principal actor is not capable of performing. Baldwin’s decision to perform the actions himself makes him responsible for the consequences of his performance.
If the actor (or double) performing those “stunts” is so inept that he kills someone in the process, he is criminally liable for his reckless behavior.
to think otherwise is straight up victim blaming.
Baldwin is not a victim. He is a perpetrator. That another person’s incompetence contributed to the death merely means there was an additional perpetrator. The armorer’s incompetence does not absolve Baldwin’s own incompetence.
Reducing the safety factor from “everyone is responsible for using multiple safety factors to prevent injury” to “one designated individual is responsible for everything that happens” is not “different”. It’s dangerous.
You would not tolerate this in any other circumstances. A random gun owner hires a designated safety officer to protect everyone in the area, then recklessly handles a gun and shoots someone. You wouldn’t tolerate this exact same behavior from some random redneck; why does Baldwin get a pass?
To expect every handler of a firearm to be knowledgeable enough about guns to safely unload, confirm what ammunition is in use, and then proceed accordingly when they also have to act and deal with what comes with that is insane.
Fuck that, absolutely not, every single handler of any firearm is required to know how to safely unload and confirm that it is unloaded. Period. End of story. If you don’t know how to drop the mag and rack the slide then don’t fucking touch that thing. Guns aren’t toys, and they aren’t props. The armorer is there for guidance and for double checking but there should never, ever, for any reason other than a survival emergency, be a gun in the hand of someone who does not know how it functions. Not for actors, not for cops, not for civilians. It takes less than a minute to confirm an unloading and it takes 15 minutes to teach someone how who has never seen a firearm before. There is no excuse whatsoever (BIG EDIT: assuming a competent armorer, that can actually teach this) for an actor not knowing how to confirm their own gun is ready for scene, and the armorer should check it themselves immediately before or after, before the scene starts.
Wrong. I’ve shot many kinds of guns many times, and am fully aware of the rules.
I’ve also been through film school and have been on a set.
Anyone who says anything like you have been clearly hasn’t done the latter and you guys always get so upset by it.
I could go on a rant but it’s a really basic concept:
One professional is responsible for the guns on set. This is all they do and all they worry about, for safety. Nobody who’s job is to remember memorized lines while being rained on and having mud thrown on them has to rmember if their gun is loaded in this scene or not. Less chaos, more safety.
The fact that there is a camera around does not relieve a gun handler of their responsibilities to handle a gun safely.
The role of “armorer” is comparable to that of “wardrobe” or “choreographer”. If a dancer kicks a baby in the face while practicing a routine, primary responsibility falls on the dancer, not the person who supplied her dance shoes nor the person who arranged the dance.
Fair enough. Never been on a film set before. But I’m very keenly aware of the rules of gun safety and that ain’t it chief. Handing a firearm to someone with no knowledge of it is the #1 biggest fuck-up in the book alongside absent trigger discipline and muzzle sweep. You should know this if you are “fully aware of the rules” as you claim.
If what you’re saying is true then nobody should ever have been shot on set, right? Oh wait… Imagine that, when you have a single point of failure, things fail.
Handing a firearm to someone with no knowledge of it is the #1 biggest fuck-up in the book
And that’s why it’s the job of the trained progessional to explain to them exactly what to and not to do with that weapon once handed over.
You should know this if you are “fully aware of the rules” as you claim.
I do, it’s just fucking irrelevant.
If what you’re saying is true then nobody should ever have been shot on set, right?
Yes, just like every other film set that handles guns. The entire point of a criminal trial is the fact that someone didn’t do their job and someone fucking died. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
Imagine that, when you have a single point of failure, things fail.
Your lack of any understanding of film set weapon safety makes you look stupid again. There’s more done on set for safety than just handing someone a weapon and giving them a 2 second once-over. For example: the people not in shot should not be downrange of the weapon, or if they MUST be for some reason then they’re behind bulletproof materials.
Movie sets are different from normal use-cases for guns and thus operate under different safety rules. If you followed the rules of standard firearm safety on a movie set then you’d be unable to film. The rules have been adjusted to accommodate this, and they work. That’s why it’s incredibly rare that this happens.
Alright, fine, I concede my point. Movies do shit differently. I still think it’s fucking stupid, and someone did literally die from it as evidenced by the very post we are arguing in the comments of. But I’m not an actor having dipshits point loaded guns at me so why do I care I guess. You win I’m stupid, because respecting the laws of firearm safety apparently makes me the dumbest motherfucker on the planet, and there is no point in time ever that someone hands me a supposedly safe gun and I’m not going to immediately double check it myself.
I am very salty about this still but I’ve made both of us angry enough over some stupid bullshit tonight. Sorry for wasting your time. This was not productive for either of us.
Movie sets are different from normal use-cases for guns and thus operate under different safety rules
Correct. However, you will still be judged by the standards of the original ruleset, and not by how well you followed your own.
Baldwin did the firearm equivalent of cruising through a red light at 80 miles an hour without asking if anyone had actually closed the intersection. His excuse that it was a movie set does not exempt him from liability.
I am not willing to make that concession. Firearms are too simple to operate, and their risks too well known to argue that the person handling them can have zero responsibility for their operation.
If I pick up a knife on set, and I make no effort to verify its blade is dulled, or it’s retractable blade functional, I am responsible if I cut or stab someone with that knife.
If I pick up a hammer on set and bash someone over the head with it, not bothering to check that it’s a rubber hammer, I’m responsible for the injuries and damage I cause.
A gun is no different. If I haven’t verified that the gun is non-functional, I’m responsible for whatever comes out of the barrel. People have been killed by blanks, either fired at closer range than they are safe, or behind projectiles stuck in barrels.
The industry safety standard is summarized in 4 redundant rules, intended to prevent the discharge, or, if that fails, to ensure that discharge does not cause injury or unacceptable damage. A handler violating any of these rules is negligent, but they have to violate all of them before someone gets hurt.
Yes, the movie industry does, indeed, allow us to violate safety rules. Many industries do this with all sorts of dangerous operations.
But, we can do this only when the safety measure provided by that rule is replaced with an equivalent protection. Baldwin broke all four rules, and did not replace any of them with an equivalent measure.
Baldwin didn’t, yes, because he hired an incompetent armorer. In normal circumstances the armorer is the person doing everything you just said needed to be done.
A gun is different, it requires ammunition. If a gun is to fire a blank then the gun must be functional, the ammunition simply is designed to not fire a round that’s meant to kill someone.
To expect every handler of a firearm to be knowledgeable enough about guns to safely unload, confirm what ammunition is in use, and then proceed accordingly when they also have to act and deal with what comes with that is insane. That’s why there’s a person whose professional job it is to do all of that and then tell the actor what can and cannot be done with the weapon.
Baldwin is guilty because he failed to employ a good armorer who could do their job. If it was a random actor not involved in the hiring process of the film then they’d be perfectly innocent in this situation, to think otherwise is straight up victim blaming.
Properly handling a firearm is not a job that can be outsourced. The armorer is also criminally responsible, but primary responsibility always falls on the person handling the weapon.
Rule #1: All guns are loaded until positively proven otherwise. The requirement of ammunition is presumed until proven otherwise.
FTFY. The standard of behavior when you do not positively know if a firearm is loaded or unloaded is Rule #1: All guns are loaded until positively proven otherwise.
The industry standard is that if your mind wanders while an unloaded gun is in your hand, that “unloaded” gun is to be treated as if it grew a cartridge while you weren’t paying attention, and is to be treated as a loaded weapon until reverified.
No, Baldwin is civilly liable for that. He is guilty because he negligently discharged a firearm, resulting in the death of another person.
Safe handling cannot be outsourced to a “professional”. The purpose of hiring an armorer is to add an additional layer of safety, not to replace the handling skills of the actor.
If you want to make it so that the actor is not responsible for his actions, you hire a specifically trained individual who is capable of performing those actions. In the business, this person is known as a “stunt double”. You hire a stunt double to perform actions that the principal actor is not capable of performing. Baldwin’s decision to perform the actions himself makes him responsible for the consequences of his performance.
If the actor (or double) performing those “stunts” is so inept that he kills someone in the process, he is criminally liable for his reckless behavior.
Baldwin is not a victim. He is a perpetrator. That another person’s incompetence contributed to the death merely means there was an additional perpetrator. The armorer’s incompetence does not absolve Baldwin’s own incompetence.
Oh look, someone else with 0 clue what they’re talking about posting a wall of text when:
Would have been much easier to write
Correct. You have no business discussing this topic.
Being on a film set is not an excuse for reckless behavior. If anything, it makes his actions more egregious, not less.
Stop being so willfully ignorant.
Shits done differently not unssfely
1 person getting shot vs the many who don’t proves this is safe
Reducing the safety factor from “everyone is responsible for using multiple safety factors to prevent injury” to “one designated individual is responsible for everything that happens” is not “different”. It’s dangerous.
You would not tolerate this in any other circumstances. A random gun owner hires a designated safety officer to protect everyone in the area, then recklessly handles a gun and shoots someone. You wouldn’t tolerate this exact same behavior from some random redneck; why does Baldwin get a pass?
Fuck that, absolutely not, every single handler of any firearm is required to know how to safely unload and confirm that it is unloaded. Period. End of story. If you don’t know how to drop the mag and rack the slide then don’t fucking touch that thing. Guns aren’t toys, and they aren’t props. The armorer is there for guidance and for double checking but there should never, ever, for any reason other than a survival emergency, be a gun in the hand of someone who does not know how it functions. Not for actors, not for cops, not for civilians. It takes less than a minute to confirm an unloading and it takes 15 minutes to teach someone how who has never seen a firearm before. There is no excuse whatsoever (BIG EDIT: assuming a competent armorer, that can actually teach this) for an actor not knowing how to confirm their own gun is ready for scene, and the armorer should check it themselves immediately before or after, before the scene starts.
Holy shit that’s a lot of unformatted text to basically say:
Based on this incident, it seems that the film industry doesn’t work.
You’ve never taken a gun safety class in your life and holy shit it shows
Wrong. I’ve shot many kinds of guns many times, and am fully aware of the rules.
I’ve also been through film school and have been on a set.
Anyone who says anything like you have been clearly hasn’t done the latter and you guys always get so upset by it.
I could go on a rant but it’s a really basic concept:
One professional is responsible for the guns on set. This is all they do and all they worry about, for safety. Nobody who’s job is to remember memorized lines while being rained on and having mud thrown on them has to rmember if their gun is loaded in this scene or not. Less chaos, more safety.
The fact that there is a camera around does not relieve a gun handler of their responsibilities to handle a gun safely.
The role of “armorer” is comparable to that of “wardrobe” or “choreographer”. If a dancer kicks a baby in the face while practicing a routine, primary responsibility falls on the dancer, not the person who supplied her dance shoes nor the person who arranged the dance.
Fair enough. Never been on a film set before. But I’m very keenly aware of the rules of gun safety and that ain’t it chief. Handing a firearm to someone with no knowledge of it is the #1 biggest fuck-up in the book alongside absent trigger discipline and muzzle sweep. You should know this if you are “fully aware of the rules” as you claim.
If what you’re saying is true then nobody should ever have been shot on set, right? Oh wait… Imagine that, when you have a single point of failure, things fail.
And that’s why it’s the job of the trained progessional to explain to them exactly what to and not to do with that weapon once handed over.
I do, it’s just fucking irrelevant.
Yes, just like every other film set that handles guns. The entire point of a criminal trial is the fact that someone didn’t do their job and someone fucking died. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
Your lack of any understanding of film set weapon safety makes you look stupid again. There’s more done on set for safety than just handing someone a weapon and giving them a 2 second once-over. For example: the people not in shot should not be downrange of the weapon, or if they MUST be for some reason then they’re behind bulletproof materials.
Movie sets are different from normal use-cases for guns and thus operate under different safety rules. If you followed the rules of standard firearm safety on a movie set then you’d be unable to film. The rules have been adjusted to accommodate this, and they work. That’s why it’s incredibly rare that this happens.
Alright, fine, I concede my point. Movies do shit differently. I still think it’s fucking stupid, and someone did literally die from it as evidenced by the very post we are arguing in the comments of. But I’m not an actor having dipshits point loaded guns at me so why do I care I guess. You win I’m stupid, because respecting the laws of firearm safety apparently makes me the dumbest motherfucker on the planet, and there is no point in time ever that someone hands me a supposedly safe gun and I’m not going to immediately double check it myself.
I am very salty about this still but I’ve made both of us angry enough over some stupid bullshit tonight. Sorry for wasting your time. This was not productive for either of us.
Correct. However, you will still be judged by the standards of the original ruleset, and not by how well you followed your own.
Baldwin did the firearm equivalent of cruising through a red light at 80 miles an hour without asking if anyone had actually closed the intersection. His excuse that it was a movie set does not exempt him from liability.