There's a lot of blame to go around. Journalists should be careful about adding words like "accidentally" before the facts are established. I think we do know that Baldwin fired the gun. Did he not fire it intentionally? That's a question separate from whether he believed the gun was unloaded. Was he in a situation within his role as an actor where he was directed to fire the gun? I've seen the assertion that the gun went off as he was practicing removing it from a holster, but was he doing that with his finger on the trigger? I guess the story in the movie could be that the character mishandles his gun and it goes off. If so, it would be wrong to write "accidentally fired."
October 24, 2021
"[T]he same gun Alec Baldwin accidentally fired... was being used by crews members off set as well, for what we're told amounted to target practice."
"We're told this off-the-clock shooting — which was allegedly happening away from the movie lot — was being done with real bullets ... which is how some who worked on the film believe a live round found its way in one of the chambers that day.... There's also this ... one source who was on set and familiar with the goings-on of the crew tells us that when cops showed up, they found live ammo and blanks were being stored in the same area...."
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65 comments:
It’s sometimes called negligent discharge. Accident isn’t part of the conversation…
What were the producers doing letting crew fire real guns near the set, close enough to commingle live rounds with blanks? Also, was there any prop guns on the set or were they all regular firearms they would interchangeably load with blanks or live rounds?
I've read a handful of reports on this and at this point I have no idea how true any of these reports are. But apparently the gun armorer was young and fairly new at the job. This was her second movie as armorer. But her dad is supposedly considered one of the best armorers in the business and taught her the craft. That said, there's a TikTok video of her that would make you wonder how any breathing adult could put her in charge of weapons.
The crew had just hours earlier walked off the set due to 'long work hours and safety concerns'.
Whatever the case, the message would be: Don't work in an Alec Baldwin production.
Lefties hate guns but love love love shooting them. Gun safety training? For thee, not for me, they say…
Original story was that, being told another take ("shoot"?) was necessary, Baldwin aimed the gun, saying something like, "Why don't I just shoot you?", obviously clowning around about frustration at having to redo, or possibly rerereredo a scene, and pulled the trigger.
If this is true, then having fired the gun in earlier attempts isn't likely, unless he just happened to fire blanks earlier and lucked onto the actual bullet in the cylinder for this one.
Of course, pointing and pulling the trigger is a HUGE no-no, luck, blanks, and other circs notwithstanding.
Off the clock shooting, huh? Somebody said the kind of ammo that pistol takes is a specialty make and expensive. Not likely somebody brought a few boxes to use the prop gun to shoot cactus. If you can do that, bring your own pistol and cheaper ammo.
So I called it.
"Bob Boyd said...
Why were live rounds anywhere near prop guns?
Had somebody been shooting the guns at targets for fun in their off time and they didn't clear them afterward?
10/22/21, 8:44 AM"
We had a case here in iowa (well, actually the quad cities), where; in his trial testimony a wanna be gang banger said; that After he'd abducted the highschool girl..
In Order, to "scare her"... HE took out his sawed off shotgun....
LOADED IT...
COCKED IT...
TOOK OFF THE SAFETY...
PUT THE BARREL AGAINST HER FOREHEAD...
PUT HIS FINGER ON THE TRIGGER...
At which point, For Some Reason.... The gun ACCIDENTALLY Went off
THIS was his legal defense (which is Funny, 'cause in iowa; a death during the commission of a felony is automatically 1st degree murder (which has a mandatory life sentence/ no parole), so... His 'defense' was a confession of murder
My point is: Guns go off 'accidentally' ALL THE TIME, which is WHY you Should NOT point them at people and pull the trigger
Hacks*** start with blaming the NRA, and work backwards.
I see lots of commentary about a “massive” civil lawsuit. My sense is that the family is just limited to a work comp case unless the lawyers can find an exception or get creative.
Baldwin is a staunch liberal, and I am guessing the national mainstream media's natural inclination will be to protect him and blame guns. We cannot let that happen.
Alec is at least partially at fault (comparative negligence, for the torts nerds).
It is not that hard to check a gun for bullets. Did he not do this? Did he even know how? Can he tell the difference between a blank and live ammo? Gun safety fundamentals are east to learn (yes, even in LA), but absolutely critical.
I hope the widower and son, and director, are lawyering up. (If not, my law office is very close to Venice he he, call me...).
Macabre humor alert...what if this sad incident was used as a political weapon against Baldwin who showed Trump no mercy. My daughter had overslept yesterday and was out of the loop about any of the further details involving the Baldwin shooting. I told her that it had been discovered that Baldwin had been having an affair with Halyna Hutchins and she was threatening to tell his wife. And there was a video of him putting live ammo in the gun and he used the movie scene as an excuse to eliminate the threat to his marriage. The look on my daughter's face as I told her this imaginary tale was one of horror and shock. Of course, this story was as make believe as the infamous story about the Russian pee tape but, since I was a "trusted source" my daughter believed me until I quickly fessed up that I was lying.
Viva Frei, former litigator turned YouTuber said an assistant director told Baldwin the gun was “cold”. Whatever that means.
Baldwin's unlucky to have deep pockets.
"an assistant director told Baldwin the gun was “cold”."
That's in all the news stories at this point -- along with the statement that "cold gun" means unloaded gun.
We keep getting tiny pieces of this story. And, the leaked details seem to encourage a conclusion that the production's armorer was negligent. Almost certainly true. But this is not an "or", it is an "and" case of negligence or gross negligence:
1. This was not a "prop" it was a firearm.
2. I do not care how wealthy, famous, talented and privileged Alec Baldwin is, he owed it to himself and every person there to -- regardless of how he was handed the weapon -- immediately check the cylinder (1880s film, I assume revolver) and the barrel.
3. I do not care how wealthy, famous, talented and privileged Alec Baldwin is, he owed it to himself and every person there to never point the weapon at anyone for any reason. Filming angles can "cheat" this to achieve the desired effect.
Alec Baldwin's negligence directly caused loss of life.
Did Baldwin ever undertake firearms-safety training? If not, then he was handling a firearm recklessly.
If he did, he was probably taught how to check if a gun was loaded, and he failed to do so, and he was probably taught to always treat a gun as loaded, which he didn't do.
Deep pocket + careless handling of a firearm = big settlement.
With the many hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the studios making movies, why can't they pay a firearm manufacturer, or two or three, to fabricate a firearm that looks exactly like a real firearm, but does not shoot bullets?
Baldwin has a lot of power and influence, in both the media and political circles. It would not surprise me if the on-set safety personnel, including the armorer (if that is the correct term fir that role, I don’t know, but I’ll use it anyway), we’re bullied into doing things the way Baldwin wanted.
I feel bad for the woman Alec Killed. I do not feel bad for him so much because sometimes it takes some Karma to realign somebody who is a hateful dolt who would have attacked anybody on the right who this might have happened to. HE has the responsibility, whilst handling a gun, to do a safety check, that he may have heard if he actually took a gun safety course by the NRA whom he attacks all the time as killers. IF he actually looked into what the NRA does...instead of bloviating about them being killers...which HE actually IS now.
Leland said...
What were the producers doing letting crew fire real guns near the set, close enough to commingle live rounds with blanks? Also, was there any prop guns on the set or were they all regular firearms they would interchangeably load with blanks or live rounds?
10/24/21, 6:54 AM
Alec Baldwin WAS one of the producers....
could it be that Alec Baldwin plays anti-gun Westerner in this movie and treats gun like "hot potatoe" tossing it about? without any control as to how it will (mal)function
Baldwin has been in numerous movies where guns were involved.
Why isn’t it mandatory that anyone in any movie involving a gun take a firearm safety class.
I believe all states currently require a firearm safety class to get an original hunting license.
The first things you are taught is to always assume a gun is loaded and to Never point a gun at anyone.
Blanks and projectile ammunition are "live" ammunition, in that they both act with rapidly expanding gas discharge.
There is no legitimate reason for there to be projectile loaded ammunition on a set where people are "playing" with guns.
There seems to have been no common movie firearm controls in place on the set. One commenter elsewhere described it at the assistant director picks up the firearm and confirms it is empty, then gives it to the armorer who loads only the ammo needed for the specific scene, who then hands the "hot" firearm to the actor. In my opinion, the actor should observe this so they, themselves, the person discharging the firearm, know its state as hot or cold.
Alec Baldwin is a producer of this movie and therefore has some responsibility for the set not having proper firearm control procedures.
Reportedly, the scene was for Baldwin's character to do a quick draw. A cameraman, the cinematographer and the director were not in the crew area but had a camera out on a dolly planning future camera shots, i.e., it sounds like when the shooting happened that they were not filming the scene. The projectile missed the cameraman, hit the cinematographer in the shoulder, through and through, then lodging in the director. That seems to indicate a fully functioning, projectile cartridge, i.e. "live" load with bullet, in the firearm given the penetration and distance.
I speculate that Mr. Gun Control was "playing" with his gun, perhaps doing quick draws and not in a "safe" direction. He may have been being the jackass he is and "drawing on" those planning the future shots. If so, negligence by Alec Baldwin regardless of someone telling him it was a "cold" (unloaded or loaded with inert dummy rounds) gun as he had no legitimate reason to point the gun at the individuals he shot.
Ryan said...
I hope the widower and son, and director, are lawyering up. (If not, my law office is very close to Venice he he, call me...).
From what I am seeing, the widower is an attorney. Baldwin will most likely not face criminal charges, but I suspect he will be dealing with the civil side of things for quite a while.
Was he in a situation within his role as an actor where he was directed to fire the gun?
No. No, no, no. Don't even raise this false point.
That "just following orders" is not a defense to criminality has been established for at least several decades. Baldwin even spoke about that rule of law as a character in one of his movies.
I believe I called out this possibility in your thread on Friday, Ann. I'm too lazy to go back and pull the quote though.
It's similar with the misuse of "misfire." It means the gun failed to fire, not that the gun discharged when it wasn't supposed to. In both cases, though, don't we know what was meant? The grammar mavenism of the '70s and '80s has given way to much looser use of language, when "literally" can literally mean "figuratively," and the floodgates are open to all manner of sloppy usage.
stlcdr said...
...including the armorer (if that is the correct term fir that role, I don’t know, but I’ll use it anyway)...
That's considered the correct term.
In a revolver, can you tell a live round from a blank, and would Baldwin know how to do that. He expected it to be loaded, just with blanks.
"Did Baldwin ever undertake firearms-safety training?"
Did he ever even have 1 minute of advice? He seems to have violated all 3 of the things they tell you in the first minute.
Alec Baldwin makes claims of expertise on guns. He does not know the first two things about guns:
1) All guns are always loaded. This is how they must be treated since they are weapons. You never take someone else's word that the gun is unloaded (i.e., there is no such thing as a 'cold' gun, as Baldwin tried to describe what he though it was).
2)You never point a gun at something you are not willing to destroy. Bullets go where the gun is pointed. Baldwin was pointing the gun at the people he shot.
Alec Baldwin is fully responsible for the death and injury he caused. He should be treated by the criminal justice system accordingly.
My understanding from friends in the theater business is that there are very very strict protocols in place when guns are involved in a film or theater production. This is true in professional, amateur, college and high school theater. The protocols became even stricter after Brandon Lee was accidentally killed on a set in the 1990s.
Baldwin as a co-producer is certainly guilty of running a very sloppy operation. I would venture a guess that his negligence makes him liable for civil penalties. The big question is whether his behavior was reckless and thus makes him liable for criminal penalties.
Making movies is one of the most Darwinian businesses in the USA. It's surprising this doesn't happen more often.
Mandatory firearms safety classes would make the militia actually well regulated. In addition, annual re-qualification should be required. Of course, this should all be free so gun ownership isn't just for the wealthy.
Why isn’t it mandatory that anyone in any movie involving a gun take a firearm safety class.
I would expect the insurance company providing coverage for the production does require it. Probably some OSHA regs that apply too.
Did Baldwin know the rules? Probably.
Did Alec Baldwin believe the rules apply to Alec Baldwin?
Ann Althouse said...
"an assistant director told Baldwin the gun was “cold”."
That's in all the news stories at this point -- along with the statement that "cold gun" means unloaded gun.
I find it interesting that millionaire actors and directors and producers built a system to blame gun accidents on a flunky.
Baldwin shot a woman with a gun that was in his hands and that he aimed and that he pulled the trigger on. She was no threat to him and everything was done in a completely negligent manner.
Only a millionaire lefty who wants to take away our guns gets away with that.
Mandatory firearms safety classes would make the militia actually well regulated. In addition, annual re-qualification should be required. Of course, this should all be free so gun ownership isn't just for the wealthy.
I thought Howard had left the area after his ridiculous rant the other day. But he's back with more nonsense.
Ann Althouse said...
Did he ever even have 1 minute of advice? He seems to have violated all 3 of the things they tell you in the first minute.
I have seen reports that the cast was given firearms safety training (including Baldwin), but it was apparently done in a bit of slipshod manner.
With the many hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the studios making movies, why can't they pay a firearm manufacturer, or two or three, to fabricate a firearm that looks exactly like a real firearm, but does not shoot bullets?
@Tank, I assume you are talking about starter pistols?
There is no legitimate reason for there to be projectile loaded ammunition on a set where people are "playing" with guns.
@JK Brown. absolutely! The executive producer should have scheduled daily safety meetings to make sure that stupid things like mixing live and blank ammo did not happen. The producer whose negligence led to this disaster was — Alec Baldwin.
Having fallen for the original story that this was caused by a squib that had not been cleared, I don’t think I want to comment further until the sherif issues his report.
Rhhardin,
Safest way would be to unload the gun at and check the ammunition, then reload. That would take less than a minute.
To answer a question that has been asked in this string:
Yes, it is possible to distinguish a real, live round from a blank in the normal course of events. Movie production usually involves using a "five-in-one" blank cartridge in a revolver. It does not have a projectile (bullet) in the open end -- it has a crimp over a cardboard disc. Even so, it is not totally harmless: that disc can cause serious harm up to about 20 feet in front of the pistol. For that reason, movie "shoots" are normally set up in such a way that the "shooter" does not really point the pistol at the "victim". Camera angles make it look like he does, but he does not.
One other point: if the "prop" gun was a cartridge gun, Baldwin could easily have swung the cylinder out, removed the cartridge, and seen that it was not a blank. It could, however, been a "cap and ball" revolver, which would have represented a pistol dating from before the invention of cartridge pistols, and in which individual cylinders would have been loaded with a percussion cap, powder, and a projectile (ball). Harder to check, but still possible.
And in any case, if this was not being filmed as a scene that was to be used for the production, there would be no reason for ANY kind of load in the prop pistol. The cylinder should NOT have contained any kind of cartridge or load. Baldwin could have satisfied himself that was the case. He apparently did not do so.
Lurker21 said...
The grammar mavenism of the '70s and '80s has given way to much looser use of language, when "literally" can literally mean "figuratively,"
Go find a copy of The Devil's Dictionary, published in 1911, and look up "literally."
I'm inclined to dismiss the "horsing around between takes" story at this point due to the lack of corroboration. Had that happened, there would be others rushing to tell that story too, including the armorer.
One possible reason for the presence of live rounds might be that there were scenes of a character loading the gun. Typical revolver blanks don't look like typical live rounds, right? Of course, those should have been kept strictly segregated from the blanks.
If Baldwin was legitimately rehearsing and relied in good faith on the armorer, I think he's unlikely to face criminal charges. It's hard to make the argument that he was reckless or even negligent in relying on the professional. Think of it this way: if I take my car to a licensed mechanic to have my tires rotated, I think I'm entitled to rely on those professionals to tighten the lug nuts appropriately. If that didn't happen, and one of my wheels came off at high speed and killed someone, does anyone here really think I was reckless or even negligent in not checking the lug nuts myself? Besides, insisting that every lightly-trained actor second-guess the professional armorer and pull out every cartridge himself to confirm that they are blank rounds sounds like a recipe for more mishaps, not fewer.
The armorer certainly may be criminally negligent here or possibly even reckless, depending on the facts that emerge. It's hard to see how she's not at fault somehow.
Baldwin's liability as producer remains to be seen, I think. That can be a courtesy title. We don't know yet whether he actually had a role in hiring.
From what I am seeing, the widower is an attorney. Baldwin will most likely not face criminal charges, but I suspect he will be dealing with the civil side of things for quite a while.
-------------
I saw something about the widower is an attorney with the law firm that helped set up Russia Hoax (one of whose other lawyers indicted by Durham)
One lesson to learn is to handle every gun as if it were loaded. Another is to avoid social media. The armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, has a lot on Instagram and Facebook that she's probably already regretting posting.
With the many hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the studios making movies, why can't they pay a firearm manufacturer, or two or three, to fabricate a firearm that looks exactly like a real firearm, but does not shoot bullets?
There are many ways to render a real firearm inoperable that would not be visible for film purposes - for example, removal of the firing pin or filling the chamber (or chambers in the case of a revolver) such that rounds cannot be loaded. You wouldn't need a specially-manufactured gun, just a decent gunsmith to do the work. Of course, such a gun could not fire blanks.
"From what I am seeing, the widower is an attorney."
Yea, he works at L&W, my former firm. He still needs an attorney.
If Baldwin was told the gun was "cold" (unloaded), it was still his responsibility to check. The whole "every gun is loaded/always keep it pointed in a safe direction" thing is because people screw up and the consequences of that screw up can be (and was here) very dire.
It's pointless to say it was one person's job to make sure the gun was unloaded. Safety is everyone's job, and no one was doing it. Not even to the point of not goofing around with the movie guns off set.
If the plan is that the movie guns (prop guns are a special category of nonfireable guns) shouldn't ever be loaded on set, they should never be loaded at all, or even allowed in the same location as real ammunition.
If it's the assistant director's job to make sure the gun is unloaded, he should do it, but what's the actor doing trusting a stranger on something like that? Would he put the gun to his own head and pull the trigger on someone else's say so?
Just saying that everything would have been ok if everybody did their job isn't a real safety plan. Live ammunition should have been banned from the set. Movie guns never should have been taken off set for goofing around. Every person handling the gun should have confirmed it was unloaded. And the gun should never have been pointed at a person unless absolutely needed for a particular shot. That way you're still safe if one doofus forgets to do his job.
Reminds me a bit of when aging actress (and ex wife of Andy Williams) Claudine Longet shot and killed Olympic skier boyfriend Spider Sabich in 1976, in Aspen. She reputedly said “Bang! Bang!” and he fell over, dying. She had shot him with his .22 fake Lugar. Her claim of his showing her how to shoot it at the time kinda crumbled with his autopsy showing him to have been bending over at the time he was shot. Didn’t matter. She got convicted of misdemeanor negligent manslaughter, and was sentenced to 30 days in whatever jail she wanted, whenever she wanted to serve it. Then quickly jetted off the NM, to spend time in Santa Fe, with her attorney and next husband.
My initial guess is that the outcome here for Baldwin is going to partially depend on what county the shooting occurred in. It was around Santa Fe, and like Aspen, a jury there is probably unlikely to send one of the beautiful people to prison. But if it was in one of the surrounding counties, the fact that he pointed the gun at someone and pulled the trigger, alone, would probably be sufficient for a Depraved Heart/Mind murder conviction. That is because guns are, for many on the prospective jury in rural NM, tools, that they have grown up with and respect. They know better than to ever point a gun at someone they were not willing to kill. Much less so, the denizens of tony Santa Fe.
"some who worked on the film believe a live round found its way in one of the chambers"
"Found its way"? I guess it was live, then.
I don't know to what extent Baldwin was culpable or negligent both as a producer or as an actor, but there's clearly some negligence or culpability involved. That said, we shouldn't exaggerate his culpability based on his politics. That would be wrong. The beau ideal we should strive for is to look back on how Baldwin evaluated Cheney when he was found wanting in his handling of a firearm. That is how we should judge Baldwin in his present predicament.
Back in the day, I was an extra in Coming Home.. One of the opening scenes takes place on a firing range; I was one of 20 or so shooters, with all of us having AR-15s loaded with blanks.
I don't know if it was because all of us were ROTC cadets, but there wasn't one word of firearms safety.
When all the facts are in, I bet they point in one direction: Normalization of Deviance.
It did for Challenger and Columbia, after all.
The person who pulls the trigger is never responsible for--- pulling the trigger.
Show Biz logic.
I feel terrible for the people and the families of those shot.
Baldwin? Schadenboner...
Seems like crominal negligent homicide to me, not an "accident".
You are responsible for the firearm (that's why us libtards have safes.)
I speculate that Mr. Gun Control was "playing" with his gun, perhaps doing quick draws and not in a "safe" direction.
We should not speculate, but I do want to point out that accidental discharges (or negligent discharges, if you will) while practicing quick draws do not typically cause a bullet to go forward from the shooter. The typical result is a bullet into one's toe or into the ground very close to one's toe.
Here are some famous cases where the shooter was dumber than a box of rocks. The first one illustrates what I am talking about. The drill is well known, and meant to simulate a situation where you are being threatened by someone with a gun who is very close to you. The goal is to distract him while drawing your own gun and putting two rounds into center mass before he can react. But you better practice getting the gun pointed forward before you put your finger inside the trigger guard. (The second depicts someone smarter than Alec Baldwin but still less three digits in his IQ. Believe it or not the guy survives.)
Longet may be a murderess, but aging? She was 34.
The cops bungled the case so some evidence was inadmissible.
She eventually married her lawyer and still lives in Aspen.
I wonder if that's awkward for her.
LA Times is reporting that Baldwin was practicing a draw from the holster for an upcoming take. If that is true and he though the gun was "cold", then I could see him snapping the trigger as he rehearsed.
Also hearing reports that some of the crew (no idea who) were had actually live fired the gun with real shoot-you-dead ammo like you'd purchase at the gun store.
Hollywood armorers tend to use two types of ammo on set; blanks and dummy rounds. Dummy round have projectiles, but no propellant or primer and are used for scenes where an actor is seen to be loading a gun or in revolver for close ups where they can be seen in the cylinder.
I'm starting to suspect that somehow the real ammo was mixed in with the dummy rounds and was loaded into the gun Baldwin was using.
This is a workplace safety issue. Someone was killed. In any other workplace you would be looking at criminal charges, and the management looking at serious fines as well as criminal charges. remember, this was a workplace.
'Reminds me a bit of when aging actress (and ex wife of Andy Williams) Claudine Longet shot and killed Olympic skier boyfriend Spider Sabich in 1976, in Aspen.'
She was 34 years old : )
If Baldwin is found negligent and sentenced for anything, the penalty will likely be public service. I vote he be sentenced to make public service announcements about gun safety for the NRA.
This relatively new information about unnamed crew members "using" the guns off-set for "what amounts to target practice" is open to so many different interpretations that it's virtually meaningless as it stands -- if it's even factually true, which remains to be seen.
Too much of the reporting so far gives off premonitory shudders of an effort to throw low-status crew people under the bus. The youth of the chief armorer shouldn't be held against her, nor should her giggly dancing in recreational hours be taken as a reflection of how she did her job. Let's wait for serious evidence of fault, and not be prejudiced by innuendo.
Responsibility for what happens on the set rests with the director. That's axiomatic. And the director answers for that responsibility to the producer. In this case, the producer Alex Baldwin was right there on set the whole time. If the director was letting dangerous practices go unchecked, it was Baldwin's duty to know about it and to demand better -- even to the point of halting production, rather than careen on to an avoidable tragedy.
If it's a Democrat, it's "accidentally" and if it's a Republican, the word "allegedly" never seems to appear.
Here is a story from today that shows the double standard.
A video shared on social media purports to show a meltdown by an alleged pizza delivery driver over the display of a Trump flag on another vehicle.Pro-Trump congressional candidate J.R. Majewski tweeted out the footage of the encounter.
BTW, I am fine with the language, just not with the one-sided application of such scrupulous "fairness."
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