Yeesh - Alec Baldwin just plopped into a world of hurt

[Baby Lee]

Breaking - details forthcoming

Discharged a 'prop' weapon that resulted in a death and another severe injury.

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/ne...c47b69ce5.html

[-King-]

Originally Posted by Raiderhader

The location of where the handling of firearms takes place is irrelevant to the rules of safe firearm handling. A fact you cannot seem to wrap your mind around. There is no invisible force field around a movie set that deflects common sense and personal responsibility.

If the gun fired when he was taking it out of his holster like this story says, how exactly could he have done his master inspection?

[suzzer99]

Originally Posted by Bwana

I was going to post something similar earlier, but my give a shit just wasn't there. I mean, is there a bullet on the end or not? It shouldn't be hard to tell a blank round from the real thing, at for most people.

Exactly. But Hollywood movies never have live rounds on set:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...ks-rounds-more

Productions using operational firearms can opt for those intentionally designed to fire blank cartridges — shell casings loaded with gunpowder — or decommissioned firearms tweaked to shoot them. Live ammunition is not allowed on any set.

What they do is call blanks live rounds so that gets confusing. And they also have dummy bullets that looks like real bullets. But you obviously can't fire a blank and a dummy bullet at the same time.

What happened with Brandon Lee and may have happened here, is the bullet part of the dummy bullet came apart and lodged in the gun. The gun wasn't properly inspected, then a blank was loaded which turned the dummy bullet left in the barrel into a deadly projectile.

It would be ludicrous imo to expect an actor or actress to unload every gun they get handed, inspect every bullet, inspect the barrel and chamber for any debris or left over artifacts. That is what the licensed armorer is for.

[Fishpicker]

Originally Posted by KCUnited

A live look at Alec

that pic is also representative of me looking through this thread with a passing interest

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by -King-

From what we've heard so far, that's not what happened. It fired when he was taking it out of the holster.

I already covered that, the language is guarded because the facts are not adduced at present. My assessment is based on a particular set of facts, should they arise.

If the fact turns out that he pulled a gun from the holster and it fired spontaneously with no action from him [ie, manipulating the trigger], that's entirely different.

But that falls into 'we don't know' at present. I'm not going to assume something as exotic as spontaneous discharge as established fact on the basis of cautious reporting verbiage.

[oldman]

This movie is set in the 1880's, correct? If that's the case the weapon would be a revolver and have to be loaded looking at each cartridge. But again, why was a live round even on the set?

Regardless if you think Baldwin is a pinko POS or an outstanding American, it's not his responsibility to check a weapon that has beemed deemed "cold" anymore than it it's his job to check the camera angle, the lighting, or whether the crew has their lattes. His job is to act and put up part of the money to make the film.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by suzzer99

Exactly. But Hollywood movies never have live rounds on set:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...ks-rounds-more



What they do is call blanks live rounds so that gets confusing. And they also have dummy bullets that looks like real bullets. But you obviously can't fire a blank and a dummy bullet at the same time.

What happened with Brandon Lee and may have happened here, is the bullet part of the dummy bullet came apart and lodged in the gun. The gun wasn't properly inspected, then a blank was loaded which turned the dummy bullet left in the barrel into a deadly projectile.

It would be ludicrous imo to expect an actor or actress to unload every gun they get handed, inspect every bullet, inspect the barrel and chamber for any debris or left over artifacts. That is what the licensed armorer is for.

Certainly the level of inspection has to be weighed, but you have the countervailing factor to weigh if it is being pointed at other people, particularly if the trigger is being manipulated.

It doesn't even have to be full inspection, even just verifying
'you checked the barrel?'
'there are rounds in this?'
'what type of rounds?'
'you double-checked the status of the rounds.'
'you are aware I am pointing this at other humans and pulling this trigger?'

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by oldman

This movie is set in the 1880's, correct? If that's the case the weapon would be a revolver and have to be loaded looking at each cartridge. But again, why was a live round even on the set?

Regardless if you think Baldwin is a pinko POS or an outstanding American, it's not his responsibility to check a weapon that has beemed deemed "cold" anymore than it it's his job to check the camera angle, the lighting, or whether the crew has their lattes. His job is to act and put up part of the money to make the film.

Are you asserting that he has absolutely no duty regarding the handling of a functional weapon with his own hands?

[srvy]

Originally Posted by -King-

If the gun fired when he was taking it out of his holster like this story says, how exactly could he have done his master inspection?

Says that story has been removed. If this happened Alec would have been resting his finger on the trigger while drawing the gun to clear the holster. This is a gun safety no-no. Maybe Alec fancies himself a regular Doc Holiday. Too bad he didn't shoot his foot.

[srvy]

Originally Posted by oldman

This movie is set in the 1880's, correct? If that's the case the weapon would be a revolver and have to be loaded looking at each cartridge. But again, why was a live round even on the set?

Regardless if you think Baldwin is a pinko POS or an outstanding American, it's not his responsibility to check a weapon that has beemed deemed "cold" anymore than it it's his job to check the camera angle, the lighting, or whether the crew has their lattes. His job is to act and put up part of the money to make the film.

Another trust no need to verify school of thought.

[oldman]

We can all say that he should have checked it, but in reality few of us would have. If you buy a can of beans at the grocery store, do you open the can to check or do you just look at the label? If you take your car to a mechanic for a tune up, do you watch him properly gap the plugs? If you fly on vacation, do you check the pilot's credentials?

Don't get me wrong, this was something that should never have happened, but the responsibility cannot be Baldwin's alone.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by oldman

We can all say that he should have checked it, but in reality few of us would have. If you buy a can of beans at the grocery store, do you open the can to check or do you just look at the label? If you take your car to a mechanic for a tune up, do you watch him properly gap the plugs? If you fly on vacation, do you check the pilot's credentials?

Don't get me wrong, this was something that should never have happened, but the responsibility cannot be Baldwin's alone.

First, no one is arguing SOLE responsibility. We're weighing Baldwin's proximate responsibility. They're separate.

And competing concepts being weighed are 'inherently dangerous instrument' and 'level of duty.'

Pointing and firing a weapon with people in the line of fire is inherently a different task than picking out beans.

And the answer isn't what human nature would say we would do, but what the law has the right to expect us to do. If our human nature is to not be careful enough with dangerous instruments, the law imposes duties so we know going forward we need to be more careful.

Maybe an illustrative counterexample is Chernobyl, . . . tons of people died and a huge swath of Earth was rendered uninhabitable because of actions that experts said were safe and prudent. But things change when you have catastrophic power in your hands.

[srvy]

A western type revolver is the easiest weapon to check, a monkey could do it.

[suzzer99]

Man you guys are just determined to gish gallop this thread into oblivion. You have a whole thread in DC to spew nonsense. But no, this thread also must be destroyed. Because we can.

[Beef Supreme]

Next week on CSI Chiefs Planet, the team gets up to some wacky hijinx when a Holywood blowhard kills a co-worker on the set of his latest movie. Was it accidental or intentional? Tune in as our scrappy investigators battle it out in a war of words in next week's episode "Shooting Blanks."

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Beef Supreme

Tune in as our scrappy investigators battle it out in a war of words in next week's episode "Shooting Blanks."

Always amused to see how many "experts in the field" there are when random topics come up... saw some FB conversation the other day and you would think every one of them had been on the set of movies for the past 20 years.