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[DeepBreath87]

But this isnt a criminal scene

This is prop gun used by actors in an act

Gun that was deemed safe to use for him

You understand this right

Did he verify the gun was “safe”? Because, again, anytime you pick up a gun, you’re responsible for it. Read that until it sinks in.

 

[Jaysen]

I guess we will just have to wait and see if the courts agree with you on that.

Spoiler - they wont

 

[dr_octagon]

Alec doesn't check gun, he is responsible. Armourer doesn't do his job, he is responsible. Safety protocols not enforced, company is responsible.

Calling it an accident isn't entirely accurate if there is failure and negligence on all levels.

As for criminality, actors and rich people tend to be afforded special status just like Broderick and Jenner.

 

[DeepBreath87]

Spoiler - they wont

I bet the wrongful death suit will agree with me… although I’m sure they’ll settle because it’s pretty open and shut.

 

[Airbus Jr]

Did he verify the gun was “safe”? Because, again, anytime you pick up a gun, you’re responsible for it. Read that until it sinks in.

The gun was verified safe to use by the prop master and was given to the actors

 

[Xdrive05]

Quick sanity check - old western guns as depicted in a film would likely be single action, right? How did one negligence event end up in two different people being injured (and one fatally)? Were there multiple obstructions in the barrel that all blasted out as if bullets?

Also, what are the chances of that? Do you know how hard it would be to TRY to hit two different people with one trigger pull intentionally? You wouldn't be able to unless you lined them up, or it was a very densely populated room - in which case, why in the FUCK would you aim any kind of firearm at a dense crowd?

 

[Thaedolus]

But this isnt a criminal scene

This is prop gun used by actors in an act

Gun that was deemed safe to use for him

You understand this right

Multiple sources confirm it’s standard practice to require the actor to verify the prop is safe. You keep skipping over this fact. In any procedure when someone is required to do a secondary check in any industry, that should be done to the same level as the primary check, otherwise it’s worthless. So ask yourself: if he’s required to do something under standard safety protocols and he didn’t do it, then someone died as a result of that failure, how is he not at least partially responsible?

The gun was verified safe to use by the prop master and was given to the actors

The actor’s job is to verify the gun is safe. He either didn’t do his job or did so incompetently

 

[DeepEnigma]

Quick sanity check - old western guns as depicted in a film would likely be single action, right? How did one negligence event end up in two different people being injured (and one fatally)? Were there multiple obstructions in the barrel that all blasted out as if bullets?

The projective passed through her and hit the director in his shoulder. He was behind her, offset.

 

[Putonahappyface]

I always thought the sole responsibility for a prop gun on a film set was down to the armourer I've now learnt otherwise. I was a member of a gun club many years ago and it was engraved into me and everyone else that sole responsibility was down to the individual wielding the weapon and to treat it as dangerous at all times regardless of whether it was loaded or not, just assume it is and no accidents will occur.

The more this story unfolds the more I can see there was an astronomical fuck up on many levels. I think instead of individuals being cautious with there regimental checks they might have relied on others to do procedures instead. Tragic all around!

 

[Airbus Jr]

The prop master job is to verify the gun is safe. He either didn’t do his job or did so incompetently

Fixed that for you

 

[Jeeves]

The gun was verified safe to use by the prop master and was given to the actors

You're just talking past everyone and refusing to acknowledge the common sense information we're giving you.

 

[Thaedolus]

Fixed that for you

So you’re either trolling or an idiot.

 

[Xdrive05]

The projective passed through her and hit the director in his shoulder. He was behind her, offset.

Thank you.

I imagine a .45 long colt round nose could do that - pass through a woman (smaller medium) and still have lots of energy to significantly hurt a 2nd person. But that would be a live round and not a blank. For a blank to do that, there would have to be a bullet sized (and weight) obstruction, which doesn't seem likely. I mean it would probably have to be 150gr + to have that much penetration with a blank round in a 5" barrel, say.

 

[jason10mm]

Ah i see

So acording to you everyone there is at fault for this acident yes?

Entirely possible that everyone shares some of the blame/responsibility, yes. This is how a root cause analysis works and how things like this can be prevented in the future. If you do not know how safety systems work then I understand how this can be foreign to you.

 

[Nobody_Important]

You don’t need the courts to agree with the second part of what he’s saying.

In a normal situation I would agree entirely. But this is not a normal situation. He was an actor who was handed a gun by a (presumably) qualified expert and was told the gun was safe. That muddies the water for me as far as liability goes. Should he have doubled checked the gun himself? Absolutely. But I am not willing to say the poor guy should be in jail just because he trusted the professional hired to do this exact thing. The only criminal liability I see here falls squarely on the shoulders of the prop master and possibly the studio itself if the person in charge of those duties was not actually qualified for the position and was not properly vetted before they were hired. Oh and possibly any other safety personnel on set whose job was to oversee the safety of the cast and crew.


And all of that is with the assumption that Baldwin was not aware the gun was loaded and was not aware the prop master wasn't qualified of it's shown to be the case. If the investigation shows that Baldwin knew the gun was loaded and still used it for some insane reason or it's shown that he knew the prop master had no idea what they were doing then my opinion on his liability will obviously change.


But for right now the only punishments I see for Baldwin is an enormous financial payout to the family and a lifetime of overwhelming guilt unless the investigation turns up incriminating information on him.

 

[Airbus Jr]

So you’re either trolling or an idiot.

This remind me of a story of an unsedated patient not long ago

The surgeons was told it is safe to proceed the surgery by the anasthessiologist

But sudendly the patient woke up during surgery

So in this case surgeons has to check and responsible for the anesthesiologist job aswell?

Man life must be hard for them

 

[nbcjr]

I just hope someone is charged as responsible.

 

[DeepBreath87]

This remind me of a story of an unsedated patient not long ago

The surgeons was told it is safe to proceed the surgery by the anasthessia

But sudendly the patient woke up during surgery

So in this case surgeon has to check the anesthesia job aswell?

Man life must be hard for them

You know how I know you’re full of shit? You keep wanting to talk about scenarios you’ve making up in your head. Let’s stick to the gun who shot the lady with the gun he didn’t properly handle.

 

[Thaedolus]

Entirely possible that everyone shares some of the blame/responsibility, yes. This is how a root cause analysis works and how things like this can be prevented in the future. If you do not know how safety systems work then I understand how this can be foreign to you.

Seriously. Redundancy exists for a reason, especially when failure modes are potentially fatal (e.g. activities involving firearms). That’s why you never just rely on a gun’s safety. That’s why aircraft have triple redundancy for control surfaces. You can’t just remove responsibility from someone failing to be a redundancy, the whole purpose is to ensure people don’t die due to one failure (likely) or two (less likely) but three (very unlikely). Well if you just ignore these requirements, accidents will happen. Ask Boeing.

 

[Jaysen]

Multiple sources confirm it’s standard practice to require the actor to verify the prop is safe. You keep skipping over this fact. In any procedure when someone is required to do a secondary check in any industry, that should be done to the same level as the primary check, otherwise it’s worthless. So ask yourself: if he’s required to do something under standard safety protocols and he didn’t do it, then someone died as a result of that failure, how is he not at least partially responsible?




The actor’s job is to verify the gun is safe. He either didn’t do his job or did so incompetently

Again, absolute bullshit. It is not the actors responsibility to verify firearms are working properly. The stupidity of putting that kind of responsibility into the hands of actors is hilarious.

 

[Nobody_Important]

I bet the wrongful death suit will agree with me… although I’m sure they’ll settle because it’s pretty open and shut.

A wrongful death suit is not the same as a normal court proceeding. I know you know that.

And I have already said several times now that I expect there to be an enormous financial compensation to the family by the studio, Baldwin, the prop master, and possibly any other safety personnel who were on set to make sure the cast and crew were safe. It's the very least that the family deserves even though no amount of money is gonna make the situation okay.


That does not mean that Baldwin bears criminal liability for this tragedy.

 

[DeepBreath87]

A wrongful death suit is not the same as a normal court proceeding. I know you know that.

They still determine responsibility though, don’t they?

 

[DeepEnigma]

Thank you.

I imagine a .45 long colt round nose could do that - pass through a woman (smaller medium) and still have lots of energy to significantly hurt a 2nd person. But that would be a live round and not a blank. For a blank to do that, there would have to be a bullet sized (and weight) obstruction, which doesn't seem likely. I mean it would probably have to be 150gr + to have that much penetration with a blank round in a 5" barrel, say.

I believe she was struck in the head, and he was released from the hospital the next day from being struck in the collar bone.

 

[Airbus Jr]

You know how I know you’re full of shit? You keep wanting to talk about scenarios you’ve making up in your head. Let’s stick to the gun who shot the lady with the gun he didn’t properly handle.

My point is everyone should be responsible for the job assigned for them

If actors are responsible for a prop gun then what the fukin point is the point of having a prop master in charge for the situation

 

[Jaysen]

I believe she was struck in the head, and he was released from the hospital the next day.

Shoulder.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Again, absolute bullshit. It is not the actors responsibility to verify firearms are working properly. The stupidity of putting that kind of responsibility into the hands of actors is hilarious.

Yes. It. Is.

Those were the rules passed by the industry since the Brandon Lee incident.

 

[Nobody_Important]

They still determine responsibility though, don’t they?

Check my edit.

A wrongful death suit does not prove criminal liability. Which is what I am talking about.

 

[Thaedolus]

Again, absolute bullshit. It is not the actors responsibility to verify firearms are working properly. The stupidity of putting that kind of responsibility into the hands of actors is hilarious.

How many times have you been the armorer on a set to make this claim overriding what experts have said about this so far? Oh zero? Ok I’m not going with your take then

 

[DeepBreath87]

My point is everyone should be responsible for the job assigned for them

If actors are responsible for a prop gun then what the fukin point is the point of having a prop master in charge

When you’re handed a gun, you are responsible for it. Saying someone else told you it was all good doesn’t absolve of your responsibility. You’re holding a gun. Clearly you have zero experience with guns. Which is good, because you would likely hurt yourself or someone else, like Alec Baldwin did here.

 

[Jaysen]

How many times have you been the armorer on a set to make this claim overriding what experts have said about this so far? Oh zero? Ok I’m not going with your take then

The experts are the ones saying the armorer failed here. Again, the stupidity of suggesting actors are the final line of defense is amazingly awful

 

[Nobody_Important]

When you’re handed a gun, you are responsible for it. Saying someone else told you it was all good doesn’t absolve of your responsibility. You’re holding a gun. Clearly you have zero experience with guns. Which is good, because you would likely hurt yourself or someone else, like Alec Baldwin did here.

Let me be blunt.


Do you believe that the prop master or any of the other safety personnel bear any responsibility for a loaded gun ending up in Baldwin's hands? Or do believe that Baldwin bears all of the responsibility?

 

[DeepBreath87]

Check my edit.

A wrongful death suit does not prove criminal liability. Which is what I am talking about.

Let’s go back and see what we have been talking about, since you’re confused.

I said:

There’s a discussion about criminal responsibility. But in terms of absolute responsibility, you’re always responsible for a weapon in your hand. It’s not debatable.

You countered with:

I guess we will just have to wait and see if the courts agree with you on that.

Now you’ve hedged saying this:

Check my edit.

A wrongful death suit does not prove criminal liability. Which is what I am talking about.

But when you started talking to me, I clearly made a distinction between criminal responsibility, which is questionable, and fundamental responsibility, which is not. You brought up the courts, so when I pointed out that civil courts will CLEARLY side with me, you had to hedge. But civil courts are quite good as deciding responsibility. So you should just stop.

 

[Boss Mog]

This really never should've happened. Most of the blame has to go to the armorer (a 24 year old woman who said herself that she probably wasn't ready for the job on the one movie she did before this one). Some of the blame needs to go to the safety crew for allowing people where the gun was being pointed at and lastly some of the blame has to go to Alec Baldwin who should've never pointed the gun in the direction of any cast and crew; he's a veteran actor he should know better.

to recap:

- live rounds should NEVER be on site PERIOD
- armorer must check and double check the gun before giving it to the actor
- safety crew must make sure no cast or crew is present in the direction the gun is pointed in (camera angles are used to fake the gun being pointed at another actor)
- Actors should never point a gun in the direction of any person PERIOD.

all those things need to go wrong for somebody to get shot. It's a lot of mistakes and there's a lot of blame here.

I have to wonder if that 24 year old woman was a diversity hire; she herself thought she wasn't ready...

 

[DeepEnigma]

The experts are the ones saying the armorer failed here. Again, the stupidity of suggesting actors are the final line of defense is amazingly awful

Wrong

They are saying all parties failed. Even the actor who is supposed to dry fire and watch the procedure.

If the actor is last to hold the firearm, they LITERALLY ARE THE LAST LINE OF SAFETY.

That is firearm safety 101. Why are you this way?

 

[DeepBreath87]

Let me be blunt.


Do you believe that the prop master or any of the other safety personnel bear any responsibility for a loaded gun ending up in Baldwin's hands? Or do believe that Baldwin bears all of the responsibility?

I’ve already said there are layers of responsibility. But when a gun is in your hands, you are responsible for it. Period. Blaming others isn’t going to fly.

 

[Jeeves]

The experts are the ones saying the armorer failed here. Again, the stupidity of suggesting actors are the final line of defense is amazingly awful

The person holding the gun and pulling the trigger is objectively the final person in the chain of responsibility who could have prevented it from happening.

If actors are responsible for a prop gun then what the fukin point is the point of having a prop master in charge for the situation

You ever hear of double checking? Second opinion? Dual control?

 

[Nobody_Important]

Let’s go back and see what we have been talking about, since you’re confused.

I said:


You countered with:


Now you’ve hedged saying this:


But when you started talking to me, I clearly made a distinction between criminal responsibility, which is questionable, and fundamental responsibility, which is not. You brought up the courts, so when I pointed out that civil courts will CLEARLY side with me, you had to hedge. But civil courts are quite good as deciding responsibility. So you should just stop.

No you're right. I misread "There's a discussion about criminal responsibility" as "This is a discussion about Criminal Responsibility". Which is why I continued down that route and specifically brought up the courts (as in criminal courts). This is why I usually don't discuss these more serious topics on my phone while I'm doing other stuff. I usually only do the serious stuff when I am at my desk away from distractions.


Thats on me. Sorry.

 

[Thaedolus]

The experts are the ones saying the armorer failed here. Again, the stupidity of suggesting actors are the final line of defense is amazingly awful

THERE WAS MORE THAN ONE FAILURE. Jesus Christ how are you guys defaulting to the primary failure being the only one that matters? That’s almost never the case in a fatal accident.

The armorer absolutely failed.

Baldwin ALSO had a job to make sure the armorer didn’t fail, which is just as important. He didn’t perform his job adequately and someone died as a result. Period.

 

[Nobody_Important]

THERE WAS MORE THAN ONE FAILURE. Jesus Christ how are you guys defaulting to the primary failure being the only one that matters? That’s almost never the case in a fatal accident.

The armorer absolutely failed.

Baldwin ALSO had a job to make sure the armorer didn’t fail, which is just as important. He didn’t perform his job adequately and someone died as a result. Period.

Do you believe either of them bear any criminal liability? Both of them? Just one?

I'm being genuine. I'm trying to figure out if we are talking about general responsibility and gun safety here or if you believe either of them need to have criminal charges levelled at them.

 

[Jaysen]

Wrong

They are saying all parties failed. Even the actor who is supposed to dry fire and watch the procedure.

If the actor is last to hold the firearm, they LITERALLY ARE THE LAST LINE OF SAFETY.

That is firearm safety 101. Why are you this way?

Idiotic. When the armorer calls Cold Gun on Set, it means cold gun on set. You know, the paid, licensed expert whose job it is to keep everyone safe. But sure, let’s put a check on them, and let’s put that responsibility into the hands of people who probably never handled guns in their lives. Suuuuuure.

 

[DeepEnigma]

 

[Thaedolus]

Do you believe either of them bear any criminal liability? Both of them? Just one?

Possibly, something like involuntary manslaughter, but I’m not an attorney. And don’t get me wrong, I was speculating earlier in the thread about scenarios where it’s not desirable for an actor to be opening a weapon to verify anything and being totally reliant on the armorer.

The fact is, there’s been an abundance of evidence to show that standard practice is that the actor is responsible for a final check, or needs to witness the weapon being loaded with blanks, etc. Once I started learning more about the safety protocols on set, I changed my mind on the possibility of absolving Baldwin in his capacity of an actor. As a producer he’s certainly got some civil exposure. No idea about criminal, I’m not an expert in law

 

[Thaedolus]

Idiotic. When the armorer calls Cold Gun on Set, it means cold gun on set. You know, the paid, licensed expert whose job it is to keep everyone safe. But sure, let’s put a check on them, and let’s put that responsibility into the hands of people who probably never handled guns in their lives. Suuuuuure.

“Why would you have a primary system in place that can fail? That’s idiotic. Oh let’s just have a secondary system serve as backup like a bunch of fools.”

Man I hope you never engineer anything

 

[///PATRIOT]

But this isnt a criminal scene

This is prop gun used by actors in an act

Gun that was deemed safe to use for him

You understand this right

We are focusing too much in the context of movies set and not the underlying principle. I wasn't aware that a prop gun which shots blanks could still kill people, so a prop gun is still a gun . Stablished Industry safety protocol requires no actor/actresses to point at and press the trigger to other person, also actors and prop masters are required both together checking the gun before each operation.

Forget you're in a movie set, instead you're at home with some family members and ask yourself this: Would be responsible of you to play with a gun by pointing at people and pressing the trigger even though you already deemed the gun safe?

 

[Keihart]

Again, as a producer on the film, the fault ultimately lays on him. The last man to hold the firearm. That is firearm safety 101 and being in “Hollywood” doesn’t absolve from the baseline.

I can empathize with what he will feel for the rest of his life, but at the same time, he brought that on himself in the end.

I mean sure, if someone cut your brakes and you end up crashing it's your fault obvioully, should of checked better.

 

[Thaedolus]

I mean sure, if someone cut your brakes and you end up crashing it's your fault obvioully, should of checked better.

Not even remotely analogous

 

[///PATRIOT]

I believe playing the who has more responsibility game is very disingenuous and dumb. By the accounts given, a few people are responsible of this outcome including the very woman who got shot dead.
I personally feel bad for Baldwin because even though this is negligence(not just him), he didn't mean to kill someone and God knows everybody makes dumb decisions in life including me.

May the victim's family and Alec Baldwin eventually find rest, forgiveness and joy in life.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I mean sure, if someone cut your brakes and you end up crashing it's your fault obvioully, should of checked better.

Really, really bruh?

Unless you’re suggesting he was set up? In which he still failed procedures.

 

[Keihart]

Retard take.

Unless you’re suggesting he was set up? In which he still failed procedures.

who knows, do you know there was no ill intention from anyone handling the gun before the actor? Does the actor still have the ultimate responsability if there was?

Don't forget to wear your helmet when answering.

 

[Nobody_Important]

This is possibly a dumb question, but bear with me please. I know how to check/clear/clean revolvers and semi-autos, but I have never actually handled blank rounds before. Never needed to. I was always taught how to handle guns with live ammo.


Is it possible for someone who may not handle guns all the time to tell the difference between a blank and a live round at glance in a revolver without removing the rounds from the cylinder?