Count Dooku

This was my question:
How about just a straight answer to that?

GoldenJCJ

My straight answer is never assume a gun is empty.

But yes, if a gun is empty it can’t shoot. But that obviously wasn’t the case here.

What exactly is your point with that question? Particularly in this thread?

Count Dooku

The upshot of your previous postings was that Baldwin did not need to be a firearms expert to avoid this tragedy, he just needed to keep his "fucking finger off the trigger."

But now by your own statement, pulling the trigger on an empty gun is not dangerous.

So, if the gun had been empty like it was supposed to be, then Baldwin did not do anything wrong. Pulling the trigger on an empty gun is no more dangerous than if he had been juggling oranges in front of the camera.

And the reason I can list off hundreds of movies with massive amounts of pretend gun-play and firearm shooting, and state that nobody on any of those sets ever got shot is because all the guns were empty like they were supposed to be.

And actors don't have to take firearm training so they can check the weapons they are handed on set if the weapons are empty like they are supposed to be.

So my point is that Baldwin is not some reckless asshole who doesn't give a damn about human life, and Hollywood doesn't need a bunch of new regulations, and movie sets don't need a new unionized safety patrol, they just need to use guns that aren't loaded LIKE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE.

And like every other single detail of what happens on a movie set, things are the way they are supposed to be because it's somebody's job to make it that way. The costumes, the make-up, the set, the lighting, etc are all the way hey are supposed to be because somebody made it that way.

It was supposed to be somebody's job to make sure Alec Baldwin was not standing in front of the camera with a loaded gun. It wasn't Baldwin's job. It was a job somebody else was supposed to be doing. And that job did not get done.

Second-guessing everything you are told and following the BS rules of gun safety (according to a gun manufacturer, no less) is not how people live their lives, and it's not part of how an actor prepares to do their job. The only way we get through our lives, everyday, is trusting that other people are doing their jobs.

Count Dooku

You straight answer is to deny the premise of the question and present your own talking point.
Earlier, I wondered if you worked for the IRS, now I think you are a member of Congress.

GoldenJCJ

Damn bro. That is a long, roundabout way to get your “gotcha” on someone who doesn’t necessarily disagree with you.

You can look back through this thread and I wasn’t placing blame solely on Baldwin from the beginning. I don’t think any of us know exactly what happened on the set that day. It sounds like it was a series of screw ups from numerous people.

I’ll state again, if Baldwin had gone through even the simplest of gun safety courses he never would have had his finger on the trigger in the first place, whether the gun was empty or not.

Actors will follow all types of other professions to get a better sense of their character and their roles. Why is it so outrageous that a character who uses a gun should know how to use the gun?

ddrknghtrtns

Probably should also throw in a sobriety test.

andicus

Apart from all the failures that appear to have taken place, I'm still stuck with one question... Why was there ANY live ammo anywhere near the set? Someone loaded live rounds into that pistol. Who, and why?

I know it was rumoured, early on, that cast and/or crew would go and target shoot during downtime. Obviously that does not need to happen, and shouldn't happen.

Also, having only been on a set, once (and in Canada, where such restrictions are unnecessary) , I don't know what firearm restrictions there are, regarding personal firearms. Certainly it would vary by state, and likely by production company, unless of course the fucking 2nd amendment trumps a company's rules.

Count Dooku

According to Baldwin, he had gone through gun safety instruction on the set of other movies and went through "a training session" with the Rust armorer.

But I am still completely confused by your insistence that Baldwin (or anyone) should be reluctant to pull the trigger of an unloaded weapon. It just does not make sense to me.

Count Dooku

Trying address so many of the mistaken points being made in the thread at once and cut through your refusal to accept the premise of a question as worded.

andicus

More info from CNN. Some excerpts. In short, the armorer is blaming Baldwin for what happened.

The armorer on the set of the film "Rust" said she was not called to inspect the gun that ultimately fired a live round, fatally wounding cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

"Mr. Baldwin knew that he could never point a firearm at crew members under any circumstances and had a duty of safety to his fellow crew members," Gutierrez Reed said."Yet he did point the gun at Halyna before the fatal incident against all rules and common sense."

"Hannah was not called into the Church before the impromptu gun scene rehearsal and she should have been," the statement said.Gutierrez Reed said she had no knowledge of what was happening inside the church set that day and Baldwin was responsible for helping maintain the safety of the crew.


The court document also claimed when Baldwin arrived on the New Mexico set, he underwent a training session with Gutierrez Reed and he understood from that session he did not need to check the gun for live ammunition.

"Reed did not instruct Baldwin to check the gun himself. In fact, she told Baldwin that it was her job to check the gun -- not his," the document said.

"Similarly, Baldwin believed, based on prior gun safety training he received on movie sets, that actors should not unilaterally check guns for live ammunition. If actors want to check a gun for their own peace of mind, they should only check the gun with the armorer closely supervising the process. In other words, actors may jointly inspect a gun with the armorer, but never on their own."

But Gutierrez Reed, in her statement Saturday, said she encountered "constant resistance" from Baldwin and production staff during her time on the set."Hannah emphasized the importance of training Mr. Baldwin in the cross draw, which is dangerous," the statement said. "He never accepted the offer and Hannah was not able to conduct that training as well as other training she wanted to do, because of budgeting and being overruled by production."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/12/enter...eed/index.html

Count Dooku

It's more that she is saying she's not responsible.

It's her job to make certain Baldwin is not holding a gun that contains live ammunition, but she is saying that she did not do her job because she had no knowledge of what was taking place and no one called her to come there.

So, where did Baldwin get the gun and why did it have live ammo in it?

She says Baldwin was instructed that he should not be checking the firearms himself, so if a gun was loaded, he wouldn't know it.

Hasn't Baldwin said that he was told the gun was "cold." Who told him that? Wouldn't that be the person responsible?

andicus

She's definitely doing both, based on "Mr. Baldwin knew that he could never point a firearm at crew members under any circumstances and had a duty of safety to his fellow crew members," Gutierrez Reed said."Yet he did point the gun at Halyna before the fatal incident against all rules and common sense."

This is definitely a huge question that needs to be answered.
This still doesn't appear to be clear. Didn't someone, earlier in the investigation, claim that the director handed him the weapon, proclaiming it 'cold?'

GoldenJCJ

Reports were that Gutierrez Reed wasn’t on set that day and it was assistant director Dave Halls who gave the gun to Baldwin and claimed it was “cold”.

Presumably, everyone on set should have known that wasn’t correct procedure.

There’s a whole lot of finger pointing going on right now. Everyone seems to be in CYA mode.

ddrknghtrtns

​​​​​​Not looking good for Baldwin's bank account.

B5Erik

OK, rather than having every single actor who handles a gun take a firearms safety class, it would make more sense to have a two person armorer team. One person to check the gun, and then a second to hand the gun to the actor. The second person could be required to then to a check themselves to confirm that the gun is safe.

Actors will never be expert enough to be expected to know FOR SURE if a gun is 100% safe or not. Gun experts can be expected to know that, however, and that system would solve the problem.

A two person team. A double check.

If followed, this procedure would ensure that this kind of thing never happens again.

Done. Case closed.

andicus

Therein lies the catch... If the article I linked to is accurate, the existing procedure wasn't followed, and there were already issues with the budget that prevented some additional training that the armorer recommended.

Regardless, if the procedures were strictly followed, a single armorer should be sufficient. Clearly procedures were not followed, in this case.

Josh-da-man

While everyone is pointing fingers and speculating on how Baldwin pulled the trigger and where he was pointing the gun and what the proper procedure was, the real question is why the fuck was there a live bullet (not a blank or a dummy) in the gun in the first place?

That seems to be the elephant in the room nobody is talking about.

That bullet just didn't appear out of nowhere. Somebody loaded it into the gun, either intentionally or unintentionally.

John Galt

This is my takeaway from all the reading I've done on the subject. Something obviously went grossly wrong on set for this to happen, and it sounds like there was an overall poor culture on set due to some budget issues.

This is the question that ultimately needs answering. I've mainly avoided these discussions because although I have several certifications with firearms safety, handling, and training; I know very little about protocol on a movie set where almost every rule of firearm safety goes out the window. You need a completely different set of rules, checks, and procedures when you're dealing with pointing guns at another individual and pulling the trigger.

I saw early on, the armorer blamed the ammo supplier for putting a blank round in the box with the live rounds, but 1) I highly doubt that would happen and 2) part of her job should be to check all ammo to ensure that they are indeed blanks. Even if live ammo did make it on set, who the fuck loaded a live round in the gun? Anyone with even basic firearms experience should be able to tell the two rounds apart as they look nothing alike. The reports of some of the crew going out to target shoot would definitely make sense if they were shooting that gun earlier and left a round or two in the cylinder. Short of a deliberate act, it's about the only way any of it makes sense.

And this is why I find it very hard to put the blame on Baldwin. I don't feel it's very realistic to expect every actor to be proficient in the safe handling of firearms. Guns are a divisive issue obviously, and I'm sure there are plenty of actors who hate them but do this because it's part of the job. You can teach them basic safety and I would expect them to know and understand that, but there's hundreds of different types of guns out there that all operate differently with regards to safeties and actions. It sounds like this was an old cowboy action revolver where simply releasing the hammer can fire the gun, even if the trigger was never pulled.

Mike86

I don’t even know why it’s necessary to have live guns and ammunition on sets of movies in the first place. You can get imitation guns that look close enough to the real things, and gunfire effects/sounds can be added in during post production later on.

Runaway

It's quite stupid, that in a world where everybody knows how steering wheels and elevators work, filmmakers have no problem showing every driver steering like he's on a slalom parcours and elevator doors closing one second after someone jumped in the elevator, they have to use real guns, because people could recognize fake guns.

B5Erik

There was a story that came out not long after the incident where it was noted that two people took the gun (along with a second gun) out to a shooting range and fired live ammo with it. They brought it back still loaded with the live ammo, but no one really checked the gun since they assumed it hadn't been messed with and the producer who gave the gun to Baldwin and told him it was safe went with that assumption.

A real breakdown in procedure. The gun, if the story was accurate, should never have left the set, have never been used to fire live ammo, and should have been checked before use on set anyway.

GoldenJCJ

^ I thought one safety rule movie sets have is to keep all firearms locked up in a special locker/cage. It would make sense that only the armorer would have the key to get the guns out. Obviously not the case here though. Even though she wasn’t on set for the incident, the fact that Gutierrez Reed allowed the guns to be used out of her presence and removed and brought back without her (seeming) knowledge makes me think she’s more at fault than she’s admitting at this time. At the very least she was far too inexperienced to be running things alone.

Josh-da-man

Yeah, I would think that all firearms used on a movie set would be securely locked away when not being used. They're an attractive nuisance that random people with access to the set are going to want to handle and play with.

Makes me wonder if the story about crew members going out and using them to target shoot is true, and if one or more of the people who did it (if it happened) actually had keys/access to them.

orangerunner

This is safer but comes at a significant extra cost to make it look convincing (complete with fire out the barrel, shell casings ejecting etc.) through post production work. I think it also helps the performer react to the sound and kick-back of firing blanks.

orangerunner

My thoughts as to Alec Baldwin's responsibility would be, what if the gun happened to be a machine gun with a 30-shot clip? Should the actor be responsible for removing all 30 blanks to ensure they are safe? If something does happen to go wrong, does the actor want to inherit the responsibility of being the last person to touch the ammunition?