Why you can never be too careful

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"Twitter users are now zeroing in on Baldwin's past social media activity and one glaring tweet he posted on Sept. 22, 2017 reads: "I wonder how it must feel to wrongfully kill someone..." The tweet also included a link to a Los Angeles Times article about a Huntington Beach police officer who was captured on video struggling with a suspect in a parking lot of a convenience store before shooting the man several times, killing him."
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https://www.foxnews.com/entertainme...ash-tweet-questioning-wrongfully-kill-someone

Open mouth, remove foot.
 
Adventurer 2 said:
From the Actors Equity Association (rules for actors):
https://www.actorsequity.org/resources/Producers/safe-and-sanitary/safety-tips-for-use-of-firearms/
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Apparently failed the second item in the list:

Treat all guns as if they are loaded and deadly.


There is some evidence that this is for live performance:
Live ammunition may not be brought into the theatre.
Use protective shields for all off stage cast within close proximity to any shots fired.
Appropriate ear protection should be offered to the cast members and stage managers.
 
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Tom Servo said:
I believe Brandon Lee was killed by a gunshot wound
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In his case, it was a dummy round that had a live primer.
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That's not what I remember. Back then, they allowed (and used) live ammunition on movie sets. The gun involved had previously been used to fire live ammo. Apparently, either a bullet from a squib load or a bullet fragment (according to some reports) was lodged in the barrel. The gun was not checked, cleaned, or cleared before subsequently being loaded with blanks so, when a blank was fired, the charge was sufficient to fire to stuck bullet, fatally wounding Lee.
 
The account I recall was that they had used dummy rounds so as to show a loaded revolver from the front. When they changed to blanks, a bullet or just an empty jacket stuck in a chamber throat, to be propelled by a blank.
 
Story today is Baldwin was handed a prop gun that was loaded with live ammunition and was told it was safe for the scene.

Why oh why is live ammo anywhere near a movie set?
 
gbclarkson said:
Story today is Baldwin was handed a prop gun that was loaded with live ammunition and was told it was safe for the scene.
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Other reports say there was one live round in the gun -- which seems to make no sense whatsoever. It's going to be awhile before the actual facts have been firmly established. And why was an assistant director handing out guns rather than the movie's armorer?

Why oh why is live ammo anywhere near a movie set?
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Good question. It's a definite violation of what most sources say have been movie industry protocols since the Brandon Lee incident. There is no valid reason to have any live ammunition on a movie set.

However -- that still begs the question of how the bullet struck two behind the camera people. There's one thing that can't be changed (although, so far, it's being swept under the carpet): Alec Baldwin pointed a firearm at someone -- not as part of the script action -- and pulled the trigger. And, since it's a western, that means it was a single action firearm, so he had to manually cock the firearm before he pulled the trigger. That makes it an intentional discharge, not an accident.

I'm 77 years old, which means I grew up in the heyday of the television westerns -- the Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Lash LaRue -- all of 'em. I have no idea how many cap guns I had as a kid. We were taught that you don't even point a cap gun at a person, because it develops bad habits that can translate to when using real guns. How is it that Alec Baldwin, who has starred in multiple movies and has obviously been on a lot of sets where guns were present, failed to observe that simple rule?

NRA: "ALWAYS Keep The Gun Pointed In A Safe Direction."

Cooper: "NEVER LET THE MUZZLE COVER ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY"
 
I was in the woods hunting with my father at age 5. I was on a deer stand by myself at age 7 albeit a ground blind and my Dad walked 75 yards or so from me and watched me. My late father was a 6’-4” East Texan with a Cherokee roll number. I was scared to death of him and followed his orders to the tee.

Our sons knew this and were furious since I made them wait until they were 16 to hunt by themselves or with friends. My reasoning was we lived in North Dallas with yuppies and transplants who knew nothing about firearms. I was afraid one of their friends who did not come from a culture of hunting and firearms might shoot them through ignorance.

People like Mr. Baldwin are dangerous. I was a hunting guide for 7 years. I dealt with his type all the time. You cannot tell them anything. They make more money than you and they know it all.
 
However -- that still begs the question of how the bullet struck two behind the camera people.
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Actors are trained to not point their prop guns directly at another actor; to aim to the side to avoid a potential repeat of the Brandon Lee accident. This may explain why two members of the production staff, and not another actor, were hit. Just a guess...

Let's not beat up on Alec too much just because he has been anti-gun in the past. There is a lot of blame to go around. Why was an assistant director handling the prop guns? Where was the armorer? What was the armorer's level of training? Why was a live round involved? What were the safety training protocols? Why were humans on set in the direction of the muzzle? Could Mr. Baldwin see the people that were hit? Lots of questions to answer. The media grapevine is also reporting safety complaints from the production staff prior to the accident.
 
I'm curious regarding how and why a "prop gun" could chamber a live round.

I've worked training military and government protective forces my entire career, which includes use of "Blank Firing Adapters" in the 1970s up to the current generation of MILES weapons. Due to several tragic accidents involving live rounds introduced by mistake to weapons equipped with Blank Firing Adapters and/or otherwise set up to fire blanks, ultimately firearms intended to be used during exercises were modified to preclude live rounds from being chambered.

It would seem that an entire industry that routinely uses "prop guns" would likewise set them up such that live rounds could not be chambered.

It is speculative to suggest this accident was caused by introducing a live round into a "prop gun", the cause could have involved other factors. But it would seem logical that any "prop gun" not be capable of chambering a live round for precisely this reason.
 
I am big on muscle memory. You do not point any barrel of any gun at anything you do not intend to destroy. I’ve called Ducks in blinds with multiple guns hundreds if not thousands of mornings with my Lab doing the conservation work. There is no grey area when it comes to muzzle control. Where the muzzle or barrel points is where the payload points. I am a nice man. When it comes to firearms, I am not nice. There is no room for errror. The more I learn about this story, the more I know it was a manure show. That said, this one is on Mr. Baldwin speaking as a professional who works with firearms. Baldwin had been on hundreds of sets where firearms were a part of the plot. He knew the lay of the land. As my Cherokee Dad always said: “ There’s a dead cat on the line somewhere “.
 
Before things get too spun in any particular direction, I'd like to point out that the "official" investigation hasn't said anything of substance or detail yet.

And there is already a ton of crap on the net and it cannot ALL be correct.

All we "know" at this point is that the reports match on a few vague points. Baldwin was holding ...something, (they say prop gun, but not WHAT prop gun) it "discharged". No mention of more than one shot, so we assume it was a single discharge. A woman was killed and a man injured. Those victims are identified.

The rest of the details are all over the place. "on the set" and "during filming" are both used by different reports and they are not the same exact thing.

Some are saying it was live ammo, but that fact has not been solidly established YET.

The Union for the prop guys released comment saying it was a live round, but it made a point of stating there were no union members in the prop crew (implyng union members would have followed the rules) that the prop guys on the set were "local New Mexico people", implying that the live round was there because Union guys were not....a real piece of CYA crap.

Mention was made here that the movie was a western so the gun had to be a single action, but that is an assumption not yet in evidence. No mention of what the gun was, other than "a prop gun" has been put forth as of this time. Was it a handgun? SA revolver? Rifle? Shotgun??? We DON'T KNOW, YET.

I'm sure that once the official finding gives us ACCURATE detailed information, it will be studied extensively. I expect it to be legally ruled an accident. The question in my mind is what degree of negligence will be assigned to whom, and whether or not it will be criminal negligence, or some other finding in the end.

I'd say the responsible parties are the person that loaded the gun, and the person holding it when it discharged.

Answers to all my questions about all the rest of the details must wait on the official findings. Judging what happened at this point in time is truly "going off half cocked".

I have some theories, but until we have more facts, none of them are worth sharing. Nor, IMHO, are anyone else's theories, at this time.
 
The idea that the actors on a set are responsible for gun safety is pretty far-fetched.

All kinds of gun safety rules are broken on gun sets of necessity and by design.

The on-site armorer is responsible for insuring that things are safe. That guns capable of firing live rounds are never loaded with live rounds, that there aren't barrel obstructions in blanks, that blanks are discharged safely.

Unless Baldwin was the armorer (acting armorer), or loaded that gun with live rounds himself when no one was looking or did not follow the armorer's instructions, the responsibility for this incident falls on the armorer.
 
Baldwin is just another Hollywood personality who hates guns but doesn't mind collecting big bucks for using them in screen. In other words: a hypocrite.
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By this sort of feeble definition, everybody in acting is a hypocrite or likely will be. There are Christian actors that play Muslims, men and women involved in rape scenes that do not support rape at all, actors that play the roles of murders, bank robbers, and child molesters without every being supporters of those things. There are gay men that play straight men and straight men that play gay men.

It is called "acting" for a reason.
 
By this sort of feeble definition, everybody in acting is a hypocrite or likely will be. There are Christian actors that play Muslims, men and women involved in rape scenes that do not support rape at all, actors that play the roles of murders, bank robbers, and child molesters without every being supporters of those things. There are gay men that play straight men and straight men that play gay men.
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I am a big fan of Baldwin's acting. His work is Glengarry Glen Ross was my favorite film scene. And he's a genuinely funny guy.

But there is something hypocritical about a guy with a powerful media voice sitting in his Upper West Side apartment delivering lectures on social media about what choices I should be able to make about gun ownership given that he works in an industry that glamorizes guns. Plus if a pro-gun actor like Selleck had an incident like this the media narrative would be much different.
 
We can never be to careful with firearms. I catch these posts during the week when I am going 90 to nothing. Mr. Baldwin has to be sick with grief, guilt and remorse. It makes me consider safety that much more. It’s easy to get lazy if you carry a firearm daily with the frantic pace most of us maintain. I disagree with a lot of what comes out of Hollywood——most of it but gosh could you imagine being in Mr. Baldwin’s shoes? Agreed: Where was the armorer? May new protocols come from this to prevent it from happening again.
 
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Latest report shows that the person who handed Baldwin the gun.....shouted "cold gun". When interviewed after he/she said they didn't know it was loaded. Major screwup on his/her part. He/she may be in some serious deep doo doo.
 
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