This fucking guy…
Gun safety experts such as @AdamBaldwin want in character actors being the last to check firearms.
Not a good idea because thats very dangerous!
“Gun safety” should make exceptions in this case. The gun armorer should control the weapons safety not a fully in character villain. https://t.co/WuE47p88u9
— Geoff Pilkington (@geoffpilkington) November 9, 2021
We are not asking actors to be gun experts.
Were asking actors to have the same basic knowledge of gun safety as any Boy Scout who wants to get the Riflery Merit Badge or person who passes a hunters safety course.
Is the gun loaded and is there is live round in the chamber?
That’s it. Even a Hollywood character actor should have the mental faculties for that.
But the point Mr Checkmark wants to make is character actors are special people and the normal rules shouldn’t apply to them.
Usually actors don’t drive. The car is usually hooked to a rig. Nor do they do stunts. And yet we think they should handle guns and be experts at it in character. This is exactly my point. It’s dangerous! There’s nuance here most can’t see. https://t.co/DDigOy0Rkq
— Geoff Pilkington (@geoffpilkington) November 10, 2021
How do they do other stunts?
How to character actors throw punches and use swords? Don’t they get some basic training in that or do character actors really have fist fights?
I’m sure for every stunt the actor has one last safety check he or she does just to make sure they don’t get hurt.
Why are guns any different?
Realizing he said something stupid he tried to explain himself.
You all want actors in charge of gun safety.
I dont think it’s a good idea.
But if you trust the actor over the armorer, fair enough.
You’re the experts. https://t.co/nLtlcWd8xI
— Geoff Pilkington (@geoffpilkington) November 10, 2021
Now I have a million gun safety experts tweeting at me telling me about gun safety as if I don’t understand gun safety.
I understand the rules of gun safety! You’re not acknowledging my suggestion! (Which doesn’t have to be implemented. It’s just a suggestion!)
My God.
— Geoff Pilkington (@geoffpilkington) November 9, 2021
The simple answer, as Miguel and I talk about frequently, is layers. One is none, two is one, three is better.
Multiple layers of security and safety prevents accidents.
This time the armorer failed. The last layer should have been Baldwin himself.
Layers protect.
As a professional engineer, everything I sign my name to gets peer reviewed for accuracy.
There is a reason all commercial flights have a co-pilot.
Layers of redundant safety systems.
The actor is a link in that chain.
It wasn’t exclusively Baldwin’s fault but he was at fault too.
But what do you expect from a Blue Checkmark.
So the guy is an ignorant fool and an idiot. No further analysis is needed.
And his mere presence makes everyone dumber.
Yep. thats the best argument… What if it was a knife or a sword?
Armorer hands an actor a real knife for their money-shot close up and the actor begins to jokingly stab someone on set because he thought it was not a real knife… that would never hold up in court as a justifiable excuse.
What is being asked for is… for the first time… common sense gun safety.
Because “common sense gun safety” rules have never blown up in your face, right?
Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinswine would like a word with you about the extended warranty on your Second Amendment.
Maybe next you could suggest a “final solution” to the gun safety problem.
‘cuz that’s never gone pear-shaped either.
Here’s the problem:
“You all want actors in charge of gun safety.
I dont think it’s a good idea.
But if you trust the actor over the armorer, fair enough. “
It is an either/or question with this guy. If the actor takes responsibility for gun safety, the armorer is not needed, or even wanted. If you think the actor should hold any responsibility for overall safety on the set, then no one else is needed.
Know who else thinks in absolutes like that? Children.
Another item.
“But if you trust the actor over the armorer, fair enough. “
I do not trust the actor over the armorer. Nor do I trust the armorer over the actor. Adding more eyes improves safety. Why argue against it?
Bingo. It’s not “the actor OR the armorer”. It’s “the actor AND the armorer”.
More layers lowers the chances of mishaps sneaking through. More eyes lowers the chances of errors going uncaught.
The last thing we need is more rules, but perhaps on a Hollywood set more people in the loop making sure the rules are followed isn’t a bad idea.
It’s the same principle at a live-fire shooting range. It’s the RSO’s responsibility to make sure everyone is following the range rules, and each individual shooter is responsible for their gun-handling. On top of that, every person present, whether shooting or not, has the authority to call a cease-fire if they see a problem. Instead of one set of eyes watching 20 people, you have 21 sets of eyes (including the RSO) monitoring.
Institute multiple layers, and safety increases.
Why should a Hollywood set be any different?
On how many of those ranges do you shoot in both directions simultaneously? With fake guns and blank rounds?
Asking for 50,000 movies and 1,000,000 actors over the last 100 years.
If the answer to that is “none”, who cares how people doing something completely different than the point at issue do it? Do you apply football rules to baseball? Why or why not?
Just curious: How many layers of safety were involved at Chernobyl? Three Mile Island? The Hindenburg? The Titanic? The Astroworld Festival? The 2020 elections?
Stop me when the penny drops.
How many people besides the demo experts go into a building scheduled for demo after they rig the fuses, to double-, triple-, and quadruple-check that everything’s right, before they blow it up?
Cops, firemen, building inspectors, OSHA inspectors, city engineers, air quality management, historical preservationists, etc.?
[Hint: that never happens. Why would that be, if it only makes sense?]
C’mon man, you’re not just putting all your eggs in one basket, you’re putting all your fish in one barrel, and then leaving a loaded minigun next to the “No Fish Shooting” sign.
This isn’t even hard.
The only time I can think of a movie scene being shot with both sides of a fight shooting at each other was Gettysburg, and the reenactors have years of practice and rules for doing so safely.
Watch a movie with a gunfight and look for cuts. Those cuts hide that the two sides are likely not even on the set at the same time. The guns aren’t pointed at anyone.
When a scene requires shooter and target to be in the shot at the same time (critical scene in Who Shot Liberty Valance, for example), it’s framed so the gun is NOT AIMED AT ANYONE. But you can’t tell, because it’s not obvious from the camera’s POV.
The gun in Baldwin’s hands — reportedly along with others in the set’s armory — were not fake guns only capable of “firing” blanks and dummy rounds. They were real guns. So your first paragraph is a non-starter.
But while we’re at it, why weren’t they using fake guns and blank/dummy rounds? And stepping slightly to the side, who says the actors must shoot directly at each other, even with fake guns and blanks? Or directly at a camera with a person behind it (as Baldwin did)? Hollywood has spent decades perfecting trick camera angles, strategically-timed cuts, blue/green screen effects, and remotely-operated cameras and making those scenes look real, and CG makes it trivial to insert muzzle blast and recoil in post-production, on an actor holding an inert plastic prop. Why not do any of that here?
(That’s all hypothetical, because Baldwin wasn’t pointing an inert gun at a camera or another actor while filming. He pointed a very real gun directly at the videographer and director and pulled the trigger, during a moment between shots when the cameras may not even have been running! Why would he do that? To prove a point or make a statement? I’d say the statement was made, at ~800 fps!)
For all those other disasters, the answer of “How many layers?” is varying degrees of “Not enough,” and more importantly, “It doesn’t matter, if those safety layers are miscommunicated, ignored, or bypassed.” For example:
– The Chernobyl designers failed to account for the possibility the reactor could be run they way it was during the fateful test, and so the operators didn’t know to plan for it during their tests.
– The Three Mile Island designers labeled instrument panel lights to mean something other than what they really indicated (light said “valve open”, when it really indicated the solenoid was unpowered; there was no way to check the actual status of the stuck-open valve), and the operators weren’t adequately notified of the flaw even though the company had the same issue at another plant (which was caught quicker and didn’t result in a meltdown).
– The 2020 election had people expressing concerns all over the place — concerns about verifying mail-in ballots (especially in states that had never done mail-ins), voting machine tampering (they were internet-connected with inadequate security, and the source code was not made available for inspection), verification of voter rolls, illegal/ineligible people casting votes, ballots accepted after the deadline, ballots being counted without oversight, etc. — and those concerns in many places were systematically ignored or overruled.
Now, on one hand, humans are not perfect, and cannot foresee every possibility no matter how hard we try.
OTOH, I could counter, how was US Airways flight 1549, dubbed the “Miracle on the Hudson”, not a tragic loss of life? Apollo 13? Thalys 9364, known as the “15:17 to Paris”? The answer: Competent humans as the last safety layer after all others failed in similar “perfect storm” fashion.
However, on the set of “Rust”, safety protocols were in place but were unenforced or ignored — by multiple individuals, including Baldwin himself — which is as effective as having no safety protocols at all, and the last layer did NOT include competent humans. They were using real guns for props (this is why gun trainers use “blue guns”), had live ammo stored in the same locker as blank and dummy rounds (this is why we keep ammo in a separate room when practicing dry fire drills), and did not verify the condition of the guns as they changed hands (the armorer may be the only person loading and unloading, but every person checking prevents miscommunications), which ultimately led to a negligent shooting. In pretty much every other gun-related context, this would be a foreseeable (and preventable) event.
Hemming and hawing over how there are two sets of rules — one for prop guns and one for real guns — obfuscates the issue. On the set, they were using real guns, and people knew they were real guns. Real gun rules should have applied.
And the Sith.
Know who else talks like that?
A man who’s never had to sign the payroll checks for redundant personnel out of his own pocket.
Unlike, say, every producer in Hollywood.
And hey, if three people is safer, why stop there? Why not four? Or eight? Or ten? Or fifty? Or two hundred? Hell, let’s require a thousand safety checkers. Anyone against that obviously wants more people to die, amirite? “If it saves one life…”
You’ve just made the “$500/hour minimum wage” argument, if you’re keeping score at home.
Maybe google “Safety Third”, if you think about it.
And they play the language game AGAIN. “You want the actor to be the gun *expert*!”
Straw Man!!!!
What we want is for the actor to follow the safety rules. And not withstanding the troll from the fables, movies do have real guns on set. I recently read where John Wayne’s SAA Colt was sold at RIA. Yeah, it was a real gun, yeah, it was in his holster often. Yeah, it could fire real bullets.
And in all of his movies, John never shot anybody. His characters shot many, but he never did.
What we want is for the actor to accept responsibility for being part of the chain of safety.
Is it a real gun? The actor should be able to determine that. He should be able to tell if it is a replica, blank only or real gun.
He should be able to tell the difference between a dummy round, a blank round and a ITS NOT EITHER OF THOSE TWO.
If he doesn’t know, STOP. Let an *expert* determine and if in doubt, don’t pull the trigger.
He should be able to tell what rounds are being loaded into his gun.
Your character is suppose to be able to handle a SAA colt? Then the actor should sure as hell be able to open the loading gate and verify what’s in the gun.
So the killer Alec thought the gun was “cold”. He was suppose to be drawing and pointing the gun at the camera. OK. Then why did he point it at a person?
He was practicing? Great. Don’t point the gun at people.
Do you think a yellow tennis ball might have worked to make sure the eye line and point of aim looked right?
As far as the Armorer is concerned. It seems like she was a gun “expert” it seemed that she knew her job. What she wasn’t, is she wasn’t assertive enough to stop ADs and producers and famous actors from ignoring her and doing what they wanted to.
At this point, one of the options I’m considering is that the gun Alec used to kill with hadn’t been processed by the Armorer. The gun came out of the safe and out of its case and the AD grabbed it BEFORE the Armorer had a chance to check it.
AD assumed it was empty, Armorer was tired of fighting with pushy assholes, Alec was to busy to check and to lazy to learn “Don’t Point Guns At People Unless You Intend to Kill Them”
Alec was the last in line and he messed up. He’s the person that is ultimately responsible.
It’s not a straw man, it’s the core of the argument.
You want to tell everyone that there is a certain amount of steer manure that can be mixed with sirloin, and still produce a satisfactory burger, because you can’t grasp or refuse to admit the fact that actors don’t handle real guns, don’t handle real knives, don’t fight with real swords, don’t drive cars, don’t have real fights, and don’t throw real punches.
It’s amazing that even idiots in Hollywood (and believe me, many of them are) can get their heads around the reality that everything on camera is make-believe, and yet all y’all want to try and drag real rules for real weapons into the one place where neither one is ever supposed to be, as if that would suddenly fix things. Which one of Cooper’s Rules applies to a gunfight where people are shooting at each other, but no one’s allowed to die? I’ve searched diligently, and it seems to appear nowhere, nor ever has, in living memory. Almost like his rules have no application to stage nor screen whatsoever, since both venues were well known to him.
Hollywood playing by Hollywood Rules has produced a total of three fatalities in 100 years.
“Gun people” playing by Cooper’s Four Rules knock off three times that many people in an average week, just in the U.S., 52 weeks a year, since ever. That’s eighteen times more people killed accidentally since the single death on Rust, just two weeks ago. That’s seriously the level of safety Hollywood should want to adopt?? As if.
It’s literally kicking people’s ass to admit that there is absolutely nothing Baldwin could have done short of removing all the ammo on set, and shaking it himself, and probably not even that, that would have changed the outcome last month.
And while you’ll all excuse hundreds of people dead from firearms accidents year in and year out by saying “It was their own fault!”, getting you to admit that the fault in this shooting was entirely and solely the fault of the person charged with implementing and strictly upholding literally twenty times as many stringent safety rules as you espouse and who broke damned near every single one of them, is like pulling teeth from a pissed off crocodile, lest you somehow be forced to recognize that this was her fault, and not Baldwin’s.
There is no argument involved in that position; it’s purely a religious belief, utterly immune to facts, common sense, or any rational disputation.
And then some people turn around and wonder how 900 people in Guyana could all drink the Kool-Aid.
John Wayne’s Colt is a moot point, as the Safety Rules in question have been tightened far beyond what they were 50 years ago, precisely because of the two deaths (Brandon Lee, and John Eric Hexum) prior to this most recent one. Nice try, but no sale. And let’s recall that’s the same John Wayne that shot his best friend, Ward Bond, in real life, with a real shotgun, in the face, on a hunting trip. Was he really the poster child you wanted to put on your brilliant idea for gun safety?
And in this case, Not one, but two “experts”* f**ked up totally, at weapon ID, ammunition ID, and firearm status, but you think that Baldwin would have magically sussed it out correctly. Because reasons??
The entire idea is beyond recockulous, which is a step beyond ridiculous.
*[“If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.” – A.]
BTW, pointing a gun at the camera requires pointing it at a person. Several persons, in fact. If you had bothered to look at any image of a motion picture camera in operation, you’d have known that. There’s usually two to four people right on the camera for every single rehearsal or take: the operator, one or two assistants, and a grip. At times it might even be 6 or more people. This is only news to people who have no idea what they’re talking about.
Speaking of which, no one who’s 24, and done less than a month’s work, lifetime, on movies, is any sort of “expert” at her job, let alone handling weapons. She was, in facts beyond any dispute, the bootiest greenhorn incompetent apprentice novice jackass at that job in the History Of Ever. They literally could have picked any private who graduated boot camp in the Air Farce a week before the movie who would have had more weapon handling experience than PropTwat did when this happened.
Nobody ignored her. She didn’t know the first thing about WTF she was supposed to do. That’s why the entire camera department walked off the set that very morning. Please, if this is news to you, come up for air and read a newspaper, and catch yourself up. It’s been in all the papers.
The only way the weapon got taken out of a safe (which assumes that it ever started in one, contrary to every other requirement obviously ignored), and brought to set, was by the armorer. The only person authorized to have ammunition on set – dummy, blank, or live – was the armorer. The only person on set ever authorized to load weapons ever is the armorer. The only person who brings weapons to set is the armorer. So the explanation you’re pulling straight out of your underpants is only slightly less likely than the idea that Elvis dropped the pistol on the cart from his shoulder holster as his flying saucer piloted by Bigfoot swung by to check out the production.
The AD’s job on that set wasn’t to assume anything either. He was specifically assigned the function (beyond all normal set protocols, btw) of visually verifying what was loaded into every weapon, every time, for the entire movie, by co-witnessing every single round the armorer loaded. Period. There’s no “assume” in their anywhere, except as an act of gross criminal negligence.
And Alec was well-trained in “Point guns everywhere, and pull the trigger, because in Hollywood, you’ll never kill anyone.”
A lesson driven home in only about 25,000 movies going back to Birth Of A Nation and The Great Train Robbery, certainly at least a half century before anyone reading this was even born.
In short, much like the armorer in question, you couldn’t have gotten this much more wrong than you did, if you’d set out to do so, deliberately.
You’re playing a solo game of Twister to try and say anything but the obvious and simple answer “PropTwat screwed the pooch 57 ways from Sunday.”
Please, I earnestly beseech you, give yourself a break, and just admit that obvious Reality. It won’t hurt, and lightning won’t strike, but your back will thank you in the morning.
Goodness, that’s a lot of verbiage to try to hide the main point:
Baldwin pointed the gun at people.
Baldwin pulled the trigger.
No, those are the ancillary points.
The main points are
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed put a live gun into his hand, not a prop gun.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed loaded it with at least one live round, instead of a dummy round.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, and David Halls, the AD, both assured everyone on set that the gun was safe to rehearse with.
(And those are only the last three among dozens and dozens of considered, deliberate willful and epic f**kups and safety rule violations by Gutierrez-Reed and Halls.)
None of those things were either supposed to happen, nor ever allowed, on a movie set.
Everything Baldwin did was not only allowed, and supposed to happen, it was the entire purpose of that afternoon’s work, and known to be such by every single person on that film crew.
We’ve all spent the last two days rightfully laughing at the jackasses persecuting Kyle Rittenhouse by ignoring obvious reality.
And then I come in here, and see a conga line of people trying out for that same job.
Echoing Rob.
It’s literally kicking people’s ass to admit that there is absolutely nothing Baldwin could have done … that would have changed the outcome last month.
He could have checked the gun himself to verify “cold gun”, as standard safety practices dictate even in Hollywood.
He could have not pointed the gun at actual living humans.
He could have not pulled the trigger.
Omitting the first could be written off as oversight, but both of the latter are conscious, deliberate actions. Baldwin CHOSE to do both, when he could have CHOSEN to do only one, or neither.
I’ll accept that he didn’t intend to harm or kill anyone. It’s not a murder.
But he took deliberate actions that created the possibility that someone could be harmed and/or killed (in this case, both), recklessly disregarding common sense that is so common, my 5-year-old knows not to do it. (Hand my kid a NERF gun, the first thing he does is check it for darts, and he knows not to shoot anyone unless NERF War were declared.)
One of the concepts covered here and elsewhere, in great detail, is that in a self-defense shooting, one cannot also claim the shooting was an “accident”. Shooting in self-defense is an inherently deliberate act, so “accident” is off the table.
The same applies here. Baldwin pointed the gun. Baldwin pulled the trigger. Both are deliberate acts, therefore “accident” is off the table.
The shooting was a “perfect storm” of safety failures among multiple individuals, ultimately ending with Baldwin’s own negligence. The claim that “there is absolutely nothing Baldwin could have done … that would have changed the outcome” is false.
And that’s not even getting into the fact that Baldwin is a producer of this film/show, and so he has a say in the overarching culture and safety protocols. Protocols which he apparently was not prioritizing or enforcing. We can direct blame up toward production and management, or down toward actors and stage hands; either way, it lands on Baldwin.
Anything else is like blaming the RSO when a shooting range owner negligently shoots a customer on his own range; whether you blame the negligent shooter or the range management, it’s the same guy.
“He could have checked the gun himself to verify “cold gun”, as standard safety practices dictate even in Hollywood.”
False. Actually, that’d be an absolute safety violation. I’ve only got twenty years working on-set on Hollywood productions. Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony, Fox, Disney, Universal., ABC, NBC, CBS. Maybe you’ve heard of them. Maybe not.
You’ve got – I’m spitballing here – none at all, unless we count watching the BTS extra features on a DVD. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have so confidently asserted something so diametrically opposed to on-production reality.
Actors finger-banging weaponry gets the weaponry taken away from them. The second time, it gets taken away from the movie, and they can go hunt for a new armorer.
Actors are allowed to use only eyeballs if they’re downrange from a weapon loaded with blanks, (you could look it up online, and you should) none of which three criteria applied in this scenario in any way whatsoever, least of all to Baldwin.
“He could have not pointed the gun at actual living humans.”
Yeah. Bummer about that whole “it’s the exact performance demanded in the scene from THE SCRIPT FOR THE MOVIE in which he was hired to appear” thingie, huh?
“He could have not pulled the trigger.”
See the above answer. Same problem.
Baldwin carries no negligence for doing exactly what he was hired to do: perform the script, for the camera, in a rehearsal.
Baldwin has no say in “overarching culture and safety protocols.” He got a producer credit in return for appearing in the film, and other consideration. He wasn’t The Money on this p.o.s., so he has about as much say as you do in the operations of a company in which you hold non-voting shares.
(That answer would be “none whatsoever”.)
This was all covered like 10-15 days ago, btw, and either way, it lands on Baldwin exactly the same: none whatsoever.
I repeat: “kicking peoples’ ass”.
I’d love to pin culpability on Baldwin.
LOOOOOOOOVE to.
But one of the prices of sanity, is remaining firmly attached to reality, no matter the cost to what I might otherwise wish.
I highly recommend more people take a deep breath and try to follow a similar policy.
It will improve your digestion, at the least.
You may have more experience than me, but there are still a few logical problems with your essays:
Actors finger-banging weaponry gets the weaponry taken away from them. The second time, it gets taken away from the movie, and they can go hunt for a new armorer.
Baldwin’s fatal discharge was the fourth “accidental” (negligent) discharge on the set of “Rust”. The crew complained about it (among other complaints) and were overruled. The armorer stayed (which brings up other questions, since her last production also had safety concerns and NDs).
And they kept handing guns to actors.
Actors are allowed to use only eyeballs…
One opinion: https://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/what-alec-baldwin-could-have-looked-for/
Not sure what kind of visual inspection is possible from downrange, though. Maybe that’s a safety procedure that needs some adjustment?
Bummer about that whole “it’s the exact performance demanded in the scene from THE SCRIPT FOR THE MOVIE in which he was hired to appear” thingie, huh?
What part of the script included pointing a gun at the videographer — who is standing outside the camera’s view — from a distance of about two feet (close enough that even a blank round can cause injury, let alone a live round) and pulling the trigger, while they weren’t filming? I may not be a movie mogul, but it seems to me he might have been going a bit off-script on that one. And as I said above, this could be entirely mitigated by remote cameras or checking the view of the scene from a monitor, and not standing directly behind the camera that’s about to have a gun pointed at it. It could also be mitigated entirely by not pointing a gun at a human and pulling the trigger (again, two feet away, close enough for a blank round to cause injury). Specifically, not pulling the trigger when the camera’s not running.
In that situation, if it had been a blank instead of a live round, he’d have wasted a blank and caused burns, bruising, and possible eye and ear injuries to both people behind the camera (they were not wearing ear or eye protection). What reason for pulling the trigger, again?
Whether Baldwin is officially found to be responsible or not (I believe he is on multiple levels, you believe he’s not on any level), I hope we can at least agree that the shooting was entirely preventable, having been preceded by a long series of failures — starting with using a real gun as a prop, and ending with unnecessarily pulling the trigger — that individually should never have happened, but added up to one death and one injury.
Since you took so much time to write that wall of words:
https://youtu.be/qZil728hUy0
This is 8 minutes of video from the movie _High Noon_ It covers the last shoot out.
Shortly into it we have an exchange of “gun fire”. The actors involved at are reasonable distances from each other. Enough that blanks in properly checked firearms are not going to be an issue. In addition, if you look at the angles, none of the actors actually point their guns at each other.
There are a bunch of other scenes where we see lots of people shooting, but we don’t see other person. Bang, cut to scene of bullet (squib) going off near actor. We think we see the shot, but it is two different scenes.
We finally get to a scene where we see an exchange of gun fire, again, at safe distances for blanks. Then more load bangs. When we see people pointing guns “at” other people, most of the time you can see that they are pointing near but off to the side.
We get to the final shooting. Woman is tossed aside, sheriff fires, “killing” the outlaw. Except his gun is pointed more at the outlaws feet/legs than the body, and that’s from that camera angle.
So let’s talk about some of the “We have to break the rules to make movie magic” noise from our troll.
10 years ago we might have had to have a camera man, a focus puller and the people that push the camera around all at the camera. Today we can do it with a remote cameras. Is it more expensive? I don’t know. But you don’t really have to have a person behind the camera or hanging on the camera today when that absolutely must have scene of the actor pointing the gun straight at the camera.
But even so, most of those scenes aren’t really of the gun pointed at the camera. It is pointed near the camera. Close enough that it is hard to tell. In addition, with a telephoto lens and a huge depth of focus, it is difficult to really tell where that gun is pointed. At 50 feet, a gun pointed 5 foot to the left of the camera is going to look damn well like it is pointed at the camera.
So myth one, “In order to have a gun pointed at the camera, the actor must point the gun at people.” BS.
Many of the guns we see on modern sets are replicas. If there is no need for a puff of smoke to come out the barrel, or for the actions to function, then they can use replicas.
So myth two, “In order to make it seem like there are lots of guns pointed at other actors, we need to have guns pointed at people.” No, replicas can be used for many of those, and in the case where a real gun, or even a blank only gun is used, the actor can check to make sure it is unloaded.
There is no reason not to check! Our troll’s excuse is that the actor shouldn’t have to follow safety rules because movies don’t follow gun safety rules in order to bring us magic.
Myth three, “It takes to long to check”. Give me a freaking break. With the amount of time it takes to setup a take and all the rest of what goes into it, the actor doesn’t have time to check the gun they were just handed to verify?
I’m tired of this argument.
When everything is said and done, a real gun, capable of firing real bullets was handed to an actor that treated it as a toy. And because that actor treated it as a toy, he killed someone.
I’ve spent the last couple of days doing videos of guns being used. These are real guns. They fire real bullets. And I have video of them firing real bullets. Every shot was done safely. The actors all knew what their responsibilities were. The set armorer had control of every single round and only when it was time for the actual shot was the ammo given to the actor.
At no time did the actor ever point a gun at a person. If there was a need for a “down the barrel” shot, then a tripod was used, the recording started, then people moved to a safe location, and then the gun was fired.
It isn’t difficult to do this safely.
And yes, I’ve paid for film crews and actors and all the rest of it. It is expensive as heck. Killing somebody is even more expensive.
Modern cameras are all digital, and can be connected to monitors that can be viewed away from the camera. There’s no need to be behind the camera.
Whether it’s a range or a movie set, everyone, no exceptions, is responsible for safety. I’ve been in many hot- range training classes, with many different instructors, and that’s the way it’s always been. Never a problem. And Baldwin drew the gun, pointed it at the lady, cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger. Deliberately. I’ve said this before and it’s still true: This is evidence of depraved indifference to human life.
As for the sword argument, I’ll share this embarrassing story. After participating in fencing classes and competition for a few years I took a stage sword fighting class, just for fun. Dull, blunt swords but they still had points, sort of. While doing a routine with a partner I unthinkingly and automatically did a disengage and lunge, and realizing almost too late what was happening, stopped about an inch from skewering the guy. After a profuse apology I had to sit down for 10 minutes to quit shaking.
Jack:
Two simple questions:
1) In which hot-range class(es) of the many you’ve taken did your instructors have you load and shoot at each other, or at someone else filming the class in action?
2) If, as expected, the answer to that question is “zero, that’s never happened”, precisely what personal experience do you bring to the discussion where exactly that scenario, sometimes for days on end, is the entire raison d’etre of what’s in progress on a motion picture or television production, and has been, since before any of us was born?
I bring this up because, while I did spend a week once working in zero gravity, and I learned and experienced quite a lot about everything involved, I never once confused that absolutely fantastic experience with being a qualified astronaut.
But to give you full marks, you’re absolutely correct, everyone, even on a movie set, is responsible for safety. It’s drummed into everyone’s head there, explicitly, day after day, in fact.
And an actor’s responsibility for safety means that when the expert weapons handlers hand them a prop gun loaded with dummy rounds, and tell them it’s safe, they aren’t to go finger-banging the weapon themselves, anymore than they load or maintain the camera, block street traffic for a shot, or spot check the electrical connections from the generator truck all the way to the stage lights. They don’t even whip out a thermometer to make sure the food in the refrigerator on the craft service truck is stored at the correct food-safe temperature.
(Crazy, right? Who’d ever skip something so simple and obvious?)
Maybe where you work it’s different, and everybody takes everything apart twice every day, just to be sure, because safety is everyone’s responsibility.
But I kind of doubt that.
Aesop, you keep claiming over and over that actors don’t handle “real” guns and so the rules of “real” guns should not apply, but Mr. Baldwin certainly was handling a real gun that had the capability of firing real bullets and killing real people, so the rest of your argument is invalid. Either, Hollywood needs to stop using real, operable firearms as props, or they need treat real guns as the dangerous tools that they are.
“Hollywood” doesn’t use real guns as props.
“Hollywood” explicitly forbids them, and has written that exact prohibition in safety rules, in bold black letters, and underlined it.
Yet again: You. Could. Look. It. Up.
(When you find it, and read it for yourself, I have to ask: Will you finally drop that line of argument, or will you simply stick your fingers in your ears, and double down?)
“Hollywood” didn’t put a real gun with a real bullet into Baldwin’s hand, and in fact expressly forbade such to ever happen on a primary set, under any circumstances.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed put a real gun with a real bullet into Alec Baldwin’s hand, and told him it was “cold” (:Safe, loaded with nothing that would fire, not even blanks), after violating dozens of specific regulations, so my entire argument is totally valid.
The problem isn’t Hollywood. It’s one dumbass PropTwat who broke every rule they adopted, in place since long before she was born, and she killed someone as a direct result of her own gross criminal negligence.
QED
When a bartender puts poison in a drink, and the customer who drinks it dies, we don’t arrest the cocktail waitress who served it.
That would be asinine.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed put a real gun with a real bullet into Alec Baldwin’s hand, and told him it was “cold”….
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed put two inert guns and one real gun onto a cart, while trying to perform two different job roles simultaneously, which prevented her from focusing on the “armorer” role. That cart was taking by the assistant director to the scene, where the real gun, intentionally or not, was handed to Baldwin, who was told it was “cold” (there’s no indication that HGR gave the status to the AD who took the cart, or that the cart was indeed ready to go — at some point, it was incorrectly assumed to be “cold”).
Perfect storm of failures by multiple individuals, not all of which fall on HGR. Not that she’s off the hook, but….
Well bless his heart, as Mrs B would say.
Regarding the OP:
Q. :”Is the gun loaded”
A. :Yes, it is, exactly as expected for this rehearsal.
So much for that criteria being any help here.
Q. : “and is there is live round in the chamber?”
A. : “There’s no f**king way for anyone to tell that, because the idiot hired as an expert didn’t “conspicuously mark” live rounds, blank rounds, and dummy rounds, nor segregate them from each other, nor ensure that each and every loading was scrupulously co-witnessed and double-checked, nor likely even single-checked, which is why neither she nor her buffoon second witness caught that problem either, leading to the unanticipated case of Russian Roulette.
So much for that criteria being any help to anyone either.
“That’s it. Even a Hollywood character actor should have the mental faculties for that.”
There’s nothing you’re going to teach any actor, even in a month of Sundays, that will ever help with what happened under those circumstances.
It’s exactly like giving the lookout on the Titanic a set of really good binoculars, while completely ignoring that the central problem was travelling at flank speed in a a fog at night.
[O, if only there were some…trade or guild association, in which persons were required to attain some minimal competence with props, including firearms, and required to take some 8 or 10 classes, including one specifically on firearms and ammunition safety, before being allowed to work in the capacity of weapons handler, on any reputable production! And if only someone had written all Those Things down, so that anyone, even a hack bimbo on a no-budget production in Podunk, NM, could have looked them up on something as simple as a cellphone, and had in her very hands the distilled wisdom borne of every single person that had gone before her, including being written in the blood of the two prior Hollywood victims of senseless firearms accidents!
Waitaminute, you mean to say all of that has existed for decades? Almost like someone had thought about this long and hard half a century ago, and set out to solve the problem, at least for anyone with an IQ above toe fungus?Mirabile dictu!
Alec Baldwin, Call your office!]
I wasn’t a Boy Scout, so I’m wondering: where in the merit badge requirements do they cover apparently shooting right at each other, yet without any actual harm? You know, like Hollywood does, pretty much non-stop for the last century.
The moral of this tale, I think, is that one will never change apples into oranges, no matter how fast they juggle them, nor how hard they wish it were otherwise.
If there is no way for the process to be verified by the person who will be handling the firearm, then the process is broken in a way that will continue to cause deadly accidents.
There is a reason all commercial flights have a co-pilot.
And please note, the co-pilot is not a “pilot’s sidekick” who is marginally capable of taking over in an emergency.
The “co-pilot” is a fully qualified pilot in his/her own right. Who is “captain” and who is “co-pilot” is usually decided by seniority. Nothing else.
Safety is important enough that airlines require (at least) two pilots. Not a pilot and a buddy. Two pilots. And that’s for domestic trips; for longer, international trips, they’ll have multiple flight crews working in shifts so that there are always two rested pilots on duty in the cockpit.
Every one of those measures is another layer of safety. “Layers upon layers” is how planes reach their destinations.
Who is this Aesop character and why is he totally clueless about normal gun safety practices?
Twenty years in Hollywood will do that to you.
Explained in detail above.
Aesop is obviously a member in good standing of the libtardian demoncrat association. Keep talking, say anything, never stop the flow of bullshit, sooner or later sane people will realize you’re an idiot and walk away, letting you win. The more you answer it’s drivel, the longer and more forcefully he will spew his insanity.
The flawed premise in the “it’s Baldwin’s fault” chorus is that:
1) He’s not a moron
2) Would know what he was looking at even if he bothered to look.
3) Would be able to tell a live from a blank given they weren’t marked properly.
Not a gun guy. An Actor. A moron.
Replace him with a chimp, and all y’all would be saying that a chimp shouldn’t have been given a live weapon. Same scenario. Same people at fault.
As Aesop said – it’s a make believe world where the incompetence and stupidity of those in charge made it really real.
If that’s true, he can plead not guilty by reason of diminished capacity.