Wait he was handed live gun, which was supposed to fire blanks and yet it's him getting charged and not the propmaster. what the fuck? what am I missing?
this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2024
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So, there is a part where he's an executive producer and may have ignored warnings regarding safety.
Anything to a Wikipedia article on the incident it was the armorer that had previous experience with accidental discharges of firearms and I guess it's the mere point of their presence during filming to make sure all guns are handled safely. Their job was to hand a safe gun to the actor, they didn't do it and a person died. I don't fucking see one reason to charge the actor, regardless of whether they happen to be a producer or not, and not charge the person actually responsible for the accident.
He was the armorer’s boss, and the producer, so it was his job to make sure everything was as required. He failed his responsibilities, someone died. It’s pretty simple.
It's maddening the amount of people deflecting responsibility off of him. If a workplace safety incident happened, and the boss has cultivated the lax culture against safety AND is involved with said incident, but he's not responsible? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Tbh, my first reaction was that it wasn’t fair; then I read more details as they were reported and had a moment of clarity. People get comfortable and mess up, it happens. This time, it cost someone their life.
For those worried about Alec, he has plenty of money. His ego and wallet will take a hit, but he’s not going to prison. He may or not be in a mental prison, but he can afford quality therapy, so if he is and chooses to stay there, that’s on him.
I went on exactly the same path as you and I only read about it when I came across the articles casually browsing, I didn't actively seek them out.
There are people that knew more and are still defending him, which is wild.
I hear you. He can still be a decent person who made a serious mistake due to gross negligence. I’m not saying he is or isn’t decent; I like s lot of past things he said, and I hope this was a wake up call for all of us: If we’re coasting too long on good reputation/intention/feelings, we’re going to get hard reminders to actually continue working to be better than we were, yesterday.
- edited
I'm basing what I say on the Wikipedia article and the two years old Legal Eagle video, but it seems it wasn't his negligence, but rather the armorer's and the assistant producer's:
According to a search warrant, the guns were briefly checked by armorer Gutierrez-Reed, before assistant director Halls took the Pietta revolver from the prop cart and handed it to Baldwin.[39][40] In a subsequent affidavit, Halls said the safety protocol regarding this firearm was such that Halls would open the loading gate of the revolver and rotate the cylinder to expose the chambers so he could inspect them himself. According to the affidavit, Halls said he did not check all cylinder chambers, but he recalled seeing three rounds in the cylinder at the time. (After the shooting, Halls said in the affidavit, Gutierrez-Reed retrieved the weapon and opened it, and Halls said that he saw four rounds which were plainly blanks, and one which could have been the remaining shell of a discharged live round.)[41] In the warrant, it is further stated that Halls announced the term "cold gun", meaning that it was empty.[39] Halls's lawyer, Lisa Torraco, later sought to assert that he did not take the gun off the cart and hand it to Baldwin as reported, but when pressed by a reporter to be clear, she refused to repeat that assertion
Btw, holy fucking shit I hate lawyers
He was the boss of all bosses. That’s the point. The buck stopped with him. Either he’s boss material or he’s not. Having money alone doesn’t give you the skill. The skill would be accepting responsibility, stop pointing fingers, accepting legal and financial consequences.
Literally no one is worried about him as a driving force bud, if you think thats the concern or topic of discussion you should probably sit it out
Then why are people whinging about poor Alex refusing to take his rightful responsibility, like adults and poor people are expected to do?
Because its not actually clear who is guilty of the death, the producer who hired an incompetent firearm safety coordinator or the incompetent firearm safety coordinator.
Fucking obviously, you child.
Perhaps because Baldwin, as far as we know, did everything correctly? He had the armorer prepare the gun and assistant producer check it. The armorer failed to do it correctly and the assistant producer failed at their part of the job. They are guilty of the accident, because they did not follow the procedure required, not the person who gave them the task
No one is absolving responsibility from the armourer.
But if I'm the boss of a warehouse, never enforce any OSHA safety standards against my staff, and one of them just signed off that they inspected the forklift that day without actually doing so, and I drove the forklift and killed someone because of the forklift's malfunction, I am, as the boss, partly responsible for the incident.
To say otherwise is flying against rules and regulations written in blood, as we can clearly see.
How does this even apply to the situation?
Baldwin is one of the producer (boss), who did not enforce any safety standards (allowed crews to bring live ammo to the set, allowed armourer to be subpar), and ended up with one of his staff dead.
If you don't know how my analogy applies to the situation you clearly don't know enough about it to form an informed opinion.
ALL workplace safety standards should be the responsibility of the boss in some capacity. That's how safety standards are maintained. If the boss is allowed to shrug it off saying "it's not my fault the staff is an idiot" that's how we end up with new hires dying on the line. If you can't understand that I could only hope you aren't in charge of anyone's safety.
who did not enforce any safety standards (allowed crews to bring live ammo to the set, allowed armourer to be subpar), and ended up with one of his staff dead.
And you're basing these two claims on?
From my own standpoint I can understand how a certain amount of responsibility lies on him too. If I were handed something that looks like a gun or a knife, I would probably check to make sure it isn't a real gun myself.
Especially in the US, where tragic accidental gun-related deaths and injuries happen every day.
Your argument stops being valid the moment you said probably
If you hired a professional armorer to handle guns safely and then have had assistant producer check it and confirm the gun is safe then I imagine you would have assumed it actually is.
How he can be tried for the duty of a prop person or the director who hired that person is beyond ludicrous. The man showed up to do a job. That job was not to keep the props safe. He was handed a tool and told it was ok to use. Fuck this system. Let him go about his life. I'm sure the trauma of having shot someone for real is enough to make him double-check for the rest of his life. That's enough.
Umm. No. Sorry gunna pull my union card on this one since this is my Industry and while I am not an armorer or a props person I am emeshed in their understanding of property on a set as an On set dresser.
There is a legal duty of care held by everyone who handles a prop weapon. Furthermore there is a duty of care held by Producers on a show. Baldwin was not just an actor, he was a producer on Rust which means he had hiring and firing power.
Regularly this is how prop weapon safety works.
Prop weapons are only handled by an armorer who must maintain a full supervision of the weapon. It can never be used with live ammunition.
Loading can only ever take place by the props person (non union exception) or a designated armorer who must have an up to date licence.
Any mishandling of the weapon up to this stage leaves the armourer open to criminal liability. If someone steps in to this process at this stage they might take the lions share of liability. If an actor or someone who is not the props person charged with care of the weapon grabs it for instance without a hand off.
During the hand off of the weapon to an actor the props person does a last physical check of all the rounds in the weapon in sight of the actor. IF an actor accepts a weapon without doing this check then they are considered criminally negligent for any harm done with the weapon that would have been reasonably negated by this step. If the actor uses the weapon in a way that is unsafe after this check all liability is shoulded by the actor.
Following the weapon that killed on Rust it was used with live ammunition to shoot cans and abandoned on a cart. This makes the props person negligent by film safety practice. It was picked up by the 1st Assistant Director whom was not entitled to handle the weapon AT ALL which transfers some criminal negligence to him. The 1st AD handed the weapon to Baldwin and claimed it was a safe weapon WITHOUT performing the check. Anyone who saw this trade off on the set should have set off general alarm. But they didn't. This could have had to do with power imbalances on set. You generally do not tell a Producer that they are doing something wrong unless you are either willing to trust the producer to be reasonable or baring that, are willing to lose your job. Wrongful termination suits are nigh nonexistent in film because chasing one might blacklist you from other productions.
The 1st AD is the main safety officer on set and Baldwin as an experienced actor would have been briefed on weapon safety protocols many times before. Having the 1st AD just hand you a weapon on set EVEN one that is an inert rubber replica would be an instant firing offence for the AD. Accepting the weapon without insisting on a check leaves the liability on the actor. They might have a lesser share depending on how experienced they might be. If they were ignorant of the protocol at the time then the production team would take that share liability for not properly enforcing safety on the set.
Baldwin as a producer in the days leading up to the accident had shown signs of being negligent in other areas of production safety and the people hired into positions that were to enforce safety on set. People left the production citing the unsafe conditions in protest. He may not shoulder the full liability of criminal negligence but he ABSOLUTELY owns a chunk of it. Directors and Producers REGULARLY push the boundaries of crew safety when they think they can get away with it and the bigger the name the more likely these accidents are. Remembering WHY we have these safety protocols and the people injured or killed in the past is something that is well known in the industry. We remember those killed or permanently maimed by production negligence because there but for the grace of God go us. Everyone who has been in this industry more than a decade personally knows someone whose life was permanently impacted by a bigshot throwing their weight around because of the natural power imbalances on set. One of my Co-workers sustained a permanently debilitating brain injury last year for just this reason. You dice with some one else's death you gotta pay up when you lose.
Your comment, if anything, proves it's the AD who's responsible
That's not how liability works. It's not a hot potato that stops with the first person in a chain of people who did wrong. Everyone who contributes to a catastrophe of broken rules essentially gets a slice of the consequence pie the only thing that changes is how big a slice of the overall pie you get.
Here's what the situation says to me. You have a 1st AD and a Principle and senior Actor/ Producer who were breaking the most basic of rules. For context on a film set say a camera person sets a case of lenses on something I as a set dresser need to move. It is largely unacceptable for me to even touch that box until I have tried everything viable to hail the correct department to move it. If somebody tries to hand me something I am not supposed to be handed I go talk to their supervisor. Some things even if I have explicit permission to handle from a props person, like a gun, I am liable if I handle it anyway because there is no circumstances where me putting my hand on that item is acceptable. First rule on a set you learn day one "Don't touch ANYTHING that belongs to someone outside your department".
If this incredibly basic rule was SO flagrantly violated on so many levels by THE CHEIF SAFETY OFFICER ON SET that tells me that the safety problems and the culture of improper protocol were endemic on the set. This very obviously wasn't one bad day of lax protocols. This was an unsafe set and an everyday unsafe crew culture. Lots of times you don't get burned when something isn't safe so people try their luck which is all fine and dandy until tragedy hits.
This AD had a previous incident where a gun he handled fired a live round went off on a set and just didn't hit anybody. At that point people should have fucking hung drawn and quarted him and busted him back down to Trainee. He was a demonstratilably consistent danger to the crews he was on but Rust STILL HIRED him as their primary safety officer anyway.
When something goes this desperately wrong that pie gets so big there's a slice for everyone. The other Producers on this show had a duty to hire people who do the job properly. The 1st AD is a major hire. Ist ADs arguably do more to protect production liability than a Director does and production has their eye on the pick. If something a director wants is unsafe it is a 1st AD who has veto power. They set the culture of the set to make provisions for safety. If you rent a peice of equipment that has a record of dangerously failure and one of your workers gets hurt by it you as an employer get burned. The same goes for personnel. The producers absolutely should find some liability pie on their plates too. Are they gunna get prison time? Probably not but they are still negligent and there are consequences that scale to fit.
Baldwin could very well be the armorer's direct supervisor and father and it still would be her and the ADs fuck-up the gun shot a live round.
She was hired for the sole purpose of making sure all guns on set are handled safely and she simply failed: the shooting is her fault and I'm sure despite all of us getting riled up in the comments this in fact will be the final verdict
No lol, this is the same thing as saying "the gun seller is responsible for the school shooting"
This is new info to me (producer). Thanks for enlightening me.
Baldwin didn't "show up to do a job." He was a producer on the film, not just an actor.
Exactly. It happened on his set by his hand. Makes a bit more of a tough situation
No it doesn't. If I cut the brakes in your car and it causes you to run into someone, then it's my fault, not yours.
Edit: you know who else could be found viable? The service person who checked the vehicle before you took it on the road and allowed it through despite nonfunctional breaks.
A gun's purpose is to kill people, a car's is not. The analogy is flawed.
Still, assuming you have mandatory regular inspections of cars in the US, imagine you are an experienced mechanic by profession. Someone lends you a car and says it's safe but you know immediately this rustbucket hasn't been to an inspection in decades. By experience and papers. But you drive in a public space anyways and kill someone due to a fault that would have been found during an inspection. It is 100% your fault.
As I understand it, following safety procedures would have prevented this death, in the same way nonfunctional brakes would certainly be found during service.
On a side note, as an electrician who has to sign documents that electrical devices are safe to use, if one of those devices kills someone and I can prove that I followed protocol during testing, I am in the clear. Following rules makes the difference between a tragic accident and negligence.
A gun’s purpose is to kill people
Spoken like a true psychopath.
A gun's purpose is to provide safety and utility to the bearer. "Killing people" that are attempting to harm you is called self-defense and is totally legal.
The US film industry has been operating for over a hundred years, routinely works with firearms, and yet only 3 people have died in firearms accidents that whole time.
I'm saying this for all the gun safety "experts". I don't care if you're military, law enforcement, or a private gun owner, your embarrassing yourself by lecturing Hollywood on gun safety.
Sir / madam, this is a shitpost, not a lecture on gun safety
Shitpost about human deaths, deal with the lectures on human deaths in the comments.
Dont like it? Shitpost about puppies. No one lectures puppies.
yeah we do if the puppy is a bad breed like pug or chihuahua
If they practiced proper firearm safety there wouldn't have been real bullets in a gun that's supposed to be loaded with blanks, no?
If they had practiced actually firearm safety on the movie set, the guns would have been blank guns incapable of firing live ammunition.
In fact they'd should have had no guns capable of firing live ammunition on set.
All they should have had were blank firing guns and disabled firearms (e.g. firing pin removed)