this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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Don’t You Know Who I Am?
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My take is that Alec Baldwin the Actor isn't to blame. Alec Baldwin the Producer caused all of the Armourer problems by running a low budget production.
As an actor he wasn't supposed to check the gun, however as a producer he failed by not hiring the correct licensed armourer due to cutting corners.
Probably the most sane take I've read so far.
And this is Alec Baldwin's passion project, so yeah.
Never really thought about it that way. But yeah, whoever hired that lady should share some of the blame.
That really depends on what kind of producer he was. Many times getting a producer credit just means you're a major stakeholder or own some rights involved in the project. A producer isn't a blame magnet, and negligence can be proven at a level lower than a producer.
He pulled a Boeing max basically. Where in they refused to pay for pilot training which led to many deaths until someone was convicted and they were forced to pay for pilot training. Cutting corners shouldn’t come at a cost of complete negligence for human life.
Actors go through training for learning martial art moves for a film. No reason they can do gun safety training for a film.
I partially agree, but as a literal armorer myself I disagree with "Alec Baldwin the Actor isn't to blame" here.
I don't give a shit what his job title is, if he is a person who touches a real gun he should know how to do it safely or he no get real gun! Gun safety is for everyone who touches a gun, regardless of job description or other lame excuses. It's as simple as learning Col. Cooper's Four Rules, it isn't like they have to take a college level course on the impact of guns throuought history, it's basic safety information akin to "don't touch the stove when it's hot," it isn't as hard as "Mr. Big Dick" from the 82nd airborne over here with his blown out knees would have you believe.
Actors SHOULD be expected to check the gun, just as I'd expect my bartender friend, or my 82nd airborne vet friend, or literally anyone, to do if I showed them something I picked up.
I don't get the blame deflection. An actor that has to do stunts gets stunt lessons. An actor that has to drive gets driving lessons. An actor that has to box gets boxing lessons. Am actor that has to speak a different language gets language lessons. And on and on and on... And then we have: AN ACTOR THAT HAS TO HANDLE GUNS DOES NOT NEED TO HAVE GUN SAFETY LESSONS!?!
Seriously, it's baffling! I think the disconnect comes from none of these people knowing how to use guns and thinking it somehow involves a masters degree to know how to check for rounds, when all people are really saying is to learn four whole rules of safety and how to do this, this, and this, (and depending on the gun you use you only have to even learn 1 of these 3)!
If you watched all four of those videos and retained the information, congrats, you're ready, and you wouldn't have killed that lady. It is that easy, do y'all see why we think he's partially culpable now?
As a human, if you are handed a gun, you check to see if it's loaded and what it's loader with. That is the first thing you do when handed a gun. Anything else is irresponsible.
But... What if I'm an actor who's never seen a gun.. Do i quit or is it too much of an expectation for an expert to be present and why the hell would that gun be real to begin with?
Just my two cents, and I absolutely am not pretending to have any experience with this. I'd assume so long as the actor isn't negligent or grossly irresponsible they're in the clear. Actors are not firearms experts, and training every actor to be Keanu Reeves/John Wick is super expensive. So whomever is the firearms expert, and whomever was involved with the contracting of that expert face liability.
That's why Baldwin the actor isn't responsible, but Baldwin as producer might be. Since as a producer he'd bear responsibility for hiring and contracting.
No idea why you're getting down voted. This is exactly how I feel.
Then you don't get to touch the gun until you've proven to me with airsoft you can follow these four rules. Simple as. Gun safety is to be expected from any single human who touches a real gun regardless of their job description, anything less could lead to, oh, idk, an innocent woman being killed on the set of Rust.
It's interesting to me that in the gun world personal responsibility is paramount, everyone is responsible for safety.
In Hollywood there is no personal responsibility. No one is liable. It's one big oopsie moment.
In the gun world (the real world), I'm my own armorer. I don't have someone on payroll who is supposed to be an ever-present expert to safety check, store, and catalog everything for me. I'm willing to bet that most of these actors may have never even handled a gun off-set... but I'm absolutely not against giving them basic safety training. It would certainly stand to reason.
This seems to be the case. Personally I'm clearly on the side of the gun world, I think it's high time we stop letting actors treat guns as toys, it is so irresponsible and clearly leads to deaths, and it is litterally just this video. Sure, accidents can still happen like Brandon Lee's, but Cooper's Four Rules is an absolute bare minimum standard that they should have to meet before holding a gun capable of firing live rounds (even if there are no live rounds on set, it is an 8 minute video, it really isn't that much.
Every time you go to a new indoor range, they require you to watch a breif safety video like the one above, this is literally the one they make you watch at one of my local ranges. I'm not asking for a dissertation on the mechanical workings of the Krag, I'm asking for the most basic safety precautions.
"Wait, so what do I need to do to uncock it so that I can check it over?"
"Actually, it's weird. You need to pull the trigger halfway, and it releases. But do it carefully."
"...uh..."
"Okay, after nearly shooting my foot off, I've opened the gun, and there appear to be rounds inside!! Stop the shoot!"
"Oh. Those are blanks."
"Wait, how do I know they're blanks?"
"Same way you know how to uncock it."
Not to mention they're literally SUPPOSED to point the gun at people, which is also a big "gun safety" no-no.
Let people who know how guns operate have this debate, ok champ? You clearly don't understand how guns function at a basic level. What you've described is how a total of 0% of guns work. It sounds like you are talking about actually breaking down the gun to clean it, but just to check if it is loaded all you need to be able to do is follow this idiot. If he can do it Baldwin can too, the Armorer should teach them how to do it if they don't know before filming starts, and if they can't grasp it they only get nonfiring replicas because they have not met this minimal standard that I expect from everyone that touches a gun.
The consequences of ignoring safety in the name of job titles is dead people on set, it's worth it to just fucking learn Col. Jeff Cooper's Four Rules instead of kill someone accidentally, whether you can abate your guilty conscience by blaming others and deferring responsibility due to job titles or not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LMbEGhll3E
In short: Revolvers, like you, are dumb. They are designed to not allow the hammer to release unless the trigger is pulled. The full release techniques are more intricate than what I jokingly described, but it still involves the trigger.
Calling out a comment you see as being potentially inaccurate can still be done politely without insulting and degrading people. Others have done it for information I've actually gotten wrong elsewhere in this post, and I appreciate their tone.
Ah, so you can call me dumb, but if I insult you back I get reported and my comment gets removed, eh? Logical. Well, while I await response from the mods here regarding sending me that text so I can edit it more palpably for the children in the audience, I'll reconstruct why you're actually the one who posseses the attributes ascribed to both me and revolvers by you above.
Not only did that man not touch the trigger while he did what one would describe as "unload and show clear," this is a video on "decocking," which is an entirely different principle. In the video you sent he actually does it without touching the trigger at around the 32sec mark (there was a link with a time code included in my OG comment, but this time you'll have to put in the work because I have youtube running), when he presses the lever, opens the cylinder, and visually inspects the cylinder to verify the lack of ammunition, in order to make the gun safe for demonstration purposes. Not one time in that process did he touch the trigger (besides waiting 30sec in to do it, note to youtuber: Bad guntuber, that is the first thing you do and you know that, bad guntuber! Feel shame!)
That also wasn't the kind of revolver used in Rust, they were using a Colt SAA, like this one. This is how to unload and check the gun that was in Baldwin's hand when he shot that lady. Notice how the nice man in the video doesn't pull the trigger? Actually, did you hear him specifically say not to touch the trigger? Instead to keep your finger high on the frame? Yeah, who posesses the properties you ascribe to revolvers now, you revolver? (Shucks, I hope I can get away with that one, golly gee.)
Baldwin absolutely should have been expected to know how to do this, not because "everyone should" or some such nonsense as most of this thread purports my side's argument to be, but because he was holding one. Had he not been holding one I wouldn't be saying he needs to learn about it. For instance, you aren't holding one, so you don't have to learn (besides the fact that I'm correcting your misinformation and teaching it to you, so in a sense you do), but if you were going to go buy a Cimmaron or Uberti Colt SAA clone, yes, I would expect that you learn how to use one safely. Hell, if I got one and was showing it to you at my house, I would teach it to you before I even let you touch it.
Baldwin is not absolved of responsibility due to his job title not being related to firearms, I expect every human who touches a gun to know how to do so safely and if they don't, don't touch them. This is the absolute bare minimum expectation, and it is so that innocent people don't needlessly die, it is a good thing not an imposition. He may be legally cleared due to his money and connections, but on a "karmic" level for lack of a better word he is at least as responsible as that armorer, if not more when you throw in all the behind the scenes stuff like "he was also the producer, and much of their gun safety team had walked off citing safety complaints, after they'd already had two noninjurious negligent discharges, and in fact were off set that day, and they chose not only to film, but to pick up that gun and point it at the camera for not a scene but just the lolz."
How's that? I insulted you but only by referrencing your insult, does that squeak past the censors?
As a "gun guy", I think Alec Baldwin the actor is also to blame for not learning/practicing firearm safety. Always check your weapon.
Checking a revolver to confirm they type of prop ammo is very different than a regular weapon check.
Different shots require different ammo. You may have a shot where the revolver is seen from the business end, so there needs to be a bullet of some kind in the cartridge - so maybe it's a real bullet with no powder or primer. Or maybe the shot shows an open cylinder, so you need primers but no bullets. Or maybe you need to show the actor loading, so it's a plastic primer or entirely fake round. Or maybe it's being fired, so you need a blank...
The mixture of different kinds of prop ammo is how Brandon Lee was killed on set. A bullet came dislodged from a round being used for a previous scene and was still in the barrel when a blank was fired. That effectively made a live round that killed Lee.
So the barrel also needs to be checked for squibs if it's goong to be loaded with blanks.
It's not as simple as a regular press-check or opening the cylinder. I carry a gun every day and am a firm believer in gun safety at all times, but props are treated differently because they are different.
As a part of their job, actors will point guns at each other and pull the triggers. The normal firearm safety procedures just don't work with them.
And YOU should learn how to check the gun in YOUR hand, regardless of if it is a Colt SAA or a Jimenez.
Some of that should be handled by the armorer, as in Brandon Lee's case the armorer pulled the bullet and powder, but reseated the bullet onto the fresh primer. He should have popped the primer and punched it back to normal with a pin punch, then reseat and engrave on the casing "inert" with a dremel. That was 100% his fault.
This one could have been solved simply by basic gun safety that I'd expect from friends who aren't in the industry as well, that is why I blame both Baldwin and the armorer.
Frankly, all actors who use real guns in movies should be required by SAG to take a basic safety course. They don't have to go full Keanu, just go to the nearest range and ask any RSO if they'd like a SAG job, teaching people with the brain of a fifth grader some gun safety (had to get in a dig on them lol), should be good enough. Then the armorer should spend an hour familiarizing you with your gun on set before live rounds are even brought on set. Guns are dangerous and we shouldn't just throw gun safety out the window because some rich guy with a bullshit job thinks it is below him to learn it, they actually need to learn it better than most with the nature of their job sometimes requiring them to break a rule (like sometimes they have to point them at people, which, while that is a no-no it can be done more safely than it currently is, and that frankly shouldn't be controversial.)
Actors' job isn't to be as knowledgeable as a firearm consultant, hence why they hire one. The same way they trust any scene has been safely planned out before hand and the giant boulder is assumed to be fake and not a real rock, and the harnesses that suspend them weren't set up wrong so they fall and break their neck.
Ftfy.
You don't want to learn how to use guns safely? Don't use a gun. You don't want to learn how to use a chainsaw safely? Don't use a chainsaw. It really isn't as hard as you guys make it seem, either memorize this 8min video or you don't get no guns. It is the absolute most basic prerequisite for handling a firearm.
Range safety is a class that takes less than an hour to teach, and Alec Baldwin had to go through one of these classes for the movie. You don't need to be a gun nut to understand how to check a firearm and be safe.
Also, don't lump me in with the NRA. They're a racist, psychotic organization
I don't think any knowledge can be permanently retained from a one-hour class. There are things I've learned for my job weeks ago that directly correlate to my field of expertise, that I still constantly need to look up from time to time.
Not to mention, I doubt a one hour course could cover the mechanisms of every uniquely-operated firearm in existence.
That first paragraph sounds like software engineering lol
I learned how to build AR-15s in an hour and retained it, they can learn how to do this and this in an hour and if they can't they can't handle real guns until they can.
While most will be the same as their class of weaponry (i.e semi autos mostly all function the same, revolvers mostly all function the same, and single action revolvers mostly all function the same), you really just need to sit them down for a few minutes before the shoot and get them familiarized with the gun they'll be using. For instance, an actor in a cowboy movie should be sat down before filming and learn how to safely handle the Winchester and Colt he'll be using for the duration of filming, but we don't need to teach him how to change barrels on an MG-42 because that won't be "invented" for another 80yrs. Similarly, a WWII german soldier actor in saving private ryan needs to learn about his "issued" Luger or Walther p38, and his Kar98k, not the cowboy's SAA and Model 1891. And Tom Hanks needs to learn about his Colt 1911, but not "the enemy" actor's Luger, so long as he isn't touching the Luger. They don't need to be weapons experts, just have absolutely basic knowledge of the thing in their hand that is capable of killing someone whether they "meant to" or not. It is the same thing I expect from pizza drivers, butchers, baristas, etc, I don't care what you do for a living if you touch guns you should know basic safety procedures involving them, why should he get a pass because he's an actor, when I wouldn't give a pass to the equally unrelated-to-firearms job of accounting?
But it's not a weapon, it's a prop.
Are you saying all children should learn firearm safety to handle their water pistols?
Can that water pistol fire a live .45lc round?
It's both which seems unreasonable
Especially aiming directly at her and pulling the trigger. I don't believe it was malicious but damn; I would never consider that without triple clearing the weapon. I still would feel comfortable.
Can a layman even check that? The gun was supposed to be loaded. Just loaded with a blank
Yes. Any layman with 15min of instruction (with THAT firearm, not even another of the same kind, THAT ONE) should be able to unload and show clear, OR they don't get greenlit to hold a real gun, nonfiring replicas only.
We're only giving him a pass because he's an "actor," I used to be a pizza driver and showed my boss my carry one night, before I passed it to him I gave him a basic run down on how to make sure it was safe, handed it to him and he reproduced it instantly. You're telling me, that I can expect a Jordanian man who has never held a gun, who is just an owner-operator of a local pizza spot, to check if the gun is safe, but not Alec Baldwin who was Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October (had gun), a cop in The Departed (had gun), 30 Rock (one episode he had gun), was in Miami Blues (with a gun), The Getaway (with a gun), The Juror (had a gun), The Edge (gun), Pixie (guns), and he can't be bothered to learn how to use them safely? Fuck that.
Yes. Blanks don't have a bullet in the cartridge. It's just crimped on the end
So he needs to take the bullet out, inspect and reload? Is there additional risk making an actor do that? Honestly asking
Not sure how there would be any additional risk as long as the actor keeps their finger off the trigger until they're ready to shoot
Even if he took the bullet out he would have seen it was indeed a blank. He would have had to take the bullet out and hold the barrel up to the light with the chamber open to see a previous bullet was stuck in the barrel.