Regarding the “Rust” shooting.

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.

however as a producer he failed

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.

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.

As a "gun guy", I think Alec Baldwin the actor is also to blame for not learning/practicing firearm safety. Always check your weapon.

There’s a few reasons why he was charged, both as an actor and producer. Gun safety just can’t be fucked around with.

In the document, prosecutors accused Baldwin of “many instances of extremely reckless acts” during the film’s production.

They wrote that Baldwin “was not present” for mandatory firearms training before filming began. He was instead provided on-set guidance but prosecutors allege he was “distracted and talking on his cell phone to his family.” The training session was scheduled for an hour but was only 30 minutes long due to Baldwin’s “distraction” on the phone.

… The prosecutor’s statement described several “acts or omissions of recklessness” on the set of Rust. This included foregoing the use of a prop gun during unscheduled rehearsals, willful ignorance toward on-set safety complaints and a lack of armourer-performed safety checks.

https://globalnews.ca/news/9451182/alec-baldwin-rust-manslaughter-charge-phone/amp/

I agree that the only reason he SHOULD have been looked at is his role as a producer but I don't think that was the case at all. The ad got a plea deal iirc. It seemed more like the police wanted to get a famous feather in their cap and focused on him as the shooter which was obviously bullshit. Alec Baldwin is a dickhead at least and his wife is weird but blaming him for that was dumb from the get go

No, the reason Baldwin is being looked at is because he’s a Democrat and does an impression of dear leader that makes the orange shitstain look like the buffoon he is.

no one expects the 82nd Airborne Division.

Their chief weapon is surprise... Surprise and fear... Fear and surprise. Their two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency...

Is that a win here? I'd hope someone with a military background would take some responsibility for ensuring the weapon is safe...as should anyone handling a firearm. You can have 10 people check a weapon and confirm its safe before handing it to me and I'm still gonna check it.

People are arguing that both are at fault. The armorer is most clearly responsible. However, more than one person can be responsible for something.

A common rule of thumb is to never point a gun at something you don't want to kill. This is pretty clear outside the realm of a movie studio. On a movie set, it also seems pretty clearly 100% on the side of the armorer since pointing a gun at someone is required for acting. But Baldwin pointed the gun for fun, so it's a major gray area for a lot of people.

Army dude gave his take on the topic. Random person replied questioning his qualifications to talk about the subject. Army dude explained why he was qualified; he has indeed taken a weapon safety class, he’s led an entire squadron in armed combat. That’s the “don’t you know who I am”.

Regardless of the failure of physical controls, no one seems to be noting that safety training is also not Baldwin's responsibility.

I certainly don't look at a rich old hyperlib and think "Yeah, he knows this 'prop gun' is just an actual gun." I don't look at Baldwin and even think "He knows not to point this at something he isn't willing to destroy."

I wouldn't assume he knows a single thing about guns I didn't directly tell him and have him repeat back to me.

What armorer?

Alec Baldwin, as producer for the show in question, conducted that shoot without one on the set.

Thus why Baldwin is the one at fault for the shooting - and, funny enough, NOT because he was the one holding the trigger at the time it happened.

This analogy is flawed. The engineer would be a gunsmith. The bridge collapsing would be the gun catastrophically failing. A bridge is not deliberately designed to inflict damage on animals (mostly humans) the way a gun is.

That’s pretty much what this sounds like to me.

Here's a more applicable example.

Two carnival clowns are having a faux sword fight. One clown hits the other clown, only to find out that his sword is razor sharp. The second clown is impaled and dies.

Do you think we would give the clown the benefit of the doubt?

Prop can also mean it's a real gun.

You usually want them to be shot, at least with blanks. Nowadays you could probably fake that well with CGI, but using blanks is probably easier (and thus cheaper).

Iirc Hexum's gun was loaded with blanks. He held it to his temple not realizing the explosive pressure from the blank was enough to send a piece of his skull through his brain.

More info from the wiki

On October 12, 1984, the cast and crew of Cover Up were filming the seventh episode of the series, "Golden Opportunity", on Stage 18 of the 20th Century Fox lot. One of the scenes filmed that day called for Hexum's character to load cartridges into a .44 Magnum handgun, so he was provided with a functional gun and blanks. When the scene did not play as the director wanted it to in the master shot, there was a delay in filming. Hexum became restless and impatient during the delay and began playing around to lighten the mood. He had unloaded all but one (blank) round, spun it, and—simulating Russian roulette—he put the revolver to his right temple and pulled the trigger, unaware of the danger.[8]
The explosive effect of the muzzle blast caused enough blunt force trauma to fracture a quarter-sized piece of his skull and propel this into his brain, causing massive hemorrhaging.[3][9]

It might be cheap?

If you manufacture a prop gun in such a way that it is indistinguishable from the real thing in how it looks, sounds, and functions, you've just made a real gun. If you're able to do all that and make it a completely safe prop without the capability of killing someone when loaded with real ammunition, you could make bank.

How would a fake gun make the sounds? Guess you could add in editing afterwards but the cleanest, easiest and most realistic would always be to use a real gun with blanks I would have thought. But I'm not a movie producer, so idk

Could also be that even if you're able to get similar quality gun shots off a fake gun, it would cost a lot more in production etc

you don’t change the system. letting the actor check the mag/clear the chamber adds an additional point of failure in the process and reduces safety for everyone on set.

if you want to change things you stop filming with hot weapons entirely.

I haven't worked on film sets, but I've worked on theatrical productions which utilized blank-firing guns. The ones we specifically used had been modified to prevent the possibility of live ammunition being loaded into them, but that's not always possible (like in the specific scene being shot for Rust, where the gun was to be pointed straight at the camera).

Generally, as others have said, the actor checking the gun is not part of the process because it adds additional risk, and may mess up the setup the armorer did. When we used blanks, the process was that the armorer would check and verify the gun was in safe and working order and was loaded correctly (i.e, for the productions we did, loaded with exactly two blanks, since the gun would be fired twice, and the revolver set to fire those two blanks in the correct timing). He would then place the gun in the specific spot on-stage where it would be retrieved from by the actor during the show (or directly hand it to the actor as they went on-stage for one of the shows). At that point, crew was not allowed near that spot on stage, and the only people allowed to touch the gun was either the armorer or the actor. Additionally, the armorer stood watch off-stage for the entire time the gun was out of his possession, and ensured nobody came near the gun except for the actor who was supposed to be using it as part of the show. After the gun was used in the show, he would immediately retrieve it, ensure it was rendered safe, and it would immediately be returned to the secure storage location we had for the gun. If we had ever run into an issue where crew would need to access the area that the gun was placed on-stage, the armorer would have removed and made safe the weapon before any of the rest of the crew could access the area.
Crew was made aware through explicit call-outs when each step occurred-- so when the gun was loaded, that was called out to crew via comms. When it was placed, that was called out. A call-out was made when the gun was retrieved by the actor, and again several seconds before it was to be used. And finally, a call-out was made when the armorer retrieved the gun and made it safe.

This is the same process that every stage or screen production is supposed to have. The gun is never, ever, ever to be used with live ammunition for any reason. Live ammunition should never even be on the set, for any reason. The gun should never be passed off to anyone else other than between the armorer and the actor (or on large enough productions, the armoring team under the direct supervision of an armorer). Nobody should be stopping to inspect the guns, because that means people who are not qualified will be handling the guns outside the control of the armorer.

Currently, firearm safety on set isn't everyone's job. But it should be everyone's job. The system should be better, because firearm safety is a demonstrably life-or-death process.

Yes, firearms safety is a life-or-death process, but that's precisely why the rest of the crew and actors don't need to have firearms be their job. All they need to know is that they do not touch any of the weapons, for any reason. If it's out of place, they should ensure nobody comes near it, and call the armorer to retrieve it. The chain of custody for the weapons must be incredibly short, and you don't want anyone who is not specifically authorized to be touching or interacting with the weapons in any way, because that's how mistakes start to happen.

The weapons should only be outside the direct control of the armorer for the minimum time possible, and the armorer should be observing the entire time. As soon as the scene finishes, and between shots, the armorer should take control of the weapon again and do all the steps required to ensure it is safe.

You don't hold the actor Alec Baldwin responsible. You hold the producer Alec Baldwin responsible.

Agreed, along with the rest of the producers. Concerns had been expressed about the armorer previously, and the production team should have responded to those and found another armorer who could safely manage the weapons (or, since some of the articles I've read suggest the armorer didn't feel she could push back on other crewmembers when they wanted to do things incorrectly for the sake of timing, they should have made it clear that when it comes to how weapons are used on set, the armorer is the voice of god and has the final say at all times).

Additionally, the production team should have found other ways to film the scene where the gun was looking down the barrel of the gun, by either using mirrors to ensure the camera and crew were not in the line of fire, or by filming it remotely. Since the cinematographer was shot during a rehearsal, a rubber replica should have been used to set the focus and framing for the shot, and the live weapon should have been swapped in at the latest possible moment before filming commenced.

But, systematically, it shouldn’t be that way.

Entirely wrong. The actor is not a firearms professional. The armorer on the set is. Actors should never touch real firearms unless handed to them directly by an armorer. The moment the scene is finished, the armorer removes the real firearm from the equation entirely.

You have ONE person that is responsible. Their entire job is SOLELY to ensure that every firearm is accounted for at all times. Actors should not EVERY be put in a position where they have to think about anything but their job, just as you wouldn't expect the cinematographer to be over making burgers in craft services.

You have a job, you do your job. As an actor the job is to take the firearm, hold it in a specified way, fire it, then give it back to the armorer that handed it to you. End of story.

These practices are in place because they have proven to work for literal decades. It's only through extreme negligence (which the Rust situation was) or through horrendous circumstance (see: Brandon Lee) that accidents happen, and that's the case only because nobody except one specific professional is allowed to handle firearms outside of filming.

Actors are not expected to be knowledgeable about weapons. If they are required to check their own weapons, they would not do so competently, and may come to incorrect conclusions. This could add incompetent confusion about the weapon safety to the situation, and that’s bad for safety.

I agree, especially if real guns are being used. But what I don't get is why in this case it would be Baldwin's fault. If this is industry-wide practice, why was he charged?

I think the industry needs to change so that for action scenes with real weapons, everyone who touches the weapon gets basic safety and firearms training. Knowing how to hold and operate the weapon, the safety rules, how to check to make sure the weapon is clear, etc.

Didn't those dumbfucks on set take the prop guns out to do target practice? I don't even own a gun, but I know enough to know that pointing a gun that has any chance of being loaded at someone is a terrible idea and that the prop master's responsibility is to make sure that never happens. The prop master's negligence led to that person's death and Baldwin should have done his homework on who he was hiring. He's probably not criminally responsible, but he should settle and avoid a civil trial.

The first five gun safety rules

I don't know how the US army structured, it's a joke right? Like there no corelation between how good the Brigade(?) and it's number right? Lmao

I believe the union armorers quit the production due to non-adherence to industry standards.

I'm guessing that might involve the same rule-breaking that led to the incident: Live ammo for a prop weapon is never present at a shoot, and prop weapons are never loaded with live ammo.

Clearing the weapon between fun-time and film-time is not sufficient. Everyone in Hollywood knows how this works. Hell, everyone on Broadway knows.

This production thought it was above the rules apparently. It's like when the sub experts quit SeaGate over safety issues before the Titan imploded. I feel sorry for the people who financially didn't have a choice to drop the production, and had to go through this trauma. Anyone who condoned the antics should be out of a career imo. I don't know what prison will solve but Alec's net worth could probably be taken down a notch.

Doesn't matter. "Prop" guns don't exist and every gun is unfit unless physically checked by yourself personally.

Haha he really does

They resumed filming after Bladwin was found not guilty and subsequently wrapped, but there's no release date or anything yet

The trial started this week so it’s somewhat topical. But there are no time limits for posts here. If you’d like that rule to change, please comment in the stickied post with your reasoning and suggestion for what the limit should be. Thanks.

Still better than opinion credentials.

Appeals to authority are only as good as the Authority figure you're invoking. If you appeal to an incompetent person, then yeah it doesn't mean shit

I think he's just trying to deflect, what kind of weapons training do you get in the air force?

Every range I did in the military, they stressed that everyone on the range was a safety officer, and that anyone can call cease fire at any time if they felt conditions were unsafe. So yeah, that's how I see it.

You check the chamber and you check the ammo.

So actors, who aren't experts, should be disassembling and unloading/loading the guns they're using, after the armorer has declared the gun safe? Is that what you think will make this safer?

If I recall correctly, they were filming a shot "down the barrel of the gun" kinda thing. So he was pointing it in the direction of the camera

"The media" isn't responsible for spoonfeeding you everything.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_shooting_incident

"While the trio behind the monitor were repositioning the camera to remove a shadow, Baldwin began explaining to the crew how he planned to draw the firearm.[7] He said, "So, I guess I'm gonna take this out, pull it, and go, 'Bang!'"[9] When he removed it from the holster, the gun was fired a single time."

The person was standing there because they needed to be for one reason or another. They were not in the middle of shooting, they were rehearsing and blocking out the shot.

With a competent armorer Baldwin would not have even had a real firearm in his hand until the armorer handed it to him moments before actually firing the shot.

He accidentally hit the trigger while he was putting the weapon in it's sheath.

Also the fault here is manifold. Under normal circumstances the armorer is the only one who ever hands off a weapon to an actor and there is a process of doing a last check. In this instance the 1st AD overstepped and did that while not following armorer protocol meaning that a high amount of the culpability was in his court.

In this instance MULTIPLE layers of safety protocols had to be abraided through for this to happen. If anyone on a set I have worked on saw an assistant director or any other department member handle a weapon other than an armorer if they didn't immediately get their ass fired they would at least be bleeding from the ears from the scolding they would earn. That this weapon was handled this way in full veiw of the cast and crew means the safety issues were endemic. That the 1st AD - whose job is to enforce safety checks and veto unsafe directorial decisions handed this weapon means something was VERY wrong with the chain of command above him.

If you handle a prop on a movie set, it's not your responsibility to know that this time it's not a prop but real loaded gun this time. It's inconceivable to me how it's even possible that a gun even there, but I guess I am not American enough to understand that

How's the expectation to have firearm training come in if a kid is playing with a toy gun. Same with actors who think they're handling a fake gun.

Edit: I’ve been out of the loop. I wasn’t aware they dropped charges against Baldwin. That’s really fucked up in my opinion, as per the above.

Really? Last time I checked they were still investigating the case and involuntary manslaughter charges are still on the table?

How does that apply to a weapon that is supposed to be loaded? It's a movie set, it's not always intended to be unloaded, it's intended to be LOADED but with blanks. That's part of the reason why a movie set has personnel dedicated to ensuring the safety of every firearm. Additional reasons include: they're swapping out identical guns for different takes, they're doing multiple takes, actors have dramatically different levels of experience with handguns, they're EXPECTED to point the gun at people, etc etc etc

A Hollywood movie set isn't the same as your basement dry-fire LARPing sessions just because they both involve acting.

It absolutely does matter. Alec Baldwin also asserts that he never pulled the trigger, and the FBI's analysis found a flaw in the weapon that could cause it to fire without pulling the trigger.

In order to be convicted of a crime, the state needs to prove mens rea (i.e., the intent to commit the crime). You can't be convicted of a crime unless the state can prove you either intended, or should have known, your action would be a criminal act.

If I'm at a gun range, the instructor who is teaching me hands me a gun and says it's safe to fire downrange, and I shoot it, but it turns out someone is in fact downrange out of my visibility and is injured as a result of my shot, could I be convicted of assault with a deadly weapon? The clear answer is no, because I reasonably relied on the expertise of someone whose job it was to ensure the situation was safe before I performed the dangerous action.

Similarly, there was someone on the set whose job it was to ensure the gun was safe to use. That person handed Baldwin the gun and asserted it was safe to use. Baldwin reasonably relied on that person's expertise when he handled the gun and did not do anything unreasonable with it while handling it, so it doesn't make sense to charge him. If he had some role in the presence of live ammunition, then he might be liable in some way, but in his role as an actor, he bears no responsibility.

Last I saw, they had proven the gun could be discharged without touching the trigger. They also use dummy rounds in revolvers to make it look like the gun has real rounds instead of blanks (cheaper than CGI and less likely to miss one), the only way to tell they aren't real is to remove each round and shake them as they have rattles. I don't expect an actor to be an expert in firearms, just like I don't expect them to be experts on politics or climate change.