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?
The armorer trial was pushed back to Feb 21st of this year.
And even though it’s a prop, it should still be handled as if it was loaded at all time, not point it at anyone unless necessary, etc.
It may not entirely be his fault, but he was still careless.
It has to be someone’s job to make sure guns on set are safe
Of course the armorer’s job, but safety comes in layers. It’s in a way everyone’s job to apply basic precautions, especially when you’re handling one.
Treat all guns as loaded to minimize the potential for harm.
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.
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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?
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.
Lazy overused meme
but funny
