Alec Baldwin shoots and kills a woman, injures a man.

[rommelrommel]

It’s been gone over that generally you trust the armorer on set. You’re specifically not to do your own set of manipulations. Whatever the policy on that set is is what you do.

 

[emperus]

It's been established that the gun wouldn't accidentally fire without the trigger being pulled. Cocking and releasing the hammer it wouldn't fire it, you still have to pull the trigger.

What forensic testing reveals about revolver in on-set 'Rust' shooting

The FBI conducted accidental discharge testing on the firearm used in the shooting.

abcnews.go.com

Yes, I think the CNN gun safety expert was saying that if he believed he was resting his hand on the trigger, that could have in fact been all he needed for the gun to be fired once he cocked it. He explained it differently in todays interview. But here is the interview he did in the past. I'll see if I can find todays interview. But, he made it seem that there was a universe in which what Baldwin was saying wasn't him necessarily lying.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

It's been established that the gun wouldn't accidentally fire without the trigger being pulled. Cocking and releasing the hammer it wouldn't fire it, you still have to pull the trigger.

What forensic testing reveals about revolver in on-set 'Rust' shooting

The FBI conducted accidental discharge testing on the firearm used in the shooting.

abcnews.go.com

Can't you ignite a round by holding the trigger, and cocking/releasing the hammer manually? Just letting it spring on the round like an old 'fanning' method? Or does something prevent that on more modern revolvers?

 

[ElFenix]

my cousin studied for the bar exam with halyna's husband and they'd all had dinner together a few times.

 

[woolfe9998]

I just hope that either way, it doesn't end up being determined by jurors' pre-existing opinion of him as a public figure/celeb.

Is the way it works just that it depends on what verdict a majority of jurors votes for? It doesn't have to be unanimous? (My only knowledge of the system is from The Simpsons and Twelve-Angry-Men, and I can't actually remember either of them).

(Edit - I may even have imagined the Simpsons reference. Always thought they should have done a 12-angry men parody, with Homer as a juror on a case that revolved around an intimate knowledge of donuts.)

It's a criminal case, so yes, it must be unanimous. It's civil cases that typically require something like a super-majority of jurors. Anyway, in criminal cases if the jury cannot come to a unanimous verdict, then it's a hung jury and the prosecutor can pursue a second trial if they want to.

 

[Jaskalas]

He’ll be acquitted.

Would you?
Baldwin clearly took an action that resulted in another's death. Involuntary manslaughter fits perfectly with the facts.
I do not know what else would matter.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Well, I'm thinking hollywood actors are required to take firearms training even though they are handling unloaded or prop guns. Not sure though. I hope so!

Going by the training I had. Just spitballin here, but If I where Baldwin, I still would have checked the weapon.

What I was trained…

1. Every gun is always loaded.
2. Never point a gun at anything you don’t intend to kill or destroy without checking to see if it is loaded.
3. Keep your finger off the trigger unless you are pulling the trigger.
4. Be aware of everything near (and especially behind) whatever you’re shooting at.

These were drilled into my head. When I bought my first gun (pistol), I made sure that I received formal training so I knew how to be safe. I don’t think I could possibly follow the safety rules I was taught and be able to film with a real gun without checking to see if it was loaded, even though I was told by someone it wasn't loaded. That's just me though.

This is all normally true but it's not applicable to acting. The actual purpose in this case is to look like you're shooting at/killing someone. Yeah you can fudge it with 'movie magic' but if there's a scene with both people in it and a gun, someone's pointing it in a way they shouldn't be, based on gun safety.

The rules are different with movies because we collectively demand it. We want people getting shot at, driving unsafe, swinging swords and jumping off buildings and flying in wing suits and all sorts of other asinine shit that if someone slips up just once, you have injury or death.

That said, the actor is a fucking tool of the cinematic experience, expected to behave as told. Some become actually proficient at what they do (Keanu Reeves), while others I'd never expect to actually know how to load the gun, much less verify it's loaded with blanks. If this is something we collectively have a problem with, we probably shouldn't let actors hold firearms, and likely a whole host of other shit they somehow have managed to do for a century without being masters of it.

 

[SKORPI0]

The report found that the gun, a .45 Colt (.45 Long Colt) caliber F.lli Pietta single-action revolver, “could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger” with the hammer cocked at the ¼ and ½ positions. It also found that when the weapon was fully cocked it “could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger while the working internal components were intact and functional.”
FBI examiners observed an internal malfunction of the gun during testing at the fully cocked position, with the report noting “portions of the trigger sear and cylinder stop fractured while the hammer was struck.”
The FBI report noted the limitations of the forensics testing, saying “it may not be possible to recreate or duplicate all of the circumstances which led to the discharge of a firearm without a pull of the trigger.”

Weapon in deadly 'Rust' film set shooting could not be fired without pulling the trigger, FBI forensic testing finds | CNN

FBI testing of the gun used in the fatal shooting on the movie set of "Rust" found that the weapon handled by actor Alec Baldwin could not be fired without pulling the trigger while the gun was cocked, according to a newly released forensics report.

www.cnn.com

 

[Bitek]

Can't you ignite a round by holding the trigger, and cocking/releasing the hammer manually? Just letting it spring on the round like an old 'fanning' method? Or does something prevent that on more modern revolvers?

If you have the trigger pulled, when you manually pull the hammer back, there is nothing holding the hammer in the cocked position, so the hammer's firing pin will fall all the way into the round, firing the gun.

This method is still used today for cowboy action shooting competitions for speed, but you will be inaccurate as hell.

Other interesting thing, on these Colt derived revolvers, you must pull the hammer back through several stages/clicks before it's fully cocked. Traditionally, the second click is the safe position, and the last click is fully cocked.

The hammer can be dropped, but it will stop at the safe position unless the trigger is held down all the way through.

There is no way he didn't pull the trigger. At best, he doesn't remember doing it, but he did unless the internal parts were physically broken, but that would have been discovered by the FBI upon inspection. Likely, the gun may have not even cycled correctly in the first place if the internals were broken.

He pulled the trigger, no doubt.

To me, the biggest problem is why the fuck there were live rounds on the set. What the fuck?! Zero reason for this.

 

[Vic]

This is another classic example of right-wingers who rant and cry about being persecuted for their speech and political identity initiating a witch hunt against someone solely because of they don't like that person's speech and political identity.

 

[Vic]

Would you?
Baldwin clearly took an action that resulted in another's death. Involuntary manslaughter fits perfectly with the facts.
I do not know what else would matter.

How about the fact that he was an actor on a TV/movie production set where they do that kind of thing literally every day and no one gets hurt?
Unless intent or gross negligence can be established here, there is no case.

 

[Paratus]

For someone to die from a gunshot a bullet must be discharged and strike the person in a vital area.

In this case as in most the gun must be pointed in the direction of the victim (barring ricochets), it must have a live round, and the round must be triggered. If the weapon is in good working order the firing pin must strike the primer when trigger releases the hammer.

Standard gun safety is to never point the weapon at anyone or thing you don't intend to shoot.
To know if the gun is loaded or not
To know if there is a round in the chamber that can be fired.

The shot they were taking that day was of Baldwin pointing the gun in the direction of the camera. That was what their job was that day, so the first control against accidental discharge is basically out the window.

This isn't some crazy shot. It's been done many times before:

Goto 3:45 in this clip from Die Hard and the revolver is pointed directly at the camera

So you have to rely on the armorer to make sure the weapon is functioning correctly and not loaded with a live round.

The first and biggest error that day is a live round made it on set.
The second was that a live round was loaded into that gun
The third was it was not correctly verified to be a "cold gun"
The fourth was Baldwin was told it was cold gun.
The fifth was he was told by an associate producer and not the armorer
The sixth was the gun discharged either through a pull of the trigger, cocking the weapon with his finger on the trigger, or some unknown failure of the gun.

The fact that they let the producer have a plea deal and are going after Baldwin for significant time in jail suggests there's political motivation.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

Yes, I think the CNN gun safety expert was saying that if he believed he was resting his hand on the trigger, that could have in fact been all he needed for the gun to be fired once he cocked it. He explained it differently in todays interview. But here is the interview he did in the past. I'll see if I can find todays interview. But, he made it seem that there was a universe in which what Baldwin was saying wasn't him necessarily lying.

I know it's not the same model of revolver but I have an S&W Model 60 that is a double action (revolver cocks, but a trigger pull will cock and fire in one action). If I cock the hammer manually, the trigger is a literal hair pull away from firing. If I rest my finger wrong on the trigger after cocking the hammer, it will fire.

No exaggeration, there is no measureable trigger takeup. If I took a ruler to it, it might be 0.1mm or something insanely small.

 

[Bitek]

You're making the assumption that he pulled the trigger. I heard a gun safety analyst say that if he had his hand on the trigger and cocked it, the gun would have went off without him actually pulling the trigger. So, there is a universe where he is not lying.

"Hand on the trigger" what does that actually mean?

It's a bit nonsensical.

You have a finger on the trigger, and you MUST 1. Pull the hammer all the way back to fully cocked, 2. physically move the trigger to release the spring loaded hammer from the stop built into the trigger.

Look at the mechanism. See the notches?

Point the gun at anything you are unwilling to kill or destroy. Don't touch the trigger unless you mean to fire. Safety depends on you.

Oldest, simplest rules of gun safety.

 

[pmv]

It's a criminal case, so yes, it must be unanimous. It's civil cases that typically require something like a super-majority of jurors. Anyway, in criminal cases if the jury cannot come to a unanimous verdict, then it's a hung jury and the prosecutor can pursue a second trial if they want to.

For some reason I had the (apparently incorrect) notion that verdicts could be majority votes - but looking it up it seems that's not quite true even for the UK (it says that, for this country, verdicts are supposed to be unanimous, but if it takes too damn long for a jury to agree a "majority verdict" can be accepted, but that still means 10 out of 12 jurors must agree, so really, more of a super-majority - I never knew that was how it worked).

Will the jury for this trial be vetted? Is that standard procedure?

 

[Bitek]

Baldwins job was not to secure the weapon. That's what they hired the armorer for. And I don't think we want Actors/Actresses becoming fire safety experts.

As solely an actor, I don't *think* he's legally culpable.

If he was not acting, rather a hunter or gun owner, then yes. For acting, I think it depends on what the industry standard is for weapon handling. I could see a situation where armorers don't want actors manipulating and unloading the firearm because now you don't know what they loaded back in it. Maybe you don't want to break the chain of custody.

The problem I see is his role as producer, and the systematic disregard for firearm safety.

 

[burninatortech4]

And now you're trusting an actor to be an adequate armorer as well. See the problem here?

To be clear, both AB and the armorer should be charged and have been.

"an unintentional killing that results either from recklessness or criminal negligence "

Seems completely appropriate to me.

 

[Bitek]

For someone to die from a gunshot a bullet must be discharged and strike the person in a vital area.

In this case as in most the gun must be pointed in the direction of the victim (barring ricochets), it must have a live round, and the round must be triggered. If the weapon is in good working order the firing pin must strike the primer when trigger releases the hammer.

Standard gun safety is to never point the weapon at anyone or thing you don't intend to shoot.
To know if the gun is loaded or not
To know if there is a round in the chamber that can be fired.

The shot they were taking that day was of Baldwin pointing the gun in the direction of the camera. That was what their job was that day, so the first control against accidental discharge is basically out the window.

This isn't some crazy shot. It's been done many times before:

Goto 3:45 in this clip from Die Hard and the revolver is pointed directly at the camera

So you have to rely on the armorer to make sure the weapon is functioning correctly and not loaded with a live round.

The first and biggest error that day is a live round made it on set.
The second was that a live round was loaded into that gun
The third was it was not correctly verified to be a "cold gun"
The fourth was Baldwin was told it was cold gun.
The fifth was he was told by an associate producer and not the armorer
The sixth was the gun discharged either through a pull of the trigger, cocking the weapon with his finger on the trigger, or some unknown failure of the gun.

The fact that they let the producer have a plea deal and are going after Baldwin for significant time in jail suggests there's political motivation.

If you watch that scene carefully, you will notice the cuts.

When the gun is firing, it's zoomed in on the gun, and it's firing up and away from the camera. No people are in the scene. It's a functional firearm firing something.

When he points it at the camera tho, it's a different cut, who is to say it's an actual, functional firearm? Why assume it's the same item? For safety, that could be a dummy gun with no capability to fire rounds.

This needs to be carefully thought through and planned for.

On Rust, using functional firearms in such scenes/ camera angles, as well as having LIVE AMMO on set is fking crazy. Even pointing blanks in a functional firearm is crazy. So much carelessness.

 

[woolfe9998]

Will the jury for this trial be vetted? Is that standard procedure?

Yes, we call it voir dire. You have it in England as well, and I think they even use the same phrase.

 

[ivwshane]

To be clear, both AB and the armorer should be charged and have been.

"an unintentional killing that results either from recklessness or criminal negligence "

Seems completely appropriate to me.

In what way did Baldwin show recklessness or criminal negligence?

He didn’t…case closed.

 

[Bitek]

This is another classic example of right-wingers who rant and cry about being persecuted for their speech and political identity initiating a witch hunt against someone solely because of they don't like that person's speech and political identity.

It's quite the conservative intersecting orgasm of Hollywood Liberal, Guy Who Made Fun of Trump 😡, and Liberals Are Dumb About Guns.

Only thing its missing is Hunter Biden and trans people.

 

[woolfe9998]

In what way did Baldwin show recklessness our criminal negligence?

He didn’t…case closed.

He's mistaking criminal negligence for ordinary civil negligence. He thinks if you make any mistake that causes someone's death, it's manslaughter. It's a very common fallacy.

 

[Paratus]

If you watch that scene carefully, you will notice the cuts.

When the gun is firing, it's zoomed in on the gun, and it's firing up and away from the camera. No people are in the scene. It's a functional firearm firing something.

When he points it at the camera tho, it's a different cut, who is to say it's an actual, functional firearm? Why assume it's the same item? For safety, that could be a dummy gun with no capability to fire rounds.

This needs to be carefully thought through and planned for.

On Rust, using functional firearms in such scenes/ camera angles, as well as having LIVE AMMO on set is fking crazy. Even pointing blanks in a functional firearm is crazy. So much carelessness.

Right but in Rust you have an authentic revolver so a legitimate reason to use it in a shot as opposed to a prop. The fking crazy part as you say is the live ammo. That is not something Baldwin is responsible for.

And second even if he had checked the revolver himself (which I feel is a bad idea when you have an armorer on set verifying the safety of the gun) is he supposed to know the difference between a dummy round, a blank, and a live round? It's a revolver pointed at a camera. If there aren't rounds in the chambers you can tell 5/6 chambers are empty.

You have a point that the gun when firing is off pointed from the camera, but relying on pointing 10-15 degrees off axis is a poor control. It doesn't take much an error by the actor to be pointed at something critical. The main control is the gun is NOT loaded with live rounds, has been verified to be not carrying live rounds, and then to only discharge off angle to anything important (or use special effects instead of actually discharging in camera)

 

[Bitek]

Right but in Rust you have an authentic revolver so a legitimate reason to use it in a shot as opposed to a prop. The fking crazy part as you say is the live ammo. That is not something Baldwin is responsible for.

And second even if he had checked the revolver himself (which I feel is a bad idea when you have an armorer on set verifying the safety of the gun) is he supposed to know the difference between a dummy round, a blank, and a live round? It's a revolver pointed at a camera. If there aren't rounds in the chambers you can tell it's empty.

You have a point that the gun when firing is off pointed from the camera, but relying on pointing 10-15 degrees off axis is a poor control. It doesn't take much an error by the actor to be pointed at something critical. The main control is the gun is NOT loaded with live rounds, has been verified to be not carrying live rounds, and then to only discharge off angle to anything important (or use special effects instead of actually discharging in camera)

It sounds safer to me for such a scene to use a disabled gun. It can look like a real one, ( eg no firing pin) etc to actually make it a firearm.

This is where I see the problem, it takes time and thought to set up these shots and change the equipment out. Eliminate the possibility of error.

In any off-range firearm training class I've had, we used rubber guns. Never a real gun and "hey folks, don't worry, it's not loaded, now go ahead and point it over in that dangerous direction." F that.

If they were cheap and sloppy (which they seemed to be), you just rely on the training, and/ or reuse the same functional firearm, and trust you took the bullets out. Terrible procedures, and I cannot believe that's the industry practice.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

And so what? He pointed a gun that was supposed to be empty and checked to be empty at someone. If the gun was supposed to be a replica and someone replaced it would that still be his fault? This is the problem with some people, they allow their biases to cloud their judgment.

You are a very excellent example of it.