I am just glad that I do not have to deal with guns, and I intend to keep it that way.

1 minute ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

assignment of responsibility doesn’t make any logical sense.

It does, just in a different context.  The difficulty is in comprehending the context of their use and training may not be synonymous with Mr Baldwin's.

My DD214 says I qualified with the .38, I have handled guns in court. I own a S&W .357 and a .38 Chief's special as well as a good ol' Remington pump. I know how to handle firearms.

Besides airplanes, I like film, and know a bit about it, and even dabbled around the edges.

Htichcock called actors "cattle" for a reason, although he seldom bothered to direct them. Other directors shoot dozens of takes and micromanage everything the actor does: the blocking, his posture, the way he says something--everything. Depending on the director, there may be a lot of "coverage," meaning filming a scene in different ways after a wrap, just stuff that might come in handy. (Considered a dubious practice by others.) There's a lot going on, a lot of mind-numbing repetition, and still, above all, there is a schedule to meet. If you have to fly in a movie, you trust the guy with the harness and wires. Actors use a lot of props, don't want to waste production time, trust well-paid and experienced people to do their jobs and do what they're told.

It's ludicrous to apply the real-world safety rules from the local firing range to a film production. Yes, in the real world, assume every firearm is loaded. We know that. On the set, if an actor is given a prop and told it's safe, he can't be faulted for doing his job. Period.

I just watched the first twenty minutes of Tenet. If every actor was checking every prop weapon it would have added two months and a quarter million dollars to the budget. Knowing guns does not equal knowing film any more than people think they know guns from what they see in movies.

The only real questions up for debate here is why there was a live round within a hundred miles of this location. how it got into a gun to be used by an actor and what role the armorer had in all this (besides pretty much failing to do the one job she had). If it were not a real tragedy it would look more like one of those elaborately set-up murder mysteries.

From early on, I had this firearms safety Golden Rule drilled into me--"always treat every gun as if it were loaded until you have personally verified otherwise"

Does anyone here think Alec Baldwin doesn't wish to God right now that he'd taken less than a minute to check that pistol when it was handed to him?

Every person that laid their hands on that revolver from the time it was loaded until it was fired had the ability to break the deadly chain of events with a simple application of the Golden Rule above.  A trainload of mea-culpas and fingerpointing won't change that now, nor will it assuage the anguish of the people devastated by this dangerous, careless buffoonery.

This is what happens when you put lethal, operational weapons into the hands of people that proceed to use them like toys.

49 minutes ago, w6kd said:

Does anyone here think Alec Baldwin doesn't wish to God right now that he'd taken less than a minute to check that pistol when it was handed to him?

I don't think that. I'm sure he does.

49 minutes ago, w6kd said:

This is what happens when you put lethal, operational weapons into the hands of people that proceed to use them like toys.

You are absolutely correct. We call those people "actors" for a reason. We call an armorer who put a lethal operational weapon into the hand of an actor a lot of things: unemployed being the least. Look, this is a very strange situation that we're all discussing like it's just another gun accident. It's not about general firearms safety. It's a specific incident in a unique industry that is really, really hard to explain. There's a criminal investigation and the production's insurance carrier will be looking into very closely. I'm not assuming anything. I'm retiring from the discussion until we have the facts because we seem to be going around in circles, which I don't want to do with friends.

EDIT: Well, one thing we know is that the armorer was not very experienced and not long ago expressed doubts on a podcast about her ability to do the job, admitting to being nervous before working with Nicholas Cage in "The Old Way," because she wasn't sure she was ready, but "it went really well." She's the daughter of a Hollywood armorer who sort of grew up in the trade, I gather. Under the pressure of filming, and being inexperienced, I can see how that could have contributed. This could end up being like many air disasters--a chain of seemingly minor events that will make some sort of sense only in hindsight.

I'm thinking everyone is wishing to God things were different, probably Hannah Gutierrez-Reed among the most.

I totally agree with Tim. I've been around enough movie sets in my lifetime and the actors rely on their support people to do their job. IMHO, the fault on this lies with two people, the armorer and the AD who told Baldwin the gun was safe. Safe means UNloaded - no blanks nor live ammo ( which shouldn't be within miles of the set). From what I've read, he went out and picked it up off a prop cart.

Laying ANY responsibility on Baldwin just doesn't fly

However, the production company is looking at multimillion $ lawsuits.

The latest official info:

Quote

Now, the affidavit has revealed that Baldwin had no idea the prop gun he was using had a live round in it. It was additionally reported that Alec Baldwin was handed the gun by the assistant director of the movie. The assistant director also did not know the prop gun had a bullet in it.

The assistant director reportedly picked up the prop gun from a rolling cart “prepared by the armorer” before handing it to Baldwin after yelling “cold gun!” Cold gun is a term used on set to indicate that a prop gun that is not loaded and is safe to handle was being used.

 

13 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

If that is true, then it is very irresponsible. There should never be live rounds anywhere near a movie set.

Yes. At a gun range, in a citizens private home, out hunting in the field, it is almost never the case that someone will deliberately point a gun at another innocent person. But on a Western movie set a whole lot of people are definitely going to be pointing guns at innocent people on purpose. Live ammo there is like bringing a cigarette lighter into a black powder manufacturing plant.

14 hours ago, Tim_Capps said:

It's ludicrous to apply the real-world safety rules from the local firing range to a film production. Yes, in the real world, assume every firearm is loaded. We know that. On the set, if an actor is given a prop and told it's safe, he can't be faulted for doing his job. Period.

I just watched the first twenty minutes of Tenet. If every actor was checking every prop weapon it would have added two months and a quarter million dollars to the budget. Knowing guns does not equal knowing film any more than people think they know guns from what they see in movies.

 

👍

Maybe movie crews could learn from air crews. Not my personal virtual airline though. If I forget the flaps before t.o. some observant passenger at a window seat might holler. Or if the flight attendants don't hear the rumbling sound of the gear on final, they might try and notify me. When I'm driving I don't need some checklist telling me to stop at a red light or turn the steering wheel when I want to make a turn, so who needs checklists, standardized procedures, and a clear division of responsibilities anyway? 

 

Latest news reports indicate that the assistant director (who handed the gun to Baldwin), has a very negative reputation among many who have worked with him on other movie projects. The common thread appears to be that he had an extremely lax - (almost contemptuous) - attitude towards on-set safety protocols, including when actual or simulated weapons were involved. 

6 hours ago, martin-w said:

It's ludicrous to apply the real-world safety rules from the local firing range to a film production.

Why?

In fact a movie set where firearms are going to be discharged should be a prime location for gun safety rules since a gun may change hands several times between the armorers bench and shooter's hand.  And any one of those hands might replace a blank cartridge for a real cartridge, especially in the case of a revolver.

If it was a real bullet in the Baldwin's revolver he knew it the instant he pulled the trigger because of the recoil.  Anyone who has fired a revolver from a .38 to a .45 and watches a cowboy movie shoot out quickly notices the guns have no recoil.  The champion even fans the hammer to quickly empty the gun into the evil person without recoil?  Ridiculous. 

I can't believe the ignorance of firearm safety going on in this thread.  Even as a 14 year old I knew more about gun safety than some of those responding here.  Perhaps having been a gun owner for over 70 years and having fired everything from a single shot .22 rifle to BAR and 30 caliber machine gun I am being unfair here, but I don't think so.  Safety in any environment or setting is the responsibility of everyone connected with his or her part of he action from saddling a horse to loading a gun.  The horse rider is ultimately responsible for making sure his saddle is properly cinched and it is the finger on the trigger that is ultimately responsible to ensure no real bullets are in the weapon.

I would not hold Baldwin criminally responsible but it does show that, in criminal parlance, the chain of evidence was broken.  By the simple 30 second task of Baldwin flipping the cylinder to one side and examining the rounds the tragedy would have been averted. 

If anything this incident shows that  the practice of gun safety is required of everyone involved.  The armorer who loaded the weapon.  The person delivering the weapon to the set, the person handing the weapon to actor, and finally and ultimately the actor himself.  If a multimilion dollar budget for a movie cannot incorporate these safety features something is wrong.  Even minimal gun training should be required.  

The ideal setting would be for the gun to be delivered to the actor unloaded with 6 blanks in a separate box.  It would take less than a minute for the actor to load the gun himself.  Is that going to break the budget of a movie or cause the production to run over schedule?  Common sense should rule here.

And for Martin and his machine guns firing hundreds of rounds in a movie scene.

Any automatic weapon, blow back or gas operated, cannot fire blanks unless a restrictor or special kind of barrel is attached to the weapon.  The only way to make an automatic weapon fire on a movie set with real bullets is to remove the restrictor and that would have to be done deliberately.  With the restrictor installed a real bullet would probably cause the barrel to rupture, or worse, blow back into the shooter's face.

Noel

1 minute ago, birdguy said:

And any one of those hands might replace a blank cartridge for a real cartridge, especially in the case of a revolver.

Why?

3 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

Latest news reports indicate that the assistant director (who handed the gun to Baldwin), has a very negative reputation among many who have worked with him on other movie projects. The common thread appears to be that he had an extremely lax - (almost contemptuous) - attitude towards on-set safety protocols, including when actual or simulated weapons were involved. 

The ONLY way that AD should have said "cold gun" was if the armorer had physically handed it to him. Picking it off a table and "assuming" it was safe was the second problem. The first problem was thge gun should have been in the possession of the armorer until such time as it was passed to the actor. No way should it have been lying on a prop table unless it was a non firing prop gun.

1 hour ago, Adrian123 said:

Why?

 Just speculation as to what is possible.  It's been done before.

Noel