Actually he killed the woman. No one other than himself pulled the trigger no matter what he said. It may have been an accident but him assuming the gun wasn’t loaded was negligence.
Here’s hoping the family of the deceased end up owning a nice formerly used by Baldwin hamptons house and enough money to pay the upkeep and taxes for the next few decades.
How unbelieveably incredible that the prosecution suppressed clear evidence! The case deserved to be dismissed!!! Now, hold those who withheld that evidence culpable for their gross misconduct.!!! This is the USA thank heavens, not some third world kangaroo court country.
Nobody involved in that incident has any excuse. Not the armorer. Not the moron who pulled the trigger. Everyone involved ignored the first rule of gun safety; the gun is always loaded.
Don’t try to tell me that it was just a prop. Prop does not mean fake, or harmless. It means “property used in a production“. It was quite real.
The correct ammunition would not have made it safe to do what Alec Baldwin did. Remember how Jon-Eric Hexum died.
And….justice comes through. I opened my conversation here by combating the idiot notion that “negligence” somehow started and ended with Baldwin. There was only one question here…”Why was there live ammunition on a movie set with guns?” Many here fought back, “It doesn’t matter!” they said, “It’s not a valid question.” they posited. But, in the end, it was (and should have been) the only question.
We all know this wasn’t murder, it was a tragic accident. As such it is far more important to drill down to the cause, not dash toward some sort of vengeance “justice.” Perhaps now movie sets will have new rules. Perhaps now Hollywood will require genuinely trained armorers. In the end, however, I hope movie sets become safer places when it comes to firearms.
Here’s a true story about the NM law of involuntary manslaughter. A friend if mine in college (UNM) went to the hot springs outside of Albuquerque and spent the day partying with friends. He was driving home on the highway when he came up on a pickup truck that was driving very slowly in the left lane. He was annoyed and jerked into the right lane to pass the truck and then back into the left lane to get in front of it. He hit the front of the pickup with his car and it drove off the road and into a ditch. The occupants were a man and woman and their 3 year old who was riding without a seatbelt in between them. The child went through the windshield and died. My friend was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. His blood alcohol was high. He was 20 years old. So, tell me again why a 50 year old movie star is less culpable for the death he clearly caused?
Because Alec Baldwin wasn't driving drunk and didn't try to illegally pass another vehicle. And your analogy has almost nothing to do with the situation. If your friend had been racing down a road he'd been told (by professionals tasked with ensuring it was clear) was clear and safe and could not have other traffic on it, then slammed into the truck, you'd have a comparison. But you don't.
People DO do that, by the way. It happens in movies - you get the proper permits and permission, clear the right areas, and film your movie. They literally raced through downtown Chicago to film these scenes (https://youtu.be/8VFIPCpocLk?feature=shared). You think the filmmakers or the stunt drivers would be held responsible if the police had explicitly told them things were clear and they weren't, and someone died because of the police not doing their job? Nope.
Except that if Baldwin weren't an arrogant a**hole anti-gun nut who just knows better than all the stupid rubes who actually know how to handle guns, that woman would still be alive. No, he wasn't drunk, he was just incredibly, arrogantly negligent. No actual *legal* gun owner would have made the serial mistakes he made that led directly to her death.
(straps on suicide vest) I'm very glad and relieved Baldwin's case was dismissed and agree with everything Kat wrote. The whole thing was a disgusting circus.
Yeah, this quote is from Robert Schilling, former chief of the New Mexico State Police, who was assigned to this case before being pulled off of it for reasons that are apparent. He sent it privately to the prosecutor's office, and it became public later. (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/12/arts/rust-trial-pause-alec-baldwin-shooting.html)
"The conduct of the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office during and after their initial investigation is reprehensible and unprofessional to a degree I still have no words for. Not I or 200 more proficient investigators than I can/could clean up the mess delivered to your office in October 2022 (1 year since the initial incident … inexcusable)."
Either the Sheriff's Office was entirely incompetent, or someone (or multiple someones) was very, very eager to prosecute a high profile case and didn't follow procedure - when procedure kills cases, as is incredibly well-established law. Puts the case in an entirely new light, or should. This isn't rocket science or new - anything that can possibly be helpful to the accused must be disclosed by the prosecution, period. It's shocking that the prosecutor would leave something like that out - because including something that's probably completely irrelevant isn't a burden, and makes your case airtight, as it should be.
Look, I know you are a "movie person" and that you nothing about the use and responsibility surrounding firearms. You have made that very clear. You want fantasy land protected from responsibility for their actions. It was clear that the sheriffs were boobs from the start. That became clear in the previous trial. I think they were intimidated by the hollywood scene of all this, or maybe they are stupid and incompetent all the time. I have certainly seen that. What you don't seem to be able to get your mind around is the fact that how live ammo got in the set was irrelevant to this case. Baldwin was under a legal obligation to treat that gun as if it were loaded at all times. The live round could have fallen into an empty chamber from Mars and it would not matter. He had to cock the gun, he had to point at Hutchins, he had to pull the trigger. There are no circumstances and analogies you can dream up that change those facts. He was not legally, morally, practically privileged to point that pistol at a human being and pull the trigger. The responsibility for those acts lay with him alone.
I understand that our system of law allows for the guilty to go free. That does not make them not guilty.
Please, for your and the sake of society please do not ever handle firearms. Your mindset is not compatible with that serious responsibility.
Except, you're wrong about me in all particulars. But while I follow gun safety rules scrupulously, I also know guns aren't magic - they're machines. And as machines you can keep them safe several ways. Responsible gun owners use multiple safety rules to protect against failure of any one or even two safety barriers, but that doesn't mean guns can fire unless they're loaded with live ammunition. If you obsessively control live ammunition rather than the firearm, you can keep the gun just as safe as when you obsessively control the firearm. For obvious reasons this is a lot harder for responsible gun owners - you actually want to shoot your gun, not quarantine your entire house of ammunition, and you'll have a lot more ammunition than guns even if you only own a single box of rounds or shells - so it's not a practical control for a firearm owner, but it IS a real control. No live round in the chamber, no bullet out the muzzle regardless of what you do to the gun. We are in agreement that Alec Baldwin is an asshole who hates guns so he isn't a responsible gun owner - because he's not one at all. But the safety rules in place for the set would work if followed - doesn't matter what you do to a gun if it never has live rounds in it. Repeating the fundamental gun safety rules doesn't change that guns will not go off without ammunition. So while I would never, ever point a gun at someone and I do follow all gun safety rules in my home and at my range, I also understand how a Hollywood set is different and why - because they do crap for dramatic effect that would never be safe in real life. I understand that guns take live rounds to fire, so that if you scrupulously control ammunition you can keep guns every bit as safe as if you scrupulously control the guns.
So no, I fully understand firearms, I can (and have) disassembled every firearm I own down to its basic components and the reassembled them, and in many instances have built them entirely from unassembled basic components. But though Alec Baldwin is a horrible person and an anti-gun fanatic, I'm not going to ignore that, if practiced as he had every expectation they were, the controls on ammunition and the loading of firearms were more than adequate to protect safety - because guns without live rounds cannot fire. Just because we do things entirely differently doesn't mean he has to do things the same way.
And the way to make more people who support gun rights and responsible gun ownership is to familiarize them with guns, not say "do not ever handle firearms". You take people to the range, teach them, let them responsibly fire a gun, and let them see that guns aren't black magic. The last thing you should do is tell someone never to handle them (unless they're a convicted felon or someone else rightly barred from owning them). Your mindset is entirely wrong there - more people being taught what guns are and how to handle them is better for all of us.
"Got away with it". We don't actually know anything about "got away" - we got the prosecution's case, then the ruling that the prosecution withheld evidence from the defense. We don't know everything that would have come out in the defense or what their final case would have been. Withholding any evidence, ANY, even if the prosecutor thinks it's not relevant, is a big, glaring error on the part of the police and prosecution in a high profile case - which raises a lot of questions. If this was an open and shut case they should have been forthcoming with everything and been prepared to deal with something as glaringly related as rounds delivered to the police by a retired detective who claimed they related to the case. But they weren't - so why? "Not relevant" is very, very fishy. But we'll learn more.
Alec Baldwin shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. He had a gun he thought was not loaded but never bothered to check. Ms. Hutchins was not his rival in a movie gunfight, and he had no need to point the gun at her and pull the trigger. While I don't always trust the FBI, their forensics work is usually first rate. If the FBI says the gun would not fire without the trigger being pulled, I believe them. When you point a gun at someone, pull the trigger and kill them, some punishment is in order. No one contends this was murder, but it was an entirely preventable death.
I completely disagree, Bob. An actor on a movie set, having been assured that a gun does not contain real bullets, not only probably couldn't look into the chamber and tell the difference between a live round and a blank, he shouldn't need to do so. It's not his job! Whether or not he actually pulled the trigger is irrelevant to me. I think the charges against him are ludicrous.
For all serious human activities, the same rules apply to actors on movie sets as they do to the rest of us. This whole carve out of responsibility for entertainers of all varieties is just nauseating to hear pleaded for by citizens who think they are responsible.
Movie actors, rock stars, professional athletes... They are not special, and their spaces are not special. We have great and maybe irreparable damage to this body politic, the dignity and responsibility of actual humans, and to our legal system, to allow this kind of puerile, childish nonsense to become common in our adult population. It is why it is disgusting to see adults using analogies and references to mindless entertainments in a discussion of a serious issue.
Whether or not he pulled the trigger is the only thing that matters here. Tell me you don't know anything about handling firearms in a couple more ways.
The gun was real, not a prop, and Baldwin knew it was real. Screen Actor Guild guidelines for the handling of firearms were ignored by Baldwin repeatedly, from what I have read and heard. Ultimately he is responsible for checking the firearm. He failed to do so and shot two people.
Screen Actor Guild guidelines actually forbid actors from doing safety and function checks on prop weapons, just as they're not allowed to crawl under the film cars to check the brakes and suspensions. Imagine all those 20-something Hollywood kids in "1917" attempting to field-strip century old French, German, and British squad weapons: it would be a accident prone mess. That's why there are armorers on hand specifically tasked for this.
This is exactly what I’m trying to get at when discussing the specific question of whether or not Baldwin should have been expected, under industry safety standards, to personally manipulate the gun. It might be best if only a trained expert handles things like assembly and loading and unloading.
It is possibly the case that the offense doesn’t rest on whether or not Baldwin should have unloaded and inspected the rounds—because he also pointed the gun in an unsafe direction and may not have practiced good trigger discipline. But the common discussion about the case keeps coming back to the loading and unloading question. In my personal opinion, it seems that such actions are most safe when only done by the designated, 100% responsible expert.
Who apparently wasn't even on set that day. Does that mean actors get to behave recklessly? Or maybe they should have shut down the set because "the expert" was not around to wipe their asses?
Small point, but bringing up the Amber Heard thing doesn't really fit. She lost because it became clear she had lied about basically everything. Better would be to describe the initial fervor *against* Johnny Depp, which almost certainly was stoked by the anti-white male celebrity energy that Baldwin now faces.
On a holiday weekend in my area two parents and their three adolescent girls were coming home from visiting grandparents. Their car was hit by a woman in an SUV who was speeding, ran a red light, and was texting when it happened. That driver was charged with 3 counts of involuntary manslaughter because had she not been reckless and ignored general safety practices she would not have killed all three girls and left their parents injured for life.
There are 3 basic safety standards with guns taught to anyone who learns anything about gun safety.
1. Always check any weapon you pick up to ensure it is not loaded.
2. Never point any gun at anything you do not intend to shoot.
3. Never pull the trigger unless you intend to shoot.
Had Mr. Baldwin obeyed any ONE of these safety practices then the tragedy, like the car accident, would not have happened. It took 3 safety failures to take a life .
That is the essence of Involuntary Manslaughter.
Furthermore, as the executive producer, safety on the set was HIS responsibility. He agreed to taken on that role. No one made him ( wanted to say held a gun to his head but that is in bad taste).
So not only is the trial holding him to the same standards as a woman texting while driving, it would be like that woman was job was ensuring highway safety also.
My opinion of Mr Baldwin is irrelevant. But either celebrities are held to the same standards as common people or our legal system is completely corrupt.
Charging is completely correct. Whether or not he is convicted is a question for a judge or jury to answer.
The actor on the set is to follow the instructions of the director [here pointing a gun and shooting it] and the paid armorer's actual job is to be sure no live ammo is on set. The actor is not the person who is to check out a gun anymore than the actor needs to have a car safety checked before it is driven for a movie scene. the criminal charges against the armorer were righteous. against the actor they are political theatre.
That's nonsense. There's a reason gun safety rules require *everyone* who picks up a gun to follow the rules- because the potential consequences of not doing so are deadly. You can't pass it off to someone else.
The judge has ruled that Baldwin's role as Executive Producer is irrelevant and isn't to be mentioned at trial. I don't agree but it's not an irrational ruling.
I took can agree with that ruling because none of the other producers are being charged. However, I was merely listing it as part of his responsibility over all... Not that it had to be part of the evidence. It would be like stating in a dozen of his other movies he carried fire arms and therefore this was not something he just happened upon and made a mistake like some child finding his father's gun. Since it was a regular part of his employment he had moral responsibility to practice safety.
Seems like negligent homicide would fit these cirumstances better. Not every citizen is familiar with the three common sense rules of trigger discipline mentioned throughout this discussion, but every driver has to know that speeding and running a stoplight while texting is practically begging for a fatality.
B. Involuntary manslaughter consists of manslaughter committed in the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to felony, or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death in an unlawful manner or without due caution and circumspection.
Whoever commits involuntary manslaughter is guilty of a fourth degree felony.
From the NM code... "Without due caution and circumspection" seems to fit the case
Alec Baldwin was familiar with the rules of trigger discipline. He discussed them in the police interview just after the shooting. He was taught them in training for this and every other film he's worked on with a gun on the set.
I think there’s a lot of hindsight bias at play here. Imagine almost the same scenario where Baldwin recklessly points the gun, pulls the trigger, but in this case, nothing happens because the gun does not have any live ammunition (presumably what anyone on that set would have expected). It may not even have been noticeable to anyone that this even occurred. Would anyone be advocating for prosecuting him for having pointed an empty gun and pulling the trigger, where nothing happened?
He's being prosecuted for manslaughter on a theory of negligent handling of a firearm. The situation you describe has no manslaughter. This one does. That's the difference.
Yes. I mis-wrote the name of the bias. I meant to say “outcome” bias. That is literally what you’ve said. The exact same action with the exact same intent; in his case resulting in death = guilty; in my hypothetical case not resulting in death = no problem. That’s outcome bias. It’s not logical or useful to hold someone morally culpable based on the outcome.
You are So Wrong! What is the purpose of law? Is it simply to punish bad behavior? NO! With respect o lethal weapons its purpose is to ensure that all those who brandish them act in a manner commensurate with the harm likely to be caused by misuse! If you are at a gun range or a bar or on the street and you point a lethal weapon at someone and pull the trigger, what do you suppose their response will be (assuming it fired a blank round)? I believe you would probably be beaten to a bloody pulp. Why? Because you have just committed the most reckless and insane “practical joke” that could very well have ended that person’s life! The law is designed to ensure that you - the gun handler - know that you will pay dearly for any harm you cause with that gun. Why? Because you - the gun handler -are the only person who can prevent this type of behavior. You need to take your responsibility seriously when you are handling a lethal weapon. What do you think the now dead director would have sId if it had been a blank round? Maybe, “WTF, Baldwin?!” She would have stopped the shoot and told him to find someone else to direct his movie. She could have sued him for reckless endangerment. He was not supposed to PULL THE TRIGGER! That was pure Baldwin uber-conceit-LARPing! No excuse for killing someone!
That's fundamental to our legal system- we prosecute based on outcomes, not potential outcomes. Medical negligence doesn't get prosecuted unless somebody gets hurt. Manslaughter doesn't get prosecuted unless there is a body.
People "get away with" acting irresponsibly every day. Outcome is the *only* way to morally prosecute them.
Actually he killed the woman. No one other than himself pulled the trigger no matter what he said. It may have been an accident but him assuming the gun wasn’t loaded was negligence.
Here’s hoping the family of the deceased end up owning a nice formerly used by Baldwin hamptons house and enough money to pay the upkeep and taxes for the next few decades.
How unbelieveably incredible that the prosecution suppressed clear evidence! The case deserved to be dismissed!!! Now, hold those who withheld that evidence culpable for their gross misconduct.!!! This is the USA thank heavens, not some third world kangaroo court country.
Nobody involved in that incident has any excuse. Not the armorer. Not the moron who pulled the trigger. Everyone involved ignored the first rule of gun safety; the gun is always loaded.
Don’t try to tell me that it was just a prop. Prop does not mean fake, or harmless. It means “property used in a production“. It was quite real.
The correct ammunition would not have made it safe to do what Alec Baldwin did. Remember how Jon-Eric Hexum died.
And….justice comes through. I opened my conversation here by combating the idiot notion that “negligence” somehow started and ended with Baldwin. There was only one question here…”Why was there live ammunition on a movie set with guns?” Many here fought back, “It doesn’t matter!” they said, “It’s not a valid question.” they posited. But, in the end, it was (and should have been) the only question.
We all know this wasn’t murder, it was a tragic accident. As such it is far more important to drill down to the cause, not dash toward some sort of vengeance “justice.” Perhaps now movie sets will have new rules. Perhaps now Hollywood will require genuinely trained armorers. In the end, however, I hope movie sets become safer places when it comes to firearms.
Once again the leftist legal system comes through for one of their own.
Why would they ever relinquish power?
I told you so! The judge in NM has just thrown this stupid, vindictive case out "with prejudice" meaning that it can never be brought again.
Here’s a true story about the NM law of involuntary manslaughter. A friend if mine in college (UNM) went to the hot springs outside of Albuquerque and spent the day partying with friends. He was driving home on the highway when he came up on a pickup truck that was driving very slowly in the left lane. He was annoyed and jerked into the right lane to pass the truck and then back into the left lane to get in front of it. He hit the front of the pickup with his car and it drove off the road and into a ditch. The occupants were a man and woman and their 3 year old who was riding without a seatbelt in between them. The child went through the windshield and died. My friend was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. His blood alcohol was high. He was 20 years old. So, tell me again why a 50 year old movie star is less culpable for the death he clearly caused?
Because Alec Baldwin wasn't driving drunk and didn't try to illegally pass another vehicle. And your analogy has almost nothing to do with the situation. If your friend had been racing down a road he'd been told (by professionals tasked with ensuring it was clear) was clear and safe and could not have other traffic on it, then slammed into the truck, you'd have a comparison. But you don't.
People DO do that, by the way. It happens in movies - you get the proper permits and permission, clear the right areas, and film your movie. They literally raced through downtown Chicago to film these scenes (https://youtu.be/8VFIPCpocLk?feature=shared). You think the filmmakers or the stunt drivers would be held responsible if the police had explicitly told them things were clear and they weren't, and someone died because of the police not doing their job? Nope.
Except that if Baldwin weren't an arrogant a**hole anti-gun nut who just knows better than all the stupid rubes who actually know how to handle guns, that woman would still be alive. No, he wasn't drunk, he was just incredibly, arrogantly negligent. No actual *legal* gun owner would have made the serial mistakes he made that led directly to her death.
(straps on suicide vest) I'm very glad and relieved Baldwin's case was dismissed and agree with everything Kat wrote. The whole thing was a disgusting circus.
Prosecutor screwed up in discovery He got away with it. Dismissed with prejudiced. He got away with it.
Yeah, this quote is from Robert Schilling, former chief of the New Mexico State Police, who was assigned to this case before being pulled off of it for reasons that are apparent. He sent it privately to the prosecutor's office, and it became public later. (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/12/arts/rust-trial-pause-alec-baldwin-shooting.html)
"The conduct of the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office during and after their initial investigation is reprehensible and unprofessional to a degree I still have no words for. Not I or 200 more proficient investigators than I can/could clean up the mess delivered to your office in October 2022 (1 year since the initial incident … inexcusable)."
Either the Sheriff's Office was entirely incompetent, or someone (or multiple someones) was very, very eager to prosecute a high profile case and didn't follow procedure - when procedure kills cases, as is incredibly well-established law. Puts the case in an entirely new light, or should. This isn't rocket science or new - anything that can possibly be helpful to the accused must be disclosed by the prosecution, period. It's shocking that the prosecutor would leave something like that out - because including something that's probably completely irrelevant isn't a burden, and makes your case airtight, as it should be.
Look, I know you are a "movie person" and that you nothing about the use and responsibility surrounding firearms. You have made that very clear. You want fantasy land protected from responsibility for their actions. It was clear that the sheriffs were boobs from the start. That became clear in the previous trial. I think they were intimidated by the hollywood scene of all this, or maybe they are stupid and incompetent all the time. I have certainly seen that. What you don't seem to be able to get your mind around is the fact that how live ammo got in the set was irrelevant to this case. Baldwin was under a legal obligation to treat that gun as if it were loaded at all times. The live round could have fallen into an empty chamber from Mars and it would not matter. He had to cock the gun, he had to point at Hutchins, he had to pull the trigger. There are no circumstances and analogies you can dream up that change those facts. He was not legally, morally, practically privileged to point that pistol at a human being and pull the trigger. The responsibility for those acts lay with him alone.
I understand that our system of law allows for the guilty to go free. That does not make them not guilty.
Please, for your and the sake of society please do not ever handle firearms. Your mindset is not compatible with that serious responsibility.
Except, you're wrong about me in all particulars. But while I follow gun safety rules scrupulously, I also know guns aren't magic - they're machines. And as machines you can keep them safe several ways. Responsible gun owners use multiple safety rules to protect against failure of any one or even two safety barriers, but that doesn't mean guns can fire unless they're loaded with live ammunition. If you obsessively control live ammunition rather than the firearm, you can keep the gun just as safe as when you obsessively control the firearm. For obvious reasons this is a lot harder for responsible gun owners - you actually want to shoot your gun, not quarantine your entire house of ammunition, and you'll have a lot more ammunition than guns even if you only own a single box of rounds or shells - so it's not a practical control for a firearm owner, but it IS a real control. No live round in the chamber, no bullet out the muzzle regardless of what you do to the gun. We are in agreement that Alec Baldwin is an asshole who hates guns so he isn't a responsible gun owner - because he's not one at all. But the safety rules in place for the set would work if followed - doesn't matter what you do to a gun if it never has live rounds in it. Repeating the fundamental gun safety rules doesn't change that guns will not go off without ammunition. So while I would never, ever point a gun at someone and I do follow all gun safety rules in my home and at my range, I also understand how a Hollywood set is different and why - because they do crap for dramatic effect that would never be safe in real life. I understand that guns take live rounds to fire, so that if you scrupulously control ammunition you can keep guns every bit as safe as if you scrupulously control the guns.
So no, I fully understand firearms, I can (and have) disassembled every firearm I own down to its basic components and the reassembled them, and in many instances have built them entirely from unassembled basic components. But though Alec Baldwin is a horrible person and an anti-gun fanatic, I'm not going to ignore that, if practiced as he had every expectation they were, the controls on ammunition and the loading of firearms were more than adequate to protect safety - because guns without live rounds cannot fire. Just because we do things entirely differently doesn't mean he has to do things the same way.
And the way to make more people who support gun rights and responsible gun ownership is to familiarize them with guns, not say "do not ever handle firearms". You take people to the range, teach them, let them responsibly fire a gun, and let them see that guns aren't black magic. The last thing you should do is tell someone never to handle them (unless they're a convicted felon or someone else rightly barred from owning them). Your mindset is entirely wrong there - more people being taught what guns are and how to handle them is better for all of us.
"Got away with it". We don't actually know anything about "got away" - we got the prosecution's case, then the ruling that the prosecution withheld evidence from the defense. We don't know everything that would have come out in the defense or what their final case would have been. Withholding any evidence, ANY, even if the prosecutor thinks it's not relevant, is a big, glaring error on the part of the police and prosecution in a high profile case - which raises a lot of questions. If this was an open and shut case they should have been forthcoming with everything and been prepared to deal with something as glaringly related as rounds delivered to the police by a retired detective who claimed they related to the case. But they weren't - so why? "Not relevant" is very, very fishy. But we'll learn more.
He is going to take a plea. I thought he lose all that bravado when he got in front of jury.
He likely will not go to prison; but he will be a convicted felon.
Alec Baldwin shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. He had a gun he thought was not loaded but never bothered to check. Ms. Hutchins was not his rival in a movie gunfight, and he had no need to point the gun at her and pull the trigger. While I don't always trust the FBI, their forensics work is usually first rate. If the FBI says the gun would not fire without the trigger being pulled, I believe them. When you point a gun at someone, pull the trigger and kill them, some punishment is in order. No one contends this was murder, but it was an entirely preventable death.
I completely disagree, Bob. An actor on a movie set, having been assured that a gun does not contain real bullets, not only probably couldn't look into the chamber and tell the difference between a live round and a blank, he shouldn't need to do so. It's not his job! Whether or not he actually pulled the trigger is irrelevant to me. I think the charges against him are ludicrous.
For all serious human activities, the same rules apply to actors on movie sets as they do to the rest of us. This whole carve out of responsibility for entertainers of all varieties is just nauseating to hear pleaded for by citizens who think they are responsible.
Movie actors, rock stars, professional athletes... They are not special, and their spaces are not special. We have great and maybe irreparable damage to this body politic, the dignity and responsibility of actual humans, and to our legal system, to allow this kind of puerile, childish nonsense to become common in our adult population. It is why it is disgusting to see adults using analogies and references to mindless entertainments in a discussion of a serious issue.
Whether or not he pulled the trigger is the only thing that matters here. Tell me you don't know anything about handling firearms in a couple more ways.
Baldwin can put that on his tombstone. "It was not my job"
The gun was real, not a prop, and Baldwin knew it was real. Screen Actor Guild guidelines for the handling of firearms were ignored by Baldwin repeatedly, from what I have read and heard. Ultimately he is responsible for checking the firearm. He failed to do so and shot two people.
Screen Actor Guild guidelines actually forbid actors from doing safety and function checks on prop weapons, just as they're not allowed to crawl under the film cars to check the brakes and suspensions. Imagine all those 20-something Hollywood kids in "1917" attempting to field-strip century old French, German, and British squad weapons: it would be a accident prone mess. That's why there are armorers on hand specifically tasked for this.
This is exactly what I’m trying to get at when discussing the specific question of whether or not Baldwin should have been expected, under industry safety standards, to personally manipulate the gun. It might be best if only a trained expert handles things like assembly and loading and unloading.
It is possibly the case that the offense doesn’t rest on whether or not Baldwin should have unloaded and inspected the rounds—because he also pointed the gun in an unsafe direction and may not have practiced good trigger discipline. But the common discussion about the case keeps coming back to the loading and unloading question. In my personal opinion, it seems that such actions are most safe when only done by the designated, 100% responsible expert.
Who apparently wasn't even on set that day. Does that mean actors get to behave recklessly? Or maybe they should have shut down the set because "the expert" was not around to wipe their asses?
Small point, but bringing up the Amber Heard thing doesn't really fit. She lost because it became clear she had lied about basically everything. Better would be to describe the initial fervor *against* Johnny Depp, which almost certainly was stoked by the anti-white male celebrity energy that Baldwin now faces.
On a holiday weekend in my area two parents and their three adolescent girls were coming home from visiting grandparents. Their car was hit by a woman in an SUV who was speeding, ran a red light, and was texting when it happened. That driver was charged with 3 counts of involuntary manslaughter because had she not been reckless and ignored general safety practices she would not have killed all three girls and left their parents injured for life.
There are 3 basic safety standards with guns taught to anyone who learns anything about gun safety.
1. Always check any weapon you pick up to ensure it is not loaded.
2. Never point any gun at anything you do not intend to shoot.
3. Never pull the trigger unless you intend to shoot.
Had Mr. Baldwin obeyed any ONE of these safety practices then the tragedy, like the car accident, would not have happened. It took 3 safety failures to take a life .
That is the essence of Involuntary Manslaughter.
Furthermore, as the executive producer, safety on the set was HIS responsibility. He agreed to taken on that role. No one made him ( wanted to say held a gun to his head but that is in bad taste).
So not only is the trial holding him to the same standards as a woman texting while driving, it would be like that woman was job was ensuring highway safety also.
My opinion of Mr Baldwin is irrelevant. But either celebrities are held to the same standards as common people or our legal system is completely corrupt.
Charging is completely correct. Whether or not he is convicted is a question for a judge or jury to answer.
The actor on the set is to follow the instructions of the director [here pointing a gun and shooting it] and the paid armorer's actual job is to be sure no live ammo is on set. The actor is not the person who is to check out a gun anymore than the actor needs to have a car safety checked before it is driven for a movie scene. the criminal charges against the armorer were righteous. against the actor they are political theatre.
That's nonsense. There's a reason gun safety rules require *everyone* who picks up a gun to follow the rules- because the potential consequences of not doing so are deadly. You can't pass it off to someone else.
The judge has ruled that Baldwin's role as Executive Producer is irrelevant and isn't to be mentioned at trial. I don't agree but it's not an irrational ruling.
I took can agree with that ruling because none of the other producers are being charged. However, I was merely listing it as part of his responsibility over all... Not that it had to be part of the evidence. It would be like stating in a dozen of his other movies he carried fire arms and therefore this was not something he just happened upon and made a mistake like some child finding his father's gun. Since it was a regular part of his employment he had moral responsibility to practice safety.
It doesn't matter now. Alec was acquitted because of prosecutorial misconduct. I would have preferred that a jury weigh the evidence.
Seems like negligent homicide would fit these cirumstances better. Not every citizen is familiar with the three common sense rules of trigger discipline mentioned throughout this discussion, but every driver has to know that speeding and running a stoplight while texting is practically begging for a fatality.
B. Involuntary manslaughter consists of manslaughter committed in the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to felony, or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death in an unlawful manner or without due caution and circumspection.
Whoever commits involuntary manslaughter is guilty of a fourth degree felony.
From the NM code... "Without due caution and circumspection" seems to fit the case
Alec Baldwin was familiar with the rules of trigger discipline. He discussed them in the police interview just after the shooting. He was taught them in training for this and every other film he's worked on with a gun on the set.
No sane gun owner would ever have done this. That is the problem. It is politics not liability.
I think there’s a lot of hindsight bias at play here. Imagine almost the same scenario where Baldwin recklessly points the gun, pulls the trigger, but in this case, nothing happens because the gun does not have any live ammunition (presumably what anyone on that set would have expected). It may not even have been noticeable to anyone that this even occurred. Would anyone be advocating for prosecuting him for having pointed an empty gun and pulling the trigger, where nothing happened?
He's being prosecuted for manslaughter on a theory of negligent handling of a firearm. The situation you describe has no manslaughter. This one does. That's the difference.
Yes. I mis-wrote the name of the bias. I meant to say “outcome” bias. That is literally what you’ve said. The exact same action with the exact same intent; in his case resulting in death = guilty; in my hypothetical case not resulting in death = no problem. That’s outcome bias. It’s not logical or useful to hold someone morally culpable based on the outcome.
You are So Wrong! What is the purpose of law? Is it simply to punish bad behavior? NO! With respect o lethal weapons its purpose is to ensure that all those who brandish them act in a manner commensurate with the harm likely to be caused by misuse! If you are at a gun range or a bar or on the street and you point a lethal weapon at someone and pull the trigger, what do you suppose their response will be (assuming it fired a blank round)? I believe you would probably be beaten to a bloody pulp. Why? Because you have just committed the most reckless and insane “practical joke” that could very well have ended that person’s life! The law is designed to ensure that you - the gun handler - know that you will pay dearly for any harm you cause with that gun. Why? Because you - the gun handler -are the only person who can prevent this type of behavior. You need to take your responsibility seriously when you are handling a lethal weapon. What do you think the now dead director would have sId if it had been a blank round? Maybe, “WTF, Baldwin?!” She would have stopped the shoot and told him to find someone else to direct his movie. She could have sued him for reckless endangerment. He was not supposed to PULL THE TRIGGER! That was pure Baldwin uber-conceit-LARPing! No excuse for killing someone!
That's fundamental to our legal system- we prosecute based on outcomes, not potential outcomes. Medical negligence doesn't get prosecuted unless somebody gets hurt. Manslaughter doesn't get prosecuted unless there is a body.
People "get away with" acting irresponsibly every day. Outcome is the *only* way to morally prosecute them.