7 ms·

If an actor is handed a gun and told it has fake ammo, how would they know the difference to not be charged with involuntary manslaughter?

by ChoGGi 4y ago

perrygeo 4y ago
The actor wouldn't. The producer who let live ammo anywhere near a set would. He's being charged as the head of production, not as the actor who was unfortunate enough to pull the trigger. The fact that he's both is just a cruel twist of fate.
- ianceicys 4y ago
  "cruel twist of fate." no Alec Baldwin was not responsible as both a producer and actor, now he is being held accountable as he was in every sense of the word responsible for manslaughter...even involuntarily. Cruelty is reserved for the grief of the individual who had their life abruptly ended, and the grief of family of the deceased.
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  According to CNN [1] this is not true. Baldwin is facing charges for his direct actions as an actor (who pulled the trigger) and as the producer. I imagine this will be very confusing for a jury to unpack, and I think it’s unfortunate. To quote the DA: Other actors — including "A-list" celebrities — consulted by prosecutors said they "always check their guns or have someone check it in front of them," Carmack-Altwies told CNN shortly after announcing her intention to file involuntary manslaughter charges. Every person that handles a gun has a duty to make sure that if they're going to handle that gun, point it at someone and pull the trigger, that it is not going to fire a projectile and kill someone," she said. She added, "An actor does not get a free pass just because they are an actor. That is what is so important. We are saying here in New Mexico, that everyone is equal under the law." The piece goes on to note that the “criminal liability as a producer” case would have different requirements than the “criminal liability as an actor” case, presumably because one case would need to argue that on-set safety was actually Baldwin’s responsibility and he was specifically negligent in that duty. But based on the DA’s quotes it looks like she is going for a very broad theory of liability that mixes the two roles up (ie as the producer he should have known to take special care when handed a cold gun as an actor.) It says that CNN’s legal expert found the case to be very unusual, FWIW. I’ll be honest that this case has a whiff of “small town DA wanting to get a bigger political profile” to it, but I guess we’ll see. [1] https://www.kcra.com/amp/article/alec-baldwin-rust-charges-why/42581449 https://www.kcra.com/amp/article/alec-baldwin-rust-charges-w...
  - perrygeo 4y ago
    Interesting! Thanks for the clarification. Gun safety etiquette dictates that the handler is always responsible for their own ammo. Alec the actor should definitely not get a free pass. I didn't realize there were criminal ramifications too. Alec the producer is guilty of a far worse crime IMO. It could have easily been someone else who pulled the trigger.
    - matthewdgreen 4y ago
      Standard gun safety procedures are excellent, but don’t really have any bearing here. Just as a professional chemical laboratory has different safety procedures (and responsibilities/expectations for workers) than, say, your house: a film set also has different expectations and safety procedures when it comes to weapons. I’m no expert, but my understanding is that film sets need to allow actors to use guns in specific ways that would never be acceptable in normal gun ownership, such as to point (“cold”) props at people and pull the trigger. To enable this specialized usage the industry has developed a very specific set of safety standards tailored to this use-case. It involves hiring specially-trained professional armorers to manage all of the prop weapons on the set, and it also puts in place a new set of communication procedures to ensure that armorers can communicate with actors to let them know when they’re dealing with an unsafe weapon. From what I can tell, Baldwin the actor followed these safety procedures exactly as expected. There is a separate question of whether Baldwin the executive producer has liability. To answer that you can’t just say “but he has a producer credit!” You’d need to actually show that (1) he had responsibility over hiring or on-set safety, and separately that (2) in that role he was negligent. It’s not really clear that an executive producer has that responsibility, usually it’s just a meaningless vanity credit. What’s confusing about this case (from what I can tell) is that the DA realizes that both of these individual cases is kind of weak. And so instead she’s going for a hybrid case where Baldwin the actor followed the normal safety standards, but this isn’t sufficient because he somehow has to follow a non-standard (higher) set of safety standards because “as the producer he should have been aware that the professional armorer wasn’t trustworthy.” I’m not saying this argument is wrong, exactly. But I think it’s vague enough that it might allow a jury to disregard the legal safety requirements and invent new ones out of whole cloth. PS I find this case fascinating and I don’t apologize for it! But I do apologize for the long post.
bogantech 4y ago
They are supposed to follow strict safety rules to prevent things like this happening, like guns being handed over only by the armorer (who wasn't even there in this instance). I'm pretty sure that being the film's producer he is liable.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
torstenvl 4y ago
If you're going to pick up a weapon, point it at someone, and pull the trigger, what happens next is your responsibility, regardless of any other context. If you aren't willing to learn the difference between dummy rounds, blanks, and live rounds, then you shouldn't be pointing firearms at people and pulling the trigger.
- seanw444 4y ago
  Agreed. If he wanted to have real firearms there, he needs to know how to operate real firearms. If he hired the armorer (or another person dedicated to firearms safety) to teach him how to do that, and they failed at that job, then the they should get their fair share of blame / repercussions. Which it sounds like they did, with a "negligent handling of a deadly weapon" or something. Ultimately, though, as someone that is very familiar with guns, I have a hard time sympathizing with Baldwin. You brought real guns onto the set, and you pointed them at people. Primarily people that had no business having the guns pointed at them. It wasn't even another actor during filming, which I would have at least understood to some degree. It seems like the perfect storm of things had happened for him to "accidentally" kill this person he didn't like. At the end of the day, any actors / set workers handling real firearms should have thorough training before using them. Trigger discipline, how to check the chamber, identifying cartridge types, emptying the chamber before setting it down, not aiming at people who aren't even actors...
  - RansomStark 4y ago
    > you pointed them at people. Primarily people that had no business having the guns pointed at them. It wasn't even another actor during filming, which I would have at least understood to some degree. the scene involved pointing the gun towards the camera, which means the gun is pointing towards the crew. > Trigger discipline How do you maintain trigger discipline when the scene requires you to point a gun at someone, or in someones general direction, with your finger on the trigger? > check the chamber, identifying cartridge types, emptying the chamber before setting it down If an actor tries to check the chamber, messes with the cartridges, the gun immediately goes back to the armorer to be made safe before being handed back to the actor, if the actor check again, guess what happens? It's very important to understand that on a film set the standard rules do not apply, or more precisely the rules apply in different ways.

If an actor is handed a gun and told it has fake ammo, how would they know the difference to not be charged with involuntary manslaughter?

by ChoGGi 4y ago

If an actor is handed a gun and told it has fake ammo, how would they know the difference to not be charged with involuntary manslaughter?

perrygeo 4y ago

The actor wouldn't. The producer who let live ammo anywhere near a set would. He's being charged as the head of production, not as the actor who was unfortunate enough to pull the trigger. The fact that he's both is just a cruel twist of fate.

ianceicys 4y ago
"cruel twist of fate." no Alec Baldwin was not responsible as both a producer and actor, now he is being held accountable as he was in every sense of the word responsible for manslaughter...even involuntarily. Cruelty is reserved for the grief of the individual who had their life abruptly ended, and the grief of family of the deceased.
matthewdgreen 4y ago
According to CNN [1] this is not true. Baldwin is facing charges for his direct actions as an actor (who pulled the trigger) and as the producer. I imagine this will be very confusing for a jury to unpack, and I think it’s unfortunate. To quote the DA: Other actors — including "A-list" celebrities — consulted by prosecutors said they "always check their guns or have someone check it in front of them," Carmack-Altwies told CNN shortly after announcing her intention to file involuntary manslaughter charges. Every person that handles a gun has a duty to make sure that if they're going to handle that gun, point it at someone and pull the trigger, that it is not going to fire a projectile and kill someone," she said. She added, "An actor does not get a free pass just because they are an actor. That is what is so important. We are saying here in New Mexico, that everyone is equal under the law." The piece goes on to note that the “criminal liability as a producer” case would have different requirements than the “criminal liability as an actor” case, presumably because one case would need to argue that on-set safety was actually Baldwin’s responsibility and he was specifically negligent in that duty. But based on the DA’s quotes it looks like she is going for a very broad theory of liability that mixes the two roles up (ie as the producer he should have known to take special care when handed a cold gun as an actor.) It says that CNN’s legal expert found the case to be very unusual, FWIW. I’ll be honest that this case has a whiff of “small town DA wanting to get a bigger political profile” to it, but I guess we’ll see. [1] https://www.kcra.com/amp/article/alec-baldwin-rust-charges-why/42581449 https://www.kcra.com/amp/article/alec-baldwin-rust-charges-w...
- perrygeo 4y ago
  Interesting! Thanks for the clarification. Gun safety etiquette dictates that the handler is always responsible for their own ammo. Alec the actor should definitely not get a free pass. I didn't realize there were criminal ramifications too. Alec the producer is guilty of a far worse crime IMO. It could have easily been someone else who pulled the trigger.
  - matthewdgreen 4y ago
    Standard gun safety procedures are excellent, but don’t really have any bearing here. Just as a professional chemical laboratory has different safety procedures (and responsibilities/expectations for workers) than, say, your house: a film set also has different expectations and safety procedures when it comes to weapons. I’m no expert, but my understanding is that film sets need to allow actors to use guns in specific ways that would never be acceptable in normal gun ownership, such as to point (“cold”) props at people and pull the trigger. To enable this specialized usage the industry has developed a very specific set of safety standards tailored to this use-case. It involves hiring specially-trained professional armorers to manage all of the prop weapons on the set, and it also puts in place a new set of communication procedures to ensure that armorers can communicate with actors to let them know when they’re dealing with an unsafe weapon. From what I can tell, Baldwin the actor followed these safety procedures exactly as expected. There is a separate question of whether Baldwin the executive producer has liability. To answer that you can’t just say “but he has a producer credit!” You’d need to actually show that (1) he had responsibility over hiring or on-set safety, and separately that (2) in that role he was negligent. It’s not really clear that an executive producer has that responsibility, usually it’s just a meaningless vanity credit. What’s confusing about this case (from what I can tell) is that the DA realizes that both of these individual cases is kind of weak. And so instead she’s going for a hybrid case where Baldwin the actor followed the normal safety standards, but this isn’t sufficient because he somehow has to follow a non-standard (higher) set of safety standards because “as the producer he should have been aware that the professional armorer wasn’t trustworthy.” I’m not saying this argument is wrong, exactly. But I think it’s vague enough that it might allow a jury to disregard the legal safety requirements and invent new ones out of whole cloth. PS I find this case fascinating and I don’t apologize for it! But I do apologize for the long post.

bogantech 4y ago

They are supposed to follow strict safety rules to prevent things like this happening, like guns being handed over only by the armorer (who wasn't even there in this instance). I'm pretty sure that being the film's producer he is liable.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

torstenvl 4y ago

If you're going to pick up a weapon, point it at someone, and pull the trigger, what happens next is your responsibility, regardless of any other context. If you aren't willing to learn the difference between dummy rounds, blanks, and live rounds, then you shouldn't be pointing firearms at people and pulling the trigger.

seanw444 4y ago
Agreed. If he wanted to have real firearms there, he needs to know how to operate real firearms. If he hired the armorer (or another person dedicated to firearms safety) to teach him how to do that, and they failed at that job, then the they should get their fair share of blame / repercussions. Which it sounds like they did, with a "negligent handling of a deadly weapon" or something. Ultimately, though, as someone that is very familiar with guns, I have a hard time sympathizing with Baldwin. You brought real guns onto the set, and you pointed them at people. Primarily people that had no business having the guns pointed at them. It wasn't even another actor during filming, which I would have at least understood to some degree. It seems like the perfect storm of things had happened for him to "accidentally" kill this person he didn't like. At the end of the day, any actors / set workers handling real firearms should have thorough training before using them. Trigger discipline, how to check the chamber, identifying cartridge types, emptying the chamber before setting it down, not aiming at people who aren't even actors...
- RansomStark 4y ago
  > you pointed them at people. Primarily people that had no business having the guns pointed at them. It wasn't even another actor during filming, which I would have at least understood to some degree. the scene involved pointing the gun towards the camera, which means the gun is pointing towards the crew. > Trigger discipline How do you maintain trigger discipline when the scene requires you to point a gun at someone, or in someones general direction, with your finger on the trigger? > check the chamber, identifying cartridge types, emptying the chamber before setting it down If an actor tries to check the chamber, messes with the cartridges, the gun immediately goes back to the armorer to be made safe before being handed back to the actor, if the actor check again, guess what happens? It's very important to understand that on a film set the standard rules do not apply, or more precisely the rules apply in different ways.