Baldwin "The trigger wasn't pulled. I didn't pull the trigger."

[88E30M50]

Unless he meant to shoot her, it was an accident. I don't see this as a criminal matter. What does society gain by anyone going to jail for this? It is much more a civil matter in my mind.

Did they ever actually determine how the live round ended up in the gun?

I disagree. There are processes and rules that were ignored and it ultimately cost a young women her life. Baldwin was the person running the operation and was responsible for the complacency in regards to safety. Early in the reporting, it was said that the armorer was not allowed on the set and placed the guns outside on a table where the AD picked them up and took them inside.

When you have a leadership team that hires an inexperienced armorer and then interferes with her ability to perform her job, while taking a lax approach to safety, it sounds like criminal negligence. The armorer is part of the problem too if she allowed this to happen without raising the red flag on the whole set.

 

[Butch627]

Wasn't the armorer for Rust the daughter of the biggest named armorer in Hollywood?

He was a well respected armorer but from what I heard his daughter did not grow up with him or in the business.
Since the Harvey Weinstein thing women have been pushed into supervisory jobs with little experience, knowledge, or training. Gender, pronouns, wokeness etc are more important than experience or competency. She was also doing props and armorer in an effort to save budget money, for a show like that with so much gunplay that was a disaster waiting to happen. Many propmasters are qualified to be armorers but only do both on one show when firearms are only used a couple of times.

 

[KittySlayer]

Looks like they are all suing each other.

Probably why they are finishing the film with a shooter and shootee. Need the money to pay all the lawyers to pursue lawsuits.

Lawyers, Guns, and Money.

 

[360willys]

Wonder if he’ll stick with the Bart Simpson defense, I didn’t do it.

If they treated every gun like it was loaded we wouldn't be in this situation. or load your own damn gun!

Sent from my moto z4 using Tapatalk

 

[hopper68]

Yes. Yes he did. And that one's gone now too.

Waiting on a reply from Tristen ver. 3.0

 

[KG1]

Waiting on a reply from Tristen ver. 3.0

Next version will probably be "NotTristenXX"

 

[KellyinAvon]

Next version will probably be "NotTristenXX"

 

[KG1]

Ever vigilant.

 

[nad63]

Saw a TV interview with another film armourer. Very articulate and shot down the reporter trying to portray checking the gun was safe as a major ordeal.
Quite firmly stated it is everyone’s individual responsibility to check the gun was safe.
Clearly showed the dummy rounds which had a hole in the primer and two drill holes through the cartridge itself, also meant to have two BB’s inside each dummy round so they rattle when shaken.
He also held up a similar revolver and clearly explained and showed it cannot fire without the trigger being depressed.
The guy did a Stella job.
Baldwin also did not receive the gun from the armourer, whom he hired, so at a minimum deviated from SOP.
Assuming that same expert is called to testify I would say there would be no denying Baldwin pulled the trigger.

 

[Butch627]

Heres a bit of a tangent that I will probably regret bringing up lol.
In the final scene Baldwin may have followed through with pulling the hammer back and pulling the trigger. The segment they were rehearsing may or may not have been planned to follow through that far. It is not implausable to me that either the DP or the director could have asked him to go farther than just drawing the gun to see how it looked through the camera. There were more than a dozen people who heard exactly what was said on that set.

Safeguards were not put in place for him to pull the trigger with dummy rounds in the gun but no safeguards were followed for any of this anyway.

Ill bet over the years that there have been dozens of scenes filmed where a gun is drawn, aimed at the camera and trigger pulled with no mishaps no matter what the gun handling rules outside of the film business may be.

Another tangent. Now that the AD who had no business even touching the gun or declaring it cold has reached a plea bargain Ill bet his testimony will be most interesting. He could have taken the gun without the armorers knowing, and/or taken the wrong gun.

The entire pulling the trigger was witnessed by quite a few people, Whatever happened with the AD acquiring the gun could very well have had no witnesses at all and be a "he said/she said" between him and the armorer.

 

[SheepDog4Life]

Another tangent. Now that the AD who had no business even touching the gun or declaring it cold has reached a plea bargain Ill bet his testimony will be most interesting. He could have taken the gun without the armorers knowing, and/or taken the wrong gun.

Agreed... and Baldwin had no business accepting the gun or the declaration of the gun's condition from him... he's not the armorer.

 

[hooky]

You know you're in for a rough ride when the Atlantic is putting this out.

A Film-Industry Armorer on the Rust Shooting Charges

Who’s responsible for the on-set shooting, and how can another be prevented?

www.theatlantic.com

Baldwin has to have gone up another notch on the pucker scale after reading that.

 

[Magyars]

 

[Frontiersman]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised it's still a hot topic. I guess my big disappointment with this is that he isn't man enough to own his poor gun stewardship. He pulled the trigger without knowing what was in his hand. Simple. Blaming it on someone or something else won't bring her back. No integrity.

 

[jwamplerusa]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised it's still a hot topic. I guess my big disappointment with this is that he isn't man enough to own his poor gun stewardship. He pulled the trigger without knowing what was in his hand. Simple. Blaming it on someone or something else won't bring her back. No integrity.

He's a Hollywood actor. I can probably count the currently working actors with integrity on one hand.

Very few in Hollywood are likely to own their s***.

 

[KG1]

Nate the Laywer makes a compelling case for an involuntary manslaughter conviction. As an added bonus he also briefly makes a compelling case that Joyless Behar is an idiot which is a slam dunk. If she were able to be tried, she would be convicted and given a life sentence.

 

[Alamo]

A guy on Texaschlforum noted that Baldwin is a member of the Actors Equity Association, a long-standing actor’s union,

Alec Baldwin · Actors' Equity Association

and they have a firearm safety rules page on their website that is interesting to read (as in Baldwin pretty much violated all tne rules).

Safety Tips for Use of Firearms · Actors' Equity Association

Also the prosecutor’s Statement of Probable cause claims that Baldwin skipped the pre-production firearms training that the rest of the crew had to attend, and when the armorer scheduled an hour of training just for him she says he stayed only 30 minutes and was distracted by repeated phone calls with his family. The prosecutor also says he approached the first officers to respond and told them he “fired” the gun.

You can read the Statement of Probable Cause here:
https://www.scribd.com/document/623072438/Alec-Baldwin-Probable-Cause-Statement[/url

 

[actaeon277]

 

[BigRed]

Sounds like he might be working on a new movie, "Soap on a Rope".

 

[MinuteManMike]

Apparently that movie production was also a bit loosy-goosey. The prop people made their own dummy rounds by pulling the bullet from live rounds, dumping the powder, and reseating the bullet. But they didnt pull the primers. The gun was loaded with the dummy rounds and used in a scene where the trigger was pulled. No-one noticed the little pop nor noticed that when the gun was unloaded a dummy round was missing its bullet, which was lodged in the barrel. For a later scene gun was reloaded with blank rounds, pointed at Brandon, and BOOM. .44 IIRC. Not really a “fragment” (fragment of the total cartridge I suppose) but a lot of stories use that term. Clever bit of PR on someone’s part.

Lot of bad decisions and procedures there too, but IIRC everyone skated, at least on criminal charges.

Wow. I've not heard that before.