Any new charges based on replacement parts seems a bit ridiculous on its face.
Why is the question of whether he pulled the trigger relevant to anything? The safety of a prop gun should not depend to any degree on whether an actor whose job it is to hold and point the gun pulls the trigger. Even if the scene did not call for him to pull the trigger, it’s obviously foreseeable that he might do so inadvertently.
Yes, I know the FBI broke it. It just seems… unlikely. Unless they went out of their way to break it, such as cocking it and repeatedly dropping it on concrete to see if it would fire or something.
The whole thing seems strange. I would have thought Baldwin’s culpability would come down to how much care an actor should take with a gun that’s been handed to him while being told it was a ‘cold gun’, or how much liability he should assume for not demanding that the gun be demonstrated to be cold as the ACTRA advisory calls for.
Testing the gun should have been the simplest part of this. There is just not much that can go wrong in a revolver.
This is what a disassembled Colt Single Action Army looks like:
There’s nothing to it. A rotating cylinder, a hammer with a spur gear that rotates the cylinder, a spring and a trigger. The rest are just bits holding it together. The gun should have been validated as to proper working order in about 15 minutes. Balldwin’s claim that it just ‘went off’ without him touching the trigger would have been trivial to check.
So, a conspiracy by the FBI to protect Baldwin?
No, I doubt that. More likely someone dropped the gun, or took it apart and reassembled it wrong, or something. it’s just strange.
From here:
Hammer at full cock position
[snip]
During this testing, portions of the trigger sear and cylinder stop fractured while the hammer was struck. The fracture of these internal components allowed the hammer to fall and the firing pin and detonated the primer. This was the only successful discharge during this testing and it was attributed to the fracture of internal components, not the failure of the firearm or safety mechanisms.
Accidental Discharge
An accidental discharge test is conducted in all modes of fire for a particular firearm, utilizing a primed cartridge case or shotshell case. The firearm is struck with a rawhide or similar styled mallet on its six planes: front of muzzle, butt plate, top of breech and chamber, bottom of trigger guard and frame and both sides of the receiver/frame. If necessary, tests can be undertaken in order to attempt to duplicate the conditions under which the firearm discharged.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/14/entertainment/rust-shooting-gun-trigger/index.html
“The FBI was unable to fire the gun in any prior test, even when pulling the trigger, because it was in such poor condition.”
It should be noted that that quote was from Alec’s attorney.
This was exactly what I thought. But there have been people arguing in this thread that it was all Mr. Baldwin’s responsibility to make sure the gun was safe and/or to not to point it at anyone (even if the scene called for it). If prosecutors can get 12 people on a jury with those same opinions, they could get a conviction. I don’t think they will but the prosecutors seem hell bent on proving me wrong.
I think prosecutors are putting a lot weight into Alex’s statements that he didn’t pull the trigger when, most likely, he did. Prosecutors love to tear into people who give statements that conflict with provable facts. Usually they are lying to cover up misdeeds. Here, as I think I said above, Mr. Baldwin probably didn’t realize that he pulled the trigger, and every time he thinks about the events of that day, he likely further convinces himself that he didn’t. It’s also possible that he knows he pulled the trigger but is denying it because it makes him seem less culpable. This is an example of why you shouldn’t talk to police, even if you are entirely innocent. It’s almost impossible to talk yourself out of trouble but very easy to talk yourself into it.
They were trying to get a camera angle on the gun with it cocked and Baldwin was manipulating the hammer as part of that. My guess is that he had the trigger pulled while he was manipulating the hammer back and forth to get it looking right from the camera view.
It would then be somewhat factual to say that he didn’t pull the trigger when the gun fired because it was already pulled.
The linked video is not graphic. It’s not from when she was shot, it’s rehearsal of a different scene.
Going by the newly released footage from the set, it appears Baldwin was very much in charge and displaying concern for the crew’s safety.
But I also don’t see an armorer or gun safety expert anywhere in sight. Nor does it appear the actor is consulting with anyone else about firearms safety on the set. IF Baldwin was acting as his own expert, this footage could be damning.
Considering a new story indicating the armorer is a total doofus, the Rust cast and crew may have been somewhat on their own in terms of keeping an eye on one another’s safety.
She was behind the camera, that’s who he was talking to.
What did you expect to see in a clip of him in the middle of a scene, laying on the ground, between takes? Why would he be consulting with an expert about firearms safety at that moment?
No, that’s supposed to be the cinematographer, not the armorer.
He’s speaking to “Halyna” and/or whoever is operating the camera. If the armorer was present on set, she’s certainly keeping quiet.
Right sorry, I got the names mixed up. But my question still remains. Why would you expect to hear Alec and the armorer discussing firearm safety between takes? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending her, I’m just not sure what difference it makes?
But I don’t know much about this other than the little I picked up in this thread. Is there supposed to be some type of safety briefing done by an expert between takes?
AIUI, it’s not uniformly a legal or regulatory mandate, but it is an industry “best practice” to have a safety briefing before any filming that will require use of live (including blanks) firearms. Not necessarily between every single take but before you bring them on set and put them in the cast’s hands – and from most reports it sounds like Rust were playing it fast and loose with that to begin with. At this point that footage seems to be a discussion between the people on the set about concerns they may have, but which they do not escalate to asking for a stand-down for re-check/re-brief or a rethinking of the scene to be shot.
It’s my understanding that the armorer on set is never very far away from any actor using a firearm.
I keep going back to the same conclusion. I don’t think Baldwin should be charged. I just have not seen evidence he committed a crime to be convicted for.
Then again, this is speculation as I have not see everything prosecutors may have seen.
I concur. What he did was perfectly normal and usual for a film set.
Baldwin was concerned about the blank wadding hitting crew. I’ve heard it can sting when someone is close to the gun. There’s always the concern for eye safety.
Hollywood safety regs were so good that the idea of real ammo getting onto the set was unthinkable. It just didn’t happen.
Until some idiot mixed up blanks and real ammo in the same box. Even then, the armorer that loaded the guns should have caught the error. That’s two levels of safety that failed.
The 3rd failure occured when Baldwin’s gun unexpectedly fired during a rehearsal. The new video shows that Baldwin did think about crew safety when he intended to shoot. Blanks can be harmful but they shouldn’t kill anyone.
It took three failures for this tragedy to occur.