So is that actually the case here? Are terms like “dangerous” and “due caution” more precisely defined in the law than how they commonly used?
IANAL but I thought there was the concept of (as it is described in the UK) “the man on the Clapham omnibus”, as in the legal definition of a term like this is whatever your average “man on the street” would consider it to be.
It’s not part of the protocol. It’s not required according the Screen Actors Guild Safety Bulletin linked above.
It only says:
The Property Master (or, in his/her absence. a weapons handler and/or other appropriate personnel determined by the locality or the needs of the production) is responsible for the following:
- Ensuring that any actor who is required to stand near the line of fire be allowed to witness the loading of the firearms.
Allowed, it is not an obligation that they do so.
- Checking all firearms before each use.
(Their emphasis)
There is no burden on the actor to check the gun.
And in this case, as I said, the revolver would not be empty. It would be expected to be loaded with dummy rounds that look very similar to live rounds.
It is not a conservative jurisdiction. Most of the 1st Judicial District is Santa Fe County which is fairly liberal, the elected prosecutor is a woman who ran as a Democrat and who has a history of working as both a deputy prosecutor and a public defender, as well as an advocate for victims of sexual assault. This doesn’t read like the resume of a Trumper prosecutor.
Here’s the relevant document from the Screen Actors Guild:
But it is part of the protocol that is usually followed (in sets that aren’t a horrifically unsafe shitshow). The DA would be able to bring in a raft of experts from the business who could testify in every show they’ve worked on that the actor checks the gun to ensure there is no bullet it in and verbally confirms that to be the case. That seems enough to show that “due caution” was not shown in this case.
I don’t think that’s the case. A “cold gun” (as the AD called out here) means a gun that has no ammunition blank or real. A “hot gun” would mean a gun with a blank in it. There is no term to describe a gun with real ammunition in as that should never ever ever ever happen. So the gun should have been completely empty with nothing in the chamber or barrel.
We’ve already seen a number of comments that suggest the actor checking the gun is nothing like an industry standard. The actors sometimes do, the armorer / AD on the other hand are always expected to hand the actors safe guns.
I think you’re misunderstanding. The revolver would have dummy rounds in it, for the camera, since it was to be pointed at the camera. It would look wrong if the chambers were empty.
Not blanks… not empty… dummy rounds.
That would correctly be described as a ‘cold gun’, since it did not have blanks in it.
Correct–you can see the bullets in a revolver from outside of the gun, so for filming you have to have something in there or the gun will be obviously empty.
They were rehearsing, though, so it wouldn’t matter how the gun looked.
Handling a gun is not dangerous. Handling a loaded gun can be. He did not know it was loaded. Unlike you or I if we found a gun, he had a reasonable belief that it was unloaded.
The prosecutor has to show he was knowingly doing something dangerous. “Knowingly” is the important word. This is not a strict liability crime.
They were rehearsing immediately before doing the take.
As soon as they had the camera correctly lined up, and the action of drawing the gun looking right, they would have filmed it.
It might be because he’s not famous enough to care about but I haven’t seen anything about Halls’ reaction to this whole mess.
Apparently he’s said nothing, and nobody in the media has been able to contact him. He’s also deleted all his social media accounts.
The same with Gutierrez-Reed.
Here’s how the right wing Facebook world spins it (taken from a real Facebook post):
What are the chances of Alec Baldwin- who starred in Hunt for Red October which was about a nuclear submarine in Murmansk- shooting and killing a woman, on a film set that NEVER has live ammunition? But this one did! Real bullets on a movie set! And what are the chances that he pointed the gun at her and her alone, nobody else but her, and she grew up in Murmansk the submarine base, that is famous for training in espionage? And what are the chances that she just happens to be married to a guy who works for a law firm that defends the Clintons? And what are the chances that she used to be an investigative journalist and her father used to be a Naval Commander at the nuclear submarine base of Murmansk? And she alone got killed!! By the actor who starred in a movie about espionage between the Soviet Union and the US! IN FARKING OCTOBER?
Seriously there are people who swear by this nonsense. The simple explanation is that the prop person made a mistake and that the gun was supposed to be fired at the camera because that’s what the scene called for. The right wing version has to, as a matter of necessity, involve the Clintons.
That article is pretty decently balanced. They spoke to Ron Kuby as well who is as far to the left as is humanly possible and is also a very experienced trial lawyer. The other lawyers in the article were hedging their bets. Their replies all amounted to “it depends.” They are right he’s a risk of being charged criminally. I agree with Kuby (first time ever) that his risk is very low.
Of course that’s barring any information that isn’t public yet.
In figuring exactly where the breach (s) in gun safety protocol occurred, I question if live ammunition is ever allowed on set?
Apparently, live ammo looks similar to blanks (with propellant) and unpainted dummy rounds (without propellant), at least to an untrained eye. In fact, according to my brief reading, dummy rounds look more similar to live ammo than blanks (which have a crimp around the mouth of the case). So, an untrained actor may not be able to tell the difference, even if he did inspect a gun loaded with dummy rounds before firing.
Parsing what conservatives believe and why they believe it is an exercise in futility. Literally – that way lies madness.
On set, guns are pointed at people all the time.
If cold, this should be no issue.
If loaded with blanks, i.e hot, then if pointed at camera, a plexiglass shield is used to protect the crew from the mild but real danger of blanks.
Having read most of this thread and many of the news stories, my speculation is that the inexperienced young armorer and the assistant director with a track record of safety violations are the ones at risk of being charged with criminal negligence. Baldwin obviously feels a great deal of moral distress, but it was the other two who failed to do their jobs.
Yes but which of the other 11 were actors handling weapons? Baldwin was in a unique position to ensure safety procedures were adhered to.
The explanation that he thought the gun wasn’t loaded is probably one of the most listed reasons in accidental shootings.
THE number one rule in gun safety is to assume it’s loaded.
He didn’t follow standard gun safety protocols regardless of what standards are set by the studio.