If that’s going to be the legal standard in New Mexico, there’ll never be a Western filmed there again. Or, at least, an insured one.
This is why hundreds if not thousands of people are shot every year on television and film sets.
Except early in this thread, there were posts about how actors take gun safety courses as part of prepping for a film that involves handling firearms.
There were links to articles where actors were quoted saying that they personally would check a gun, or insist on the armourer demonstrating to them that the guns was safe.
That’s not a difficult standard to meet, and wouldn’t mean no movies being filmed.
If Baldwin didn’t do that, then he may be liable.
Except that film crews have entire systems set up to enable this usage. Specifically because they know they’re going to use guns (or gun-like objects) in ways that violate the principles of safe gun usage everywhere else. These systems were created for this exact scenario. When there is a failure in the system, that needs to be addressed, but it’s not clear that putting the blame on the actor, who is the intended beneficiary of this system, is the best way to address this failure.
John Landis got off awfully light for maintaining an unsafe set that lead to the death of an adult and at least one child.
I’m assuming that most film companies and actors take their responsibility for firearm safety seriously. But that doesn’t amount to saying that the last person holding the gun doesn’t have to. It has to be a complete chain of gun safety. If it breaks down in a particular case or on a particular set, there can be personal liability, for the person who didn’t respect the gun safety rules.
That’s what trials address. Did the beneficiary of the system himself comply with the rules?
“You should not point a gun at someone that you’re not willing to shoot,” the district attorney for Santa Fe County, Mary Carmack-Altwies, said in an interview.
On a movie set. The prosecutor is a fucking idiot.
He was drawing it at the camera during a rehearsal of a scene where he’s supposed to draw at the camera.
That prosecutor is a fucking moron.
From the article,
That don’t make no sense. “Involuntary manslaughter” gets you 18 months; “Involuntary manslaughter in the commission of a lawful act” gets you mandatory 5 years? If they admit it was a lawful act, why is an additional 3.5 years added on? So, if I break into your house in New Mexico and push you to get you out of the way; you stumble and fall down the stairs. Sounds like “involuntary manslaughter”; it was during the commission of an illegal act, but only gets 18 months?
BTW - is Baldwin being charged because he was the person holding the gun, or because he hired Gutierrez-Reed?
As I understand the report, the armorer, the AD and Baldwin all were up for charges and the AD right away signed a plea agreement for misdemeanor negligent use of a weapon.
I am not surprised Gutierrez-Reed and Baldwin will face involuntary manslaughter. She was responsible for preventing the live rounds being there, and his gand was operating the firearm plus as producer he was responsible for the whole operation. I too think there is likely to be eventually a pleadown, or conviction of the lesser charge.
This article said that the prosecutor consulted with actors who said they always either check their gun or have someone check it in front of them when filming.
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.
I’d be interested to know if this is really true, as a non-lawyer, non-gun user, non-actor. I can see Baldwin being charged if there’s evidence that his influence contributed to an unsafe situation on set, like not doing something about the reported safety issues. But if he’s being charged because he was handling the gun at the time it went off, I’m a little more surprised, as I thought the rules for gun safety were different for a movie environment as compared to using your own weapon in your personal life.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/us/santa-fe-alec-baldwin-rust-charged/index.html
The point that you’re missing is that gun-handling for a movie is VASTLY different than gun-handling for ordinary life. In ordinary life, anybody who pointed a gun at somebody and pulled the trigger would be grossly negligent, at best. But sometimes actors are REQUIRED to do such actions.
Yes, and therefore there is all the greater need for training in gun-handling, because they are doing things which are dangerous.
If you’re consciously doing something that is generally accepted as dangerous, then the standard for criminal negligence is stricter accordingly.
It’s a variant on the Spiderman ethos: “With great danger, comes great responsibility.”
Uh, no. I suspect in that case, assuming you were committing a felony by breaking into an occupied dwelling, you might just be charged with murder. But that would of course depend on the specifics of New Mexico’s laws.
The enhancement isn’t for it being for a “lawful act” but for involving a firearm. Which, you know what? I’m okay with. If you’re going to handle a firearm, then you damn well better take extraordinary care—more so even than you might just going up and down the stairs.
In principle, I am fine with the idea that firearm owners or operators should be held to a more exacting standard for their incompetence given how inherently deadly a mishandled firearm can be, even if lawfully obtained and possessed.
ETA: As to the propriety of charging Baldwin… I think there are some important questions raised about the extent to which filmmakers should be permitted to deviate from customary levels of care in using real, fully operable (and, here, antique or similarly styled!) firearms in movies and whether actors should be absolved of the usual duties of care when handling a firearm on set. Because the “well of course it’s okay to point a real gun capable of discharging real bullets at someone so long as it’s a movie set and some non-union 20-something said it was safe!” line of reasoning is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
This sounds kind of like deciding to charge someone for jaywalking because other pedestrians told you they never cross against the light.
I really hope there was more to the decision than that.
That type of evidence goes to the standard of care necessary to establish criminal negligence in the specific case of movie sets. If 9 out of 10 actors require that sort of check, because that’s what their training has taught them to do, and the 10th actor doesn’t, in spite of the training, that’s evidence that actor 10 may have been negligent.
What is the industry standard for using loaded firearms on the set, given that the activities are inherently dangerous?
I think that’s the point @Cervaise was making earlier: that most film and theatre productions have strict safety standards for firearms and live ammo, and therefore don’t have accidents.
But if one production has much laxer standards, compared to the industry standard, and someone is injured or killed, that failure to comply with industry standards could be sufficient to establish criminal negligence.
ETA reinserted quote deleted by Discourse, taking out one t to fool its primitive reptile brain
But what you’re asking would require Baldwin to have the same level of expertise as the armorer. This isn’t normal gun-handling training. How is he supposed to know what was packed in each bullet? Is he supposed to open the gun and inspect the insides of each bullet?
Someone, sure. But I’m not sure that someone is the actor. And even if he’s technically guilty, a jury is going to cut him a lot of slack because he’s a celebrity. I’m not saying that’s what should happen, but that’s what I expect.