According to Alec Baldwin, the fatal shooting on set was one in a trillion.
Alec continues: ‘There are incidental accidents on film sets from time to time, but nothing like this.
‘This is a one in a trillion episode. This is a one in a trillion event.’
Um… No. If you don’t follow firearms safety rules to the letter, it’s an inevitability sooner or later. That’s why those rules exist after all. That they got lucky up to this point doesn’t change it.
Brendan O’Neill was quick to announce with authority that this was an accident, he will soon announce Biden did not soil himself in the Vatican.
Even if it was an accident (i.e. unintended), negligence still applies.
There definitely seems to be negligence here, whether it’s negligence by Baldwin, the Armourer or the First Assistant Director or another member of the crew tasked with safety is going to be revealed in time, but there does appear to be negligence.
Actors trust, maybe too much but they do, the people on the crew and their specialisms, whether that be the armourer or the stunt managers or anyone else, just as they trust camera operators and cinematographers to set up and capture the correct shot.
Some of the accounts that I’ve heard of occurrences prior to the incident do give cause for concern, such as the crew doing target shooting with the gun that was handed to Baldwin prior to the shooting and therefore bringing live ammo onto the set, something that should have been a no no.
A chain of negligence seems to have occurred and the final link in this chain was Baldwin. He pissed around with a weapon after failing to check whether the people he had trusted to ensure the gun was cold and therefore relatively safe. Maybe if Baldwin had given the weapon one final check and had not forgotten the first rule of firearms safety which is to assume all guns are loaded and ready to fire, then this tragedy would not have happened.
If I was still doing health and safety training, I’d use this as a classic example of the open windows analogy. Baldwin was the last person in the chain and could have closed that window of opportunity as could any one of the people in that chain. Classic failure of safety systems.
All three appear to have dropped the ball here. I wonder who is going to get the stiffer penalty?
Rather like a surgeon amputating the wrong limb, it should be a ‘never event’ but it still happens.
My reading of the case puts the armourer squarely in the dock – the armourer has absolute accountability for all weapons and ammunition on the set. But, in this case, the armourer has the ‘pussy-pass’, so maybe they’ll find someone else to blame, the late Samuel Colt perhaps, at least he didn’t have ovaries.
True. However, the buck stops with the person pulling the trigger. I go back to firearms safety procedures. Baldwin broke the golden rule.
Seeing Baldwin shuffle along and mumble it looks like he is well down that route pioneered by Brandon.
Giving him a gun is as stupid as giving Brandon the power to launch nuclear, or should that he neucular, war.
“Hey, Kamala I just pushed this big red button a dozen times but that guy has still not turned up with my meds.”
Guilty on 3 counts:
1. He pulled the trigger. Ignored all the basics of gun handling, by failing to check, by pointing it at someone, and pulling the trigger. No excuses. He fired the fatal shot.
2. As Producer, he was ultimately responsible for H&S of the workplace. Any incompetence of the staff, armourer, etc, is down to him. Any tolerance of live ammo on set is down to him. Any breach of safe weapons handling is dowe to him.
3. As an obnoxious little sh*t, he openly spurns gun safety and opposes organisations that help teach it, and a year or so earlier, he openly mocked a policeman who was involved in a similar ‘negligent discharge’ resulting in death.
Ain’t Karma a bitch!
That last point is why my sympathy is limited.
Point #1 hits the nail on the head. It may not be murder (although I think it might be; murder is more complicated that most people think), but he can’t be absolved of responsibility simply because someone told him the gun was “cold“.
Here in Scotland, what’s known elsewhere as “manslaughter“ is called “culpable homicide”; a far clearer and more descriptive term. (Technically, murder is a particular type of culpable homicide.) It would seem to me to describe this situation perfectly.
Manslaughter rather than murder. There is no evidence of malice aforethought. I don’t see a murder charge sticking. I expect a plea bargain involving unintentional Manslaughter.
Depends on the jurisdiction. I think you’re probably right, but a murder charge may only require premeditation, which doesn’t presume intent. If it was reasonable to assume that his actions would lead to death, then it could be murder.
I would suggest that a manslaughter conviction would be more likely to stick, so I doubt he will be charged with murder.