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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31615 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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Uh...isn’t the salient feature that Baldwin shot someone?

No. An actor is hired by a production company to perform a role with the tools they are given by the production company. Since most movies do not involve the actual killing of real people with real guns with real ammo, an actor's assumption would be that any firearm they are given to use as a prop during filming is non-lethal, and there is an existing apparatus of firearms-specific prop handlers who are hired by production teams to make sure that when an actor is handed a prop gun it is non-lethal and safe for use in make-believe scenarios. Now, my gun-enthusiast buddies will say that anyone handling a firearm is responsible for what happens with that firearm while they are handling it, but this is the POV of people who live in gun culture and are expecting to be using lethal weapons with live ammo. This is not the case with actors, who are more likely to be gun-ignorant as well as have their head at least half in a state of make-believe. It is the job of the production team to educate the relevant actors on proper gun-handling procedures and ensure the safety of the gun.

Now, that Baldwin was also a producer of this movie puts him farther up the chain of responsibility and liability. As movies often have several producers with different levels of on-set responsibility, if Baldwin as a producer is charged with a crime (criminal negligence seems more apt than manslaughter, in this case), that same should apply to all producers with on-set responsibilities as well as to the property masters and firearms advisors who put a live gun in the hand of an actor (who likely to be the least capable person on the set).

It is the job of the production team to educate the relevant actors on proper gun-handling procedures and ensure the safety of the gun.

Of which, Baldwin, having worked on many movies where guns were used were well aware of.

A big issue in the Baldwin situation is that in the scene that was being shot, Baldwin was meant to be quickly drawing the gun. He was not meant to be firing it. If you look at the filming right before the incident happened, his finger is clearly inside the trigger guard and likely near or on the trigger itself. So the revolver should have never of been fired in the first place. It was his negligence by pulling the trigger. If he was in a scene wherein he was intended to "shoot" the gun, and that is when the negligent discharge happened I would have more empathy towards Baldwin's innocence. This is not the case, so the armorer failed by allowing live ammunition onto the set and Baldwin failed by negligently pulling the trigger of the revolver when the scene did not call for it. Both made critical errors, leading to the death of one and another injured, and both are justifiably going to be charged.

I mean, that's definitely an error, but realistically the armorer made the much bigger mistake. Most rules about gun safety, such as not pointing the gun at anyone, go out the window in movies and are replaced by "make sure the armorer knows what they're doing."

Honestly makes me wonder why they use real guns at all.

This is my question. What is the point? Build a replica without the ability to fire at all. You can with tech make a small fire at the end of the gun and then dub in the relevant sound effect later.

In a movie with a budget of 7 million about cowboys, the cost of special effects as against firing blanks et al may be cost prohibitive.

(criminal negligence seems more apt than manslaughter, in this case)

Criminal negligence resulting in the death of a human being is involuntary manslaughter. Criminal negligence in itself is not a crime; it's a mens rea.

I don't think Baldwin was criminally (or even ordinarily) negligent, given what's known now. The armorer seems to have at least been negligent and probably criminally negligent in not detecting the live round. Merely hiring someone who was negligent isn't negligence, unless Baldwin had some reason to know she would be negligent. This doesn't seem to be the case.

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