My personal feeling is there are enough unanswered questions and possibilities going on here that the prosecutors will not meet the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard needed to convict. The burden on the prosecutors is very high. Short of evidence he knew or should have known the gun had live ammo in it, it is likely to be an acquittal.
Again, not a certainty, but a possibility with some merit.
How do you know what they do or do not have that is not in the public domain, though? Are you privy to some information that the rest of us are now about that?
I believe it could be done with standard sizes. The thing is a live round has a bullet on the front, a blank does not. Use a barrel obstruction that will interfere only with the bullet–the blank loads, the real round does not. However, this doesn’t solve the problem because you often have close up shots that would expose blanks for what they are. Hence the use of dummy rounds.
There’s also the approach of using a gun that has no firing pin–incapable of actually triggering a round that chambers. That, also, runs into the problem of some scenes will involve actually firing the weapon (you can paste in the muzzle flash perfectly well, you can’t paste in recoil, though. If it’s a low-recoil weapon, fine, but you can’t make a realistic scene with a high-recoil weapon without firing a real round.) Thus there is nothing you can do with the guns themselves that prevent accidents yet allow everything they may want to produce.
I do think they should have a rule (perhaps even a law–define it as an example of criminal negligence) that you can’t have both on set on any given day and big signs around indicating today’s rules.
Exactly. It’s possible that the prosecution knows something we don’t. And maybe they don’t. But that’s my point. None of us know, and there’s just wild speculation flying around like it’s not wild speculation.
This is my understanding, also. The last I heard the FBI said the gun had been damaged in testing. If so, it’s contaminated evidence and how can you say beyond a reasonable doubt that what’s observed now is the same as happened then?
Personally, though, I favor involuntary manslaughter for pointing a gun at someone unless you are certain it is a non-operational weapon (not merely unloaded or loaded with dummy rounds.)
If prior reporting and public statements are accurate we do know the answers to most of those questions.
For example, in a sworn affidavit the assistant director David Halls said that he in fact did not follow the safety protocol and double check that all chambers of the cylinder were empty before announcing “cold gun” and handing it to Baldwin. He could be lying, i suppose, but nobody, including the D.A., has accused Halls of making that part up.
That’s the point. We don’t know if that reporting and those statements are accurate. People lie all the time. Especially when they’re trying to protect themselves.
Sorry, I didn’t read this before I replied based on your first sentence. The thing is, he may not be lying, but we do know that statement is inaccurate, because the gun actually was fucking loaded. Which we know because it went off and killed someone.
A prop is just an object that appears on screen. They are mostly real. A real coffee cup is prop when used in on a film set.
I don’t.
Again personal feelings, not factual certainty. I am trying to make it clear this is an opinion based on what little is made public. I am also trying to make clear that I believe further evidence beyond what is public is likely needed beyond that to convict.
“Beyond a reasonable doubt” is a high standard, even for criminally negligent homicide. All the burdens of proof are on the prosecutor.
How would David Halls giving a sworn affidavit that he didn’t follow the safety protocol work to protect himself?
I mean…do you think that statement was accurate? Because one thing we do know is there was a live round in the gun. If he cleared it, and double checked it before giving it to Baldwin, how did the bullet get there?
You probably can’t, which means a conviction does not appear likely. Unless there is some other evidence that hasn’t been made public that can replace this.
Even involuntary manslaughter requires an intent that one knows their actions are likely to cause harm. (think DWI which causes a fatality as an example) Something you are not likely to see on a movie set when it comes to actors and prop firearms.
I really feel like you failed to read my last two posts. I said that the Assistant Director gave a sworn statement that he DIDN’T check it. So yes, I believe him on that point.
I did read your posts, I just missed the ‘didn’t’ part, probably because the ‘cold gun’ part seem inconsistent with that. Anyway, everything else I’ve said still stands. You are all wildly speculating about this, and you do NOT know. Until someone ends up on a witness stand testifying under oath, we don’t know what happened. People lie. And yes, people lie in sworn affidavits. So often. You have no idea. And yes, they do it even when it makes them look bad. People are weird. This shit complicates the rules of evidence like you would not believe. Like, you can’t introduce a sworn affidavit as evidence because it’s technically hearsay. Except you can if the person gives contradictory testimony on the stand. And that’s a rule because it happens so often they have to have a rule for it. So even though I misread your statement and I was wrong about that detail, I stand by my overall point. You are all speaking as if you know what happened, and whether this case holds water, and you don’t. Neither do I. We weren’t there. We don’t know what happened. Speculation can be fun, but stop acting like you know how this is going to turn out.
That same article also mentions
Ms. Gutierrez-Reed told an investigator that no live ammunition “is ever kept on set.”
which is doubtful. The AD’s admission is not so self serving, though. Who to believe will ultimately come down to witness testimony in open court.
So you still stand by your earlier statement that despite a guy swearing that he didn’t follow safety protocols we still don’t know if safety protocols were followed on set that day? Ok, I guess. I suppose that in the grand scheme of things nothing is really “knowable”.
The way that movies solve this for everything else is to have a “hero” prop for the detail / closeup shots and a practical (and often designed with more safety in mind) prop for the action shots. So the shot where the hero grabs the sword is a detailed, polished, steel thing encrusted with nice fake jewels or whatever, and the one that they run around with is blunted and made of aluminum and has some similar-enough plastic bedazzles stuck onto the hilt.
So if you need a closeup of a gun being loaded, you could use a gun that takes live (and/or, as you suggest, live-appearing dummy) rounds but isn’t actually capable of firing (e.g., firing pin removed), but when you do the longer shot of the person firing it would be a mostly-identical gun that can only accept blanks.
IANAMP but I’m sure there are movies that use this exact approach for firearms. Of course, this increases costs, and if you’re trying to film a Geezer Teaser on the cheap it’s probably a tempting cost to cut.
Correct. I still stand by that we do not know that safety protocols were followed that day. We know that one person said he didn’t follow them. I wasn’t there. You weren’t there. We don’t know if he’s telling the truth. Maybe he believes he’s telling the truth but he’s wrong. Who the fuck knows? People lie and are mistaken all the time. And yes, even in a sworn affidavit. And even if he is telling the truth, we still don’t know everything else. And there could be details we don’t know that make Baldwin guilty. And maybe there aren’t. That’s all I’m saying. We don’t know. You don’t know. I don’t know. We don’t know. So just stop acting like you know.
Unless for some reason you want a single unbroken shot. But that would be an insane prospect on a set where no one can do their fucking job properly.
