Alec Baldwin Shooting

[Fireball]

Alec Baldwin shot the cinematographer on set of his new movie.

https://www.cnn.com/entertainment/live-n...index.html

I like Alec. He is an entertaining, funny guy and actually seems like a decent human being.

But - if he doesn' t do prison time over this - something ain' t right.

Rule #1 of guns - when you pull the trigger - you own the outcome. Period.  Only self defense or the defense of others is a valid reason to shoot someone.

Baldwin cannot blame anyone else.

He should have checked the gun to see it was safe for his intended use. End of story.

If he didn' t know how to check - he has no business handling the gun.

He is guilty of manslaughter and should do prison time.

Film crews actually pay someone to do all of that and that someone apparently failed.  That's the someone who should be held responsible.  I'm certain there are laws that cover situations such as this and those laws will be what determine who, if anyone, is charged.  And this has happened before.  In Brandon Lee's case a gun was loaded with prop bullets that were manufactured improperly and resulted in his death.  In that case I doubt any average person would have been able to see the problem beforehand, but a firearm's expert would if it had been examined properly.  So that's why I say it should be there responsibility.

Because of these incidents, I've read several articles about why they use real guns with blanks on set.  There are some legitimate reasons, but my opinion is that none of them are more important than the safety of everyone on set.  Even with blanks there is a slight chance of injuring someone.  With special effects we have today, I don't think it makes sense to put people in harms way with real firearms.  I can say that if I were working on a set and a firearm was about to be discharged in my general direction, I would demand someone check and recheck that thing first.  I'm not anti-gun at all but I am pro gun-respect.

Did anyone watch Mythbusters?  Those guys went to pretty elaborate lengths for safety but to my knowledge no one ever got hurt on set by a blast or gun.

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There's another angle to this if the actor using the weapon is to be held responsible.  In action films with stunts and effects, actors are often expected to handle all sorts of items they don't usually handle, from knives to guns to swords to baseball bats...lots of things.  Any one of those things could accidentally result in another actor or set person being injured.  It seems unreasonable to hold the actor accountable for a prop failure in every case and I see no reason why this gun incident is any different.

I watched MythBusters, and can assure you that they've come close to and/or received physical injuries. They are prop guys, not scientists or engineers. One example of injuries is the time they heated jawbreaker candy in a microwave to see if it would explode. They took the door off the microwave oven, heated the jawbreaker, and, indeed, it exploded. Chunks of hot candy struck them, and if some had hit them in the eyes, they would have potentially been blinded. I quit watching after seeing a ton of stupid mistakes, some with safety, some with science, some unlawful. That show is entertainment, which always crosses the line.