The number one story in the world this past three days: Alec Baldwin accidentally shot a cinematographer on a movie set in New Mexico.
It’s easy to feel Schadenfreud for someone who’s wallowed in so much of it himself:
I try to remain above that…
…but I’m only human.
Still.
Back in college, I worked as a stage hand (as well as acting in a few shows). The lady who ran the theater department had a long history working in show business of all kinds; she had been the first female theatrical producer in Los Angeles, had worked as a make up person on the original “Planet of the Apes“ (and had one of the masks in her office to show for it) and on and on.
We had two productions back then that involved some sort of weapons work; in one, one of the actors (and a classmate) “shot“ someone. The “prop gun“ in this case was a starter pistol, borrowed from the track and field team. The chamber was only big enough to hold starter gun caps. The barrel was not a barrel; there was no hole down the middle for a bullet. The only way to kill someone with that pistol would’ve been to beat them over the head with it – and even then, it would have been a long, slow process. Professor Lavin drilled us – the whole crew, not just the actor doing the shooting, since anyone onsince anyone on the crew might have to handle the starter pistol – on the safety rules like everybody’s life depended on it.
The absolute ironclad rule was “don’t point the gun at a person, even during the scene when you are “shooting” someone. The scene was “blocked out” (actors arranged about the stage) so that it would look like the gun was being aimed at the victim – but was in fact, pointing to a spot offstage with no cast, crew or audience. [1]
That was a piker, by the way, compared with all the things I had to learn to do a sword fight, when I played Henry II in “Lion in Winter“.
This was all emphatically nonunion. Professor Lavin relayed all sorts of stories about how universal this knowledge was among Hollywood crews.
So while I am minding Berg’s 18th Law on waiting for the facts, I find it less than completely convincing that *someone* on that set – the armorers, the prop people, the day labor on a set in rural New Mexico, and even Baldwin himself, who has engaged in gunplay in at least one movie in his career (chasing the spy through the “Sherwood Forest” of missile tubes in Hunt for Red October, a Union shoot if there ever was one) hadn’t been through the four basic rules of gun handling at the very least.
I can imagine why someone would put a live around into a “prop gun“; it looks more realistic when it fires.
Why someone would do it when they were apparently checking the blocking on the scene (I have to imagine the fact that the director and the cinematographer were standing directly in the line of fire meant they were setting up a camera shot) when the prop master/armor was yelling “cold gun“ (which tells me someone knew something about proper procedure on that said) is completely beyond me.
So I’ll keep following Berg’s 18th Law.
[1] That’s one of my dirty little secrets among conservatives; growing up in a anti-gun household, I learned all of my gun safety from a Democrat theater professor :-). I literally learned three of the four essential rules of gun safety – they are always loaded, never point them at something you’re not willing to destroy, and never put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to shoot – doing theater.
Huge civil and very possibly criminal liability here.
My brother and I were once examining a revolver. His teenage son wanted to handle it. I made a bit of a production of opening the cylinder, examining each chamber, and then snapping the cylinder back in place. I then handed him the gun, saying, “Careful, it’s loaded.”
“No, it’s not!” he replied. Then, “Oh, yeah…right…”
In other news, according to Gallup, Pedo Joe is now sporting the approval rating plunge of any President (elected or connived into office) since WWII. Everyone that matters, hates Pedo Joe.
While that is satisfying, it means nothing because the people pulling the strings dgaf about Pedo Joe’s approval…it won’t slow them down a bit.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/bidens-ratings-plunge-most-any-president-world-war-ii
Remembering my difficulty firing a handgun accurately when I got started with them, the notion of just any actor trying to fire “into the blank area” right off set scares me. I remember I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn until the happy day when I saw a half used Osama Bin Laden target….something clicked there. NO, I’m not a Seal Team Six veteran in disguise!
Every actor, prop person and even armorers, need to take a firearms safety class from a certified instructor, before they handle any gun. All of the instructors that I have met, will spend as much time as their students need to feel comfortable handling them.
The complete and utter failure of Team Biden is leaking into MSM “reporting.”
Reminds me a whole lot of 1979-80.
Team Biden is desperately looking for some way to “change the narrative” I’m guessing that they will do ANYTHING to get Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan through the house by week’s end. But then they will have a disappointing 3rd quarter GDP result to deal with, too.
The American people are relearning the lesson that when the progressives get their way, the result is high prices, empty shelves, and race hatred adopted as a governing philosophy.
Berg’s 18th Law is very wise. Something doesn’t smell right here. There are a lot of people who don’t like/jealous of Mr. Baldwin. Could there be foul play here. But even then it takes a really big ego to trust the little people to take care of things. But then again…Mr. Baldwin has a very outsized ego.
Yes, wait a day, two, even a week. Something is very, very odd here.
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Andrew Branca, an attorney who promotes his Law of Self Protection website and who provided excellent legal commentary on the Derek Chauvin trial, has provided a great distillation of the legal issues in the Baldwin case. For those of us rooting for Karma to smite Baldwin good and hard he opines that Alec faces felony manslaughter charges. The bad news is that the Santa Fe DA could decide against pressing charges. I wonder what political party he belongs to.
To answer my own question, the DA is a Democrat she with a wife and a background as a public defender who believes in “diversion” programs for criminals. Suddenly Alec’s chances of skating looking pretty good. The civil case could be different, but that’s what insurance is for, right?
Yesterday, I saw a story about the woman that was killed. She was from Murmansk in the old Soviet Union and supposedly was working on her next project; a documentary on pedophiles in Hollywood. She also was alleged to have made statements that she had some information that would sent Hillary Clinton and several politicians to prison.
BossHoss, did you get that info straight from Q HQ?
I don’t go for conspiracy theories. The slow walk by the Santa Fe DA strikes me more as lame progressive thinking combined with celebrity power than Baldwin is a paid assassin . It is a disgrace that compared to say, Derek Chauvin, Baldwin is covered with tender mercies from the liberal press. Chauvin was charged the day after Floyd died. It’s day four and counting for Baldwin. Yeah, what about Auhmad Arbrey? Same problem on a local scale. Good old boys of the Old South school. No less scandalous than what’s happening in Santa Fe.
I’m only here for BH429’s cray-cray and Woolly’s BDS comments 🍿
MP,
Ha! No. It was a follow up to the woman’s tweet about the info on Hillary two days before she was shot, that disappeared after she was. Conspiracy theory, but we all know that people who run afoul of the Clintons, usually end up dead.
Speaking of loaded, I stopped into Sportsman’s Guide about 90 minutes ago. They had a lot of .22 LR, .223 and 7 mm rounds in stock. No .308 or 30-06. They had some 9mm when I got there, but a guy grabbed the last 3 boxes.
This tragic accident happened because American Liberals relentlessly promote gun violence. More guns on-screen, more gun violence. Ban guns on-screen, end gun violenct. It stands to reason.
Baldwin should have been making a movie about a courageous transgender activist circumventing the Trump Administrations’s ban on feeding starving children in Haiti; or freeing children held in cages at the border until they can be sold to Jewish families to be butchered and eaten; or spiking trees to save the forests from the ravages of loggers intent on turning Nature into Charmin.
I’m getting my bets down early. I’ll bet a brand-new nickel on each:
Alec Baldwin will not be criminally charged. He will be sued by the estate and will settle out of court for an undisclosed amount paid by an insurance policy.
The 24-year-old prop master will be criminally charged and also sued. She’ll be convicted and will lose the lawsuit but will be unable to pay the judgment.
Gun control groups will include this incident as justification for universal background checks, one-a-month purchases, and registration of all firearms.
Emery on October 26, 2021 at 9:40 am said:
I’m only here for BH429’s cray-cray and Woolly’s BDS comments
Sez the guy who still believes that Trump colluded with Russian intelligence to steal the 2016 election.
When I hear “Build Back Better”, I’m reminded of “Shovel Ready Jobs”, two phrases by two men who have never had a shovel in their hands their entire lives.
When I was about 12 there were twin teenage neighbor boys who were deeply admired by everyone, especially by us younger guys. One day they were together with another teen in their bedroom handling a .22 rifle. They were super nice guys and invited me and my buddy to come in and see their gun. Not really knowing gun safety rules I wasn’t alarmed when they casually pointed the rifle at me. Can’t remember if they were clowning around or just being careless but when I casually mentioned it to my dad things got as serious as a heart attack. Dad didn’t say anything immediately but rather stoically told me to come with him. We walked over to their house and he explained to their dad what had happened and that was when the fan contacted the excrement. Their dad called them down and ripped them up one side and down the other driving them to tears. Can’t remember if they lost the gun or not but on the way back home I got the most serious gun safety lecture probably ever given. I felt miserable about causing their pain but in retrospect I can understand how our dads handled it.