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[–] 107 points 3 years ago (1 child)

There’s a few reasons why he was charged, both as an actor and producer. Gun safety just can’t be fucked around with.

In the document, prosecutors accused Baldwin of “many instances of extremely reckless acts” during the film’s production.

They wrote that Baldwin “was not present” for mandatory firearms training before filming began. He was instead provided on-set guidance but prosecutors allege he was “distracted and talking on his cell phone to his family.” The training session was scheduled for an hour but was only 30 minutes long due to Baldwin’s “distraction” on the phone.

… The prosecutor’s statement described several “acts or omissions of recklessness” on the set of Rust. This included foregoing the use of a prop gun during unscheduled rehearsals, willful ignorance toward on-set safety complaints and a lack of armourer-performed safety checks.

https://globalnews.ca/news/9451182/alec-baldwin-rust-manslaughter-charge-phone/amp/

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  • [–] 48 points 3 years ago* (5 children)

    I'm no lawyer or anything, but Baldwin has been an actor in professional movies with prop guns for a long time, I think it's going to be hard for them to pin it on him (as an actor) for supposedly blowing off a single firearms course, and even that's unconfirmed right? I think it's unlikely that they'll charge him as a producer as well, because it sounds like they hired all the right people for the job and had firearms training and everything.

    This whole thing just sounds like lawyers passing the buck back and forth, so who even knows what actually happened at this point. Will be interesting to see what comes up over time.

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  • [–] 40 points 3 years ago

    I kind of agree but if an incident happens on a site where the shooter wasn't paying attention to training and never attended the initial safety briefing then that's their own problem.

    Working in construction, if I never turned up to a health and safety briefing ( and let me tell you they're repetitive as fuck) and something went wrong but my excuse was "I didn't need to go cos I've been to these before" it wouldn't go in my favour whatsoever. I don't think it's a reasonable excuse either. If there's potential for lives to be at stake, you should be paying attention. At the very least, even if not for other people's lives, just go so you can say you listened and followed every instruction but the mistake still happened. That way youve covered your own back.

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  • [–] 19 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Weren't they using the guns for target practice for fun at some point?

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  • [–] 20 points 3 years ago

    I've heard that too, but I think at this point even that's unconfirmed and we still aren't sure who was actually shooting live rounds from them.

    Also is that not allowed? I honestly have no idea how that works. You'd think a movie set gun shouldn't have live rounds in it ever, but I guess the production could be renting the gun from someone and they'd take it home every night...

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    As a construction worker or an engineer, you need to take a safety training for each new construction site you go on, even if it's your 40th worksite. So I feel like it's not so hard to pin Baldwin for not taking the hour course properly.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago

    In a civil suit maybe, but for criminal charges you'd have to prove that he did blow off the course and the shooting was a direct result of him blowing off the course. Both are just very hard to prove.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    "Yeah he blew off this years mandatory training, but he showed up to last years training, it can't be his fault!".

    Idk that doesn't really seem like a valid excuse

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  • [–] 17 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    We're talking manslaughter charges here, Baldwin's lawyer doesn't have to prove he's not at fault, the prosecution has to prove without a reasonable doubt that he is at fault. Very different things.

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