SAG-AFTRA Defends Alec Baldwin: ‘An Actor’s Job Is Not to Be a Firearms Expert’

The whole production was a vanity project of Baldwin's. He was a producer
and I think executive producer and investor.

According to stuff I have read this is the way bigshot actors make money and
avoid paying taxes on it. They fiddle with the costs and the return to minimize
taxes in a way they cannot do as just actors.

So you think Michael Massee should have been charged with Brandon Lee's death too then? Seems like nobody even thought of charges against him for some reason. But with it being someone this time the right-wing dislikes, it's a whole different ball game.

In real life, what you're saying is true. On a movie set though? Not really the same thing. Someone hands you a prop axe and directs you how to use it, passing through many safeguards like the Armorer, it's hardly your fault if it's found later that the blade was swapped out to a real one at the last minute. People break chairs over other people's backs in movies all the time...they're prop chairs...if you're a lonely extra on the set and told to swing a prop chair, but it was swapped out with a real chair without your knowledge, its now your fault if your swing hurt someone? No way.

If you want to say Baldwin was the producer and kept an unsafe set/should have halted production, then perhaps you have a point. But I think the focus now is more on the gun, Baldwin, and whether the trigger was pulled...which seems a bit misguided.

And second is not to point it at people.

And to turn that loaded gun on oneself, when your a waaaaaaay-past-your-prime actor, who continually renegs on his promise to leave The US if the election doesn't go your way

In the real world, you are 100% correct. However, you ARE aware I assume that in the production of movies, guns DO get pointed at people and blanks even fired at people from a safe distance? The responsibility to ensure that no one gets injured is not the actors'. That said, as someone who grew up around firearms, I would have a *really* hard time pointing a gun at someone and/or pulling the trigger unless I had *personally* verified only blanks or dummy rounds were in the gun. I'm also not an actor however.

It sounds like the movie set had a lot of problems. Things were rushed. Tension. Other accidental discharges and (you just can't make this stuff up) FBI damaged the gun during forensic testing after the fact. Incompetence extends beyond the movie set.

Baldwin thinks a conviction in this case helps him? Not by my reasoning. Who was ultimately in charge? Mr Baldwin shares responsibility, IMO, but that is for the court to decide. We gotta wait. Justice is slow..

Did Jesse Ventura check all 10,000 of those minigun bullets he was handed in "Predator" ?

IMO, Baldwin bears responsibility not as the man that fired teh gun, but as the man that hired an inexperienced person to be in charge of safety and then did not back her up during shooting.


If he was charged based solely on being the one with the gun, that was stupid...

supiciously stupid. I would suspect a fix with the prosecutor.

Have you read any of the many posts above refuting that with reasons how it is not possible?
Rather than me type them all again ?
The clearest one is:

MaximRecoil: 2. Always keep the muzzle of the firearm pointed in a safe direction.
3. Always keep your finger off the trigger and outside the trigger guard unless you intend to fire the weapon.

Me:How can an actor in a scene where the character is pointing a gun at someone with finger on the trigger possibly adhere to that?

You dad was a Hollywood armorer worker?

You are explaining gun safety for people who use gun in ordinary life. In home or at shooting ranch.

How do you expect an actor to be expert in guns when they are not? And keep in mind that many actors who shoot guns in tv show, movies - are extras. They are not A-list starts and lead actors. Movie needs armed gang of 10 people. They hire extras.

There could be 50 extras and actors who shoot in movies. There are police shows where extras pretend to be criminals who shoot. How do you expect them all to be experts on guns and then sit and open each gun (and there are lots of different types) and take out each bullet and look closer, then put it all back. And repeat that with all 30 scenes shot they will do.

There is a reason why there is "armorer" position on those movies. So that they would check because they are experts.

It's like demand for actor to check every explosive if it's real. Because who knows maybe someone will bring real.

He should not be trialed for shooting. But he should be jailed as producer along with every other producer. They were the one who created that environment when they put two jobs on her because they are cheap.