Anti-gun Activist Actor Uses Gun to Kills Co-worker. “It’s Not My Fault” He Says as Hollywood Rushes to His Defense.

Killer and the woman he shot

MSN Reports,”On Thursday, the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Department announced in a press release that Souza, 48, was injured on set after Baldwin, 63, discharged a prop firearm. ” You have to read all the way to paragraph 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 that “Thursday’s tragic accident killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, who was airlifted to the University of New Mexico Hospital and later died from her injuries, according to the sheriff’s department.”

Alec Baldwin repeatedly asked why he was given a “hot gun” after his prop weapon discharged.” “In all my years, I’ve never been handed a hot gun,” the actor allegedly kept saying.” If only the technology for adding Sound Effects to movies existed, they could add sound aftwards and use guns that don’t shoot, or fire only blanks. If only Hollywood had good paying union jobs like Joe Biden keeps talking about. Then there would be union work rules and a union armorer. Oh, that’s who Hollywood is blaming for the killing. Rather than the man who wondered what it was like to kill an innocent man. “I am innocent, Innocent! of this man’s blood” said Pontus Pilate.

Yeah, Alec Baldwin don’t know nuff’n ’bout guns. What’s the thing called a ‘trigger’ and how does that work? Even the idiot teen from Parkland knows better than that.

Why isn’t Alec Balwin in jail and charged with, at a minimum, manslaughter? “In 2019 he was convicted of harassment after an argument outside his apartment block. That’s a history of violence. Anyone not a millionaire actor would already be in custody. I’m sure we’ll be hearing from Marjory Stoneman Douglass students, Moms Demand Action, and Everytown for Gun Safety any day now. I look forward to them demanding a ban on the use of guns on Hollywood movie sets.

Put the killer in jail. Let him lawyer up.

Post by Fred.

This entry was posted in Current Affairs, Fred, Gun Control, Politics. Bookmark the permalink.

51 Responses to Anti-gun Activist Actor Uses Gun to Kills Co-worker. “It’s Not My Fault” He Says as Hollywood Rushes to His Defense.

  1. fakebot says:

    This is what happens when someone doesn’t respect the gun, real or prop.

  2. Pat Lang says:

    The wad in a blank round will go right through you at close range. “While blanks are less dangerous than live ammunition, they are far from harmless, and can in fact be fatal. Beside the hot combustion gases, any objects in the cartridge itself (like wadding or a bullet-shaped plug keeping the propellant in place) or the barrel will be propelled at high velocity and cause injury or death at close range.” wiki on blank ammunition.

    • Eric Newhill says:

      But how do you shoot two people with blanks? One, ok, stupid, but could happen. Two? You didn’t notice what happened to the first and kept pulling the trigger while up close to a second victim? I don’t think a wadding has the power to go through someone and then create a serious injury to someone else standing behind the first.

      • Pat Lang says:

        Eric Newhill

        I was not there but if he was standing next her it might. This the first thing they teach you in the Army. I don’t know about USMC. They are reputed to be bullet proof.

      • Fred says:

        The person at the top responsible for safety on the set is the producer. The last line of defense is the person with the gun. In this case they are both named Alec Baldwin.

      • Datil D says:

        Seems like he would be aiming at another actor if filming or rehearsing, not the cinematographer or director, did he miss his target or was he fooling around with a firearm.

        • Deap says:

          Not unusual to face the camera with gun in hand, if the scene called for a direct look at the guy who would be pulling the trigger.

          Therefore the camera man or crew near the camera would be in line of fire – even though they are off camera. Their own code is to demand to see the gun cleared of all bullets before starting the scene.

          But nothing absolves the person pulling the trigger who has the highest duty – bar none.

      • Yeah, Right says:

        The script may have called for the actor to turn towards the camera and then shoot, the intention being that the cinema-goer gets a victim’s eye view of the action.

        So Baldwin wouldn’t be pointing the gun at the cinematographer nor the director, just at the camera.

        But if they were standing behind the camera looking at the monitor…..

        Not saying that is what happened – I don’t know – but that is one possible way he could have shot two people with one bullet.

    • Fred says:

      At the very least it looks like negligent homicide. I’m sure there’s plenty of video available for the investigators.

  3. RobW says:

    All..

    This will be a OSHA issue. Usually a specialist property expert, an armourer, would be responsible for all properties involving weapons like handguns, shotguns and rifles including ammo such as blanks, squibs, fakes and live rounds. I’m sure there is a lot of paperwork these persons need to go through before they even get near a set. The persons who employ them (i.e. check the paperwork) are next in line; that would be the film safety officer. Further up the chain is the film studio itself and associated management then right up onto the land owner who is renting the property to the film studio. You cannot contract your way out of OSHA regulations.

    It’s not likely that the actor who pulled the trigger would be at fault unless they disobeyed their training or were intoxicated etc..

    PL is correct. Wads, squibs and blanks are potentially dangerous have caused film set injuries and fatalities in the past, quite often it is a combination of accumulated minor errors that cause these accidents.
    RobW

    • Fred says:

      RobW,

      OSHA? It’s not a workplace accident. It’s negligent discharge of a firearm at the very least. OSHA getting involved just means it will be a whitewash.

  4. Deap says:

    If Derek Chauvin just happened to be coincidentally present carrying out his trained duties when George Floyd decided to over-dose on lethal amounts of fentanyl while violently resisting arrest, why should Balwin be able to walk away from this “coincidental” murder with an gun he failed to check out himself before firing it?

  5. Deap says:

    GoFundMe needs to raise money to pay for an NRA membership for Baldwin, so he can learn about responsible gun ownership and handling – which includes both rights and duties. Got that Baldwin – sign up ASAP if you want to start your road to recovery about responsible gun handling.

    Stop being stupid about guns, jerk. Because even if there were draconian gun control for everyone else (your dream) I suspect you still would have used one in your own glorified western drama, for effect.

  6. jerseycityjoan says:

    It is like website Insider read this post and comments. They discuss there many points brought up here. Three things:

    A quote that Insider took from a union member speaking in The Los Angeles Times: “it remains unclear what type of projectile was in the gun, and that “live round” in the film industry refers to anything loaded into a gun, including blanks.”

    https://www.insider.com/alec-baldwin-prop-gun-contained-live-round-union-says-2021-10?amp

    Also at Insider, another article discussing legal liability, both criminal and civil:

    https://www.insider.com/alec-baldwin-likely-wont-face-charges-legal-experts-2021-10

    Finally, industry people are talking about not using blanks anymore. They are known dangers and their use can be eliminated pretty easily now:

    https://www.insider.com/alec-baldwin-shooting-hollywood-ban-blanks-halyna-hutchins-death-rust-2021-10?amp&utm_source=taboola

  7. TonyL says:

    Fred,

    “Killer”? hyperbole. Baldwin might be a gun-idiot, but ain’t no killer.

    https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/alec-baldwin-tears-rust-movie-set-shooting

    • Fred says:

      Halyna Hutchins is dead. The gun did not fire itself. Alec Baldwin pointed it at her and pulled the trigger. He can claim innocence all he wants. When you read about “misfires” please understand that a misfire is when the ammunition doesn’t go off. His lawyers and allies in the press can do the “mostly peacefull” style sophistry all they want to. Ms. Hutchins will still be dead.

      • Yeah, Right says:

        “Halyna Hutchins is dead.”
        Indisputably rue.

        “The gun did not fire itself.”
        Also indisputably true.

        “Alec Baldwin pointed it at her”….
        Conjecture.

        …”and pulled the trigger.”
        Indisputably true.

        Fred, you need to separate those things that you know to be true from those things that you assume to be true.

        • Fred says:

          Yeah Right,

          Ok, he maybe wasn’t pointing it ‘at her’. I’m not trying the case, I’m making a blog post.

          • zmajcek says:

            You are also assuming he loaded the gun. I’m sure there is someone on the set that is responsible for preparing the props for the actors to use.

            Considering how many takes some scenes require I’m pretty sure it was not Alec’s job to prepare the gun.

            Why call the guy a killer when all relevant facts are still unknown ?

          • Fred says:

            zmajcek,

            ” I’m sure there is someone on the set that is responsible for preparing the props for the actors to use.”
            It was not a prop, it was a firearm. The law presumes a firearm to be inherently dangerous. Baldwin knows that. He is responsible becuase the weapon was in his hands. Good luck to him in court.

          • Fred says:

            zmajcek,

            “You are also assuming he loaded the gun.”

            No. I conclude he didn’t treat it like it was loaded. This isn’t his first movie using functioning firearms. He fired the weapon. She’s now dead.

        • Fred says:

          Yeah, Right,

          “If you can’t distinguish between “fact” and “conjecture”…”

          The facts known are the gun discharged and the bullet struck and killed the woman. There’s no public statements about the bullet/projectile deflecting off a camera or anything else. Where does that leave the barrel pointing when the weapon discharged? To use your word, the presumption is tht it was pointing at the person struck by the bullet.

          • Yeah, Right says:

            This is getting very tedious.

            “The facts known are the gun discharged and the bullet struck and killed the woman.”

            True.

            “There’s no public statements about the bullet/projectile deflecting off a camera or anything else.”

            Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

            In the absence of any public statement then the correct statement is “we do not know”, and that applies as much to you as it does to me.

            “Where does that leave the barrel pointing when the weapon discharged?”

            We. Do. Not. Know.

            You are presuming that the answer is: “at that woman”.

            I could equally presume that the answer is: “at the camera”.

            But the point I will make – again – is that those are both presumptions, they are not facts.

            “To use your word, the presumption is tht it was pointing at the person struck by the bullet.”

            Then you should write it presumptively, and not write it as being a fact.

          • Fred says:

            Yeah Right,

            You don’t know where the gun was pointed. Right. The bullet just mysteriously went out the barrel and hit and killed the woman. I don’t “presume” he intended to kill her. I conclude he was negligent, in more ways that one. Thanks for the struggle session.

          • Pat Lang says:

            yeah, right

            If there is a bullet, where is it?

          • Yeah, Right says:

            This is, indeed, getting very tedious. I’m not quite sure why you are still arguing this point but, well, there you are.

            “I don’t “presume” he intended to kill her.”

            That is a straw man argument.

            “I conclude he was negligent, in more ways that one. ”

            Your “conclusion” is based upon a presumption.
            This one: “Alec Baldwin pointed it at her”.

            Look, this is really very, very simple: you wrote about four things, three of which are facts and one of which was your presumption. But you presented all four as if they were facts.

            You have actually accepted that the presumption is, indeed, presumptive (“Ok, he maybe wasn’t pointing it ‘at her’.”).

            Why are you still arguing this point?

            “Thanks for the struggle session.”

            You are most welcome. It is always gratifyingly to see an important pointbeing treated with such condescension.

          • Fred says:

            Yeah, Right,

            Where o where might the gun have been pointed? You sound like a lawyer desperate to get his client off. I suggest his lawyer use that line of reasoning in court, if it winds up there, and see where it gets him.

          • Yeah, Right says:

            PL: “If there is a bullet, where is it?”

            I do not know if there was a bullet. Brandon Lee, for example, was not killed by a bullet but by something that was lodged in the barrel of a gun.

            But if there was a bullet then it is in an evidence lockup.

            As for what path that (presumptive) bullet took, I do not know. Neither do you, nor does Fred.

            I can speculate as well as the next man, but I at least am willing to accept that it is speculative.

            Others, well, not so much….

      • TonyL says:

        Fred,

        Your politics has colored your judgment. It was an accident. Simple as that. Anybody who handles a gun in any situation should learn the basics first. Unfortunately, it never comes across to Hollywood actors or politicians that they are no exception.

        Dick Cheney should have been charged and put in jail. He was very lucky that the guy he shot was not dead.

        • Fred says:

          TonyL,

          I agree Cheney should should have been charged with negligence. It has yet to be determined that an ‘accident’ occurred on the set of the movie that Alec Baldwin was producing and acting in. The law recognizes firearms as inherently dangerous. Alec Baldwin had a duty to know how to handle firearms safety. It has yet to be determined by legal authorities if this event as an accident, negligence, or intentionally criminal. There’s a reasonable rundown of the law by a defense attorney if you care to watch it.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVEJb5kxeNw

        • Eric Newhill says:

          TonyL,
          You’re missing that Baldwin is a pissy whiney progressive liberal that complains about guns a lot, just like all lefties.

          Yet he makes movies with lots of guns and shooting and killing, just like all all Hollyweird lefties.

          He’s a hypocrite of the first order. Not illegal, but revealing.

          More to the point, like all progressive liberals, he makes a lot of noise about how dangerous guns are. But when a real gun is handed to him, he treats it like a toy and kills people he didn’t want to.

          Get it? For years he’s been saying guns are dangerous. All of his peers in Hollyweird say guns are dangerous. It a culture wherein guns are thought to be too dangerous for us mere mortals to handle. Baldwin, by his own words, knows that guns are dangerous. Then he doesn’t perform a basic safety check when handed a real gun.

          He should be tried for that.

  8. fakebot says:

    The strange thing with that Dick Cheney incident was how the man who was shot seemed more apologetic than Cheney!

    RobW has it right from what I gather.

  9. walrus says:

    Actors are just acting. They are assumed to know nothing about firearms. That is why the Producer and industry codes require that a qualified armourer be hired and put in charge of firearms. The actor just does what the script says ie.: point gun at camera, say “make my day”, pull trigger. The actor does not argue or second guess the crew.

    To put it another way. If Tom Cruise or someone else playing a secret agent pushes the explosives plunger when instructed and accidentally blows up the pyrotechnics guy is he guilty of anything? Obviously not.

    You hire professionals. You pay them and do what they say. They have insurance for this.

    • Fred says:

      Walrus,

      There’s plenty of evidence of Baldwin using guns on movie sets before along with public comments about his skills with them. It appears that he was negligent. Whether that is criminal or only civil remains to be seen.

    • Barbara Ann says:

      walrus

      “They are assumed to know nothing about firearms”

      I’d maybe buy that if what is being described as a “prop gun” was not a real gun and therefore a potentially lethal weapon. As it is, it appears to simply be code for “gun used in making movies”. As an actor who handles guns he should be expected to understand basic gun safety, as he is the last line of defense (he apparently knows what a “hot gun” is). If Alec Baldwin ran over one of the crew after failing to brake in a scene involving a car, can he plead a defense that he should not be expected to know anything about how an automobile works? Movies are not reality, movie sets are. And despite much evidence to the contrary, actors also belong to the realm of reality.

  10. TTG says:

    There were at least two and maybe three firearm mishaps prior to Baldwin’s shooting.

    “Baldwin’s stunt double accidentally fired two rounds Saturday after being told that the gun was “cold” — lingo for a weapon that doesn’t have any ammunition, including blanks — two crew members who witnessed the episode told the Los Angeles Times.”
    “A colleague was so alarmed by the prop gun misfires that he sent a text message to the unit production manager. “We’ve now had 3 accidental discharges. This is super unsafe,” according to a copy of the message reviewed by The Times.”

    That included at least one previous incident involving a misfiring of a weapon that was used days before in a scene. “A gun had two misfires in a closed cabin,” a source told Deadline. “They just fired loud pops – a person was just holding it in their hands and it went off.”

    Not only was there repeated negligence in declaring a firearm cold when it was obviously not cold, but at least one of those firearms was malfunctioning if the “Deadline” story is believed. I still don’t see how a single action revolver could have two misfires without at least one deliberate cocking of the hammer. In the video I linked to earlier, Hickock45 talked about the weakness of the old single actions’ half cock or hammer notch safety. It seems to be a very common problem on these old designs and the weapons on the set of “Rust” weren’t well maintained or tested. This wasn’t a single incident. It was a systemic problem of neglecting firearms safety on this production lot.

    • Pat Lang says:

      TTG
      What does “misfire” mean?

      • TTG says:

        All the stories about this use “misfire” to indicate the revolver firing. Obviously this is the exact opposite to the normal usage of misfire meaning the firearm fails to fire when either the trigger is pulled or the hammer strikes the primer. The quote from “Deadline” says the revolver went off without pulling the trigger in an earlier incident. How that happens, I’m not sure. Perhaps the hammer fails to engage after it is cocked or halfcocked?

      • TTG says:

        I read on a shooting forum about incidents of “runaway gun” with revolvers. So I guess it is possible. It has nothing to do with Baldwin’s incident, but it does offer an explanation for his stuntman double’s incident of a few days earlier. One condition is heavy recoil accompanied by bad grip and trigger control, but that’s not the case with blanks. The other, more common with SAA type revolvers is a bad or missing firing pin bushing. Somebody’s not taking care of these weapons.

        “One case of this I heard of was a shooter new to powerful calibers and fired a S&W Model 29 inadvertently loaded with hot Silhouette match rounds. A video played in slow motioned showed that under the heavy recoil the gun was slipping in his hand and he was instinctively tightening his grip, and in so doing was pulling the trigger again in a form of bump firing. Suffice to say, a modern double action revolver mechanically cannot fire another shot unless the trigger is actually pulled again.”

        “You’re not pulling the trigger twice. I’m more aligned with Colt SAA and I’ve read of this problem occurring with them. Can’t remember the details but i would check the firing pin bushing. I’m trying hard to remember but I think it has to do with the busing either missing or the hole enlarge and the primer slams the hammer back causing the gun to cycle.”

        “Hatcher wrote in one of his books “Pistol and Revolver” about a fellow that was leaving a saloon and fired a SAA between another person’s legs ant the Colt cycles until empty. guy was on trial for shooting that person. Anyway it turned out that the “recoil plate” or firing pin bushing was missing and the primer cycled that old Colt.”

        • Pat Lang says:

          TTG
          “and the Colt cycles until empty.” I don’t believe that. Do you own revolvers?

          • TTG says:

            I own several, including that H&R top break, 9 shot 22LR you’ve seen years ago. The oldest I have is a Hopkins & Allen Model XL Bulldog 38 caliber black powder cartridge from the 1880s or 1890s. They are all double action.

            The proper functioning of single action seems totally dependent on the condition of the hammer notches. Couple worn/broken notches with a worn or missing firing pin bushing and I can see how a Colt SAA can run away. But I haven’t heard of the bushing problem until yesterday.

  11. Deap says:

    Getting to know the players in this unfolding drama – meet the bad, bad baby girl “armorer”:

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/woman-charge-guns-alec-baldwins-movie-set-deletes-social-media-accounts/

    Old school would say this is adult content – but that would be prudish today.

    • Pat Lang says:

      Deap

      So, the theory is that this woman loaded a round into that revolver that in the military we would call “ball”(i.e. with a bullet)? I find that implausible.

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