Attorney Andrew Branca has a good perspective on New Mexico law and this shooting here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upDuj8EcYeg

As they say, the internet stays undefeated.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
'Rust' movie head electrician says he was 'holding' Halyna Hutchins in his 'arms while she was dying'.

Serge Svetnoy, the head electrician/gaffer of the movie "Rust," penned an emotional post on social media about the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins after a prop gun shooting on set.

Man do I feel sorry for this man having to sit there and watch this woman die. Simply horrible.

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
Attorney Andrew Branca has a good perspective on New Mexico law and this shooting here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upDuj8EcYeg

I watched this video in its entirety, and I recommend that all members who are debating the responsibility of Alec Baldwin in this incident, watch this video.

This gentleman nails it down to extent possible with the facts as they are known at this time.

Who is the New Mexico prosecutor who has jurisdiction where the shooting took place? Based upon this lawyer's comments in this video, it seems it comes down to whether or not the prosecutor is willing to prosecute Baldwin, and we all know that everything in this world is now politicized. I would really like to take a gander at the person who might make this decision.



Oh, and then, there's this from Baldwin's wikipedia page, under 'political views':

During his appearance on the comedy late night show Late Night with Conan O'Brien on December 11, 1998, eight days before President Bill Clinton was to be impeached, Baldwin said, "If we were in another country ... we would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families, for what they're doing to this country." Baldwin later apologized for the remarks, and the network explained that it was meant as a joke and promised not to re-run it.

Nighty-night, Alec. Sweet dreams.

Well. There it is. Baldwin fucked up and wears the sole responsibility of killing someone in the eyes of New Mexico State law. That’s as it should be.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
Well. There it is. Baldwin fucked up and wears the sole responsibility of killing someone in the eyes of New Mexico State law. That’s as it should be.

Yup, looks like he's toast under New Mexico's strict liability rules on inherently dangerous instruments.

That also means (I presume, based only on what the video presents as New Mexico law) that accidentally killing a bystander in an otherwise good shoot gets you prison time for felony involuntary manslaughter in New Mexico.

Hope that pos will meet his soul mate in prison.

Here's an example of the local DA's style. Her name is Mary Carmack-Altweis; I've read she's a lesbian and former public defender.

Link

quote:

‘Political problem’: Santa Fe-area DA defends letting obelisk topplers go free
/ New Mexico, News, Politics / By John Block
On Thursday, the district attorney for the First Judicial District, Mary Carmack-Altwies, announced she would not be seeking jail time for any of the domestic terrorists who toppled the 153-year-old obelisk in Downtown Santa Fe dedicated to Union soldiers who fought against the Confederacy in the Civil War.

At the time, she claimed, “The Obelisk case defendants meet the criteria I set out for diversionary programming. We have reached a resolution after months of careful investigation and negotiation between defendants, their attorneys, and my office that ensures justice while working toward community healing.”

But her decision to not go after the ardent criminals who very deliberately and knowingly tore down a centuries-old piece of New Mexico culture and history was met with much fury from the public.

Former city councilor Ron Trujillo said it was a “crock of crap” that Carmack-Altwies was letting the vandals go free, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.

However, Carmack-Altwies claimed the toppling of the obelisk was “a political problem that got forced upon the criminal justice system” in her defense of her weak prosecutorial decision to let the criminals slide.

Some pointed out her tone-deaf comments, with one person writing, “Well, I suppose the storming of the national capitol was ‘a political problem that got forced upon the criminal justice system’ too. For that matter, were the bombings of abortion clinics, vandalism of fur farms, and burning of draft offices ‘political problems’? No. They were crimes.”

In her defense, the district attorney made clear she did not want a “punitive” result for the domestic terrorists. She said her “restorative justice” approach was “supposed to bring both sides together and get everyone to come to a resolution or conclusion about what they should do as part of their punishment. And it is a punishment.” She added, “It’s not punitive, necessarily, in that it’s not jail. But it is a punishment — they have to participate in this. And if they drop out and they don’t do it, then we lift the stay and prosecution keeps going.”

Many would say Carmack-Altwies is speaking out of both sides of her mouth if she says she does not want a “punitive” outcome while also saying the vandals having to merely talk it out with community leaders while they pick up a few pounds of trash is “punishment.”

The Santa Fe New Mexican notes, “Carmack-Altwies said that while it will be difficult to identify the specific victims in the toppling of the obelisk on Oct. 12, anyone is welcome to present their grievances to the program’s mediator, Debra Oliver.”

Still, people are not happy with her weak-on-crime approach to holding these vandals accountable. One commenter said, “Mary, It is called ‘you let em go free.’” These words ring loud and clear for many New Mexicans, especially those in Santa Fe who will now have a chance to kick out Mayor Alan Webber, responsible for letting the obelisk get toppled as he commanded the police to stand by and watch.

I'd like to think Norm would be all over this. RIP.

He's a real lady killer now.

Yes he is. And his wrist watch costs more than you make in a year........

quote:

Originally posted by Graniteguy:
Yes he is. And his wrist watch costs more than you make in a year........

Somehow, I knew it was a bad idea for Glock to start putting their name on watches.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
Her name is Mary Carmack-Altweis;

One needs to read no further.

That 1955 New Mexico Supreme Court appellate ruling mentioned in the video at about 21:00 minute mark is gonna be a huge hurdle to overcome for Baldwin’s defense. Basically that the only person responsible for the outcome is the person whose hand was holding the gun, when it fired. Not the prop handler, etc.

quote:

I recommend that all members who are debating the responsibility of Alec Baldwin in this incident, watch this video.

Yes, great explanation of how the user bears absolute responsibility.

When discussing firearms with friends, family, both for and against, I always stress that if you follow the 4 rules you will not have a problem. There is no room for mistakes with something capable of taking life. In NYS I have to be ultra vigilant as we cannot get insurance to protect ourselves in the event of self defense or accident. But, aside from self defense, if I follow these simple and finite 4 rules, I will never have a problem. I realize that I am preaching to the choir but it is perplexing to me that this could happen.

Alec Baldwin, or the artist formerly known as, is fucked.

Someone posted in the comments section of that video that had Alec Baldwin been playing russian roulette, he would have checked the gun.

SL Huang is a female professional armorer in Hollywood

She has a long series of tweets

I am not going to share backchannel rumors or speculation I'm hearing but I will answer a few things about movies and guns that people are asking
One is: "how are there not safety measures to prevent this?" The answer is: There are. There are very, very many

Qualified armorers have many, many safety precautions and redundancies.

Honestly I keep trying to come up with a scenario where it's possible for this to happen under standard gun safety procedures on film sets and I am so horribly stumped
(and horrified that I am stumped because it means this was likely so bad, and the failures here likely so unfathomably huge and many)

Our procedures plan in mistakes, actor error, etc. There should never be any single fail point; if anyone makes a mistake there are many multiple other things backing up the safety
Safety is always #1. Nothing can compromise it. There are other parts of the job (e.g. helping the director get the shots they want) but nothing can ever interfere with safety
I can think of so many things I would do on every film set as standard, any *one* of which would have prevented something like this.
We plan for that redundancy, we plan for things to go wrong and for actors to mess up

Now I do not know what happened here. But I want to convey to you, as someone who has worked firearms on probably hundreds of film sets, that this is both deeply, deeply upsetting and also deeply shocking
A tragedy happening in *this particular* way defies everything I know about how we treat guns on film sets. It implies to me that something was likely very, very wrong here.

"Was this a real gun? why are real guns on set? how could a prop gun fire?"

First of all, blank guns are real guns. Semi-autos are what we call "blank adapted" but that is purely for the *function* of the gun, not for safety (a projectile could still exit). Revolvers, shotguns, etc we use unmodified
In other words, you can take a revolver from a movie set and load live ammo into it. (We sometimes have demilled props and other variations but blank fire would almost always be real guns)

When we say a "prop gun" on a film set we mean a rubber or a replica that does not fire. We do not mean a blank firing gun. We call blank fire guns real guns because as I said, they are real.

Sometimes real guns are used "cold" (unloaded) if either there's no matching prop gun or if they want a closeup (the props are usually not as nice looking in detail), but for wide shots props are fine
Actors can feel & see that a prop is not something that can fire. Also props can be thrown/dropped without damaging the firearm. So lots of reasons to use rubbers/replicas where you can

Real guns are always -- always -- in my possession unless they're being used for a scene, in which case I'm right there watching. We treat real guns very seriously whether they're loaded or not
If we're using the real guns, cold (unloaded) guns are always used outside of gunfire scenes. If the ammo has to be visible we use dummies. These are *always* carefully checked.

When I am using a cold gun or a cold gun with dummies in it, I am VERY clear with the cast and crew about it. I physically open and show that the weapon is cold to the actors, the crew

Before going "hot" for a gunfire scene, we always choreograph & rehearse everything carefully with the director, crew, actors, stunt people
Everyone needs to know exactly what they're doing before any guns are loaded. Where they're standing, where they're moving, where they're aiming.

When we "go hot" that means we are loading the guns with blanks and doing blank gunfire. Everyone is very, very clear on this. Very loud notifications, announced and repeated, announced over radio and very loud on set.
I am always right there watching the scene extremely closely and making sure the actors and stunt people are exactly where they should be, doing exactly what they should be

And yes, actors screw up sometimes. Miss their mark, or turn the wrong way, etc. That's why we have so many redundant safety protocols.

No one's life or safety should *ever* depend solely on the actor hitting their mark correctly.

As soon as the scene is over, we go in and clear the guns.
Only after the guns are announced clear does everything start moving on

The 1st AD / production stepping in and shutting things down is what we would want/expect to happen if things aren't being run safely, and it's another thing that has to fail for things to go really, really bad.

Next question I see -- "how could blanks hurt someone? Do blanks still spit out paper or another projectile? What was a film gun doing firing live ammo???"
The last question is one of mine as well (if that's what happened, which I've seen rumored but not confirmed). Live ammo should never, ever, ever be mixed in on a film set.

If live ammo was mixed in on this set that is unfathomably bad. It is a tremendous problem and not even slightly understandable or okay.

But yes, blanks are still dangerous. Except for shotguns I always used "crimped" blanks -- that is, no wad (nothing coming out of the gun)

Some blanks do have paper wads & are more dangerous bc that is a projectile. I would not use those for films. So in that case, no projectile
But even without that, the air becomes concussive. What is coming out of the gun is air, concussion, powder, flame.

The concussive force dissipates at 15 feet or so for small caliber rounds

Finally, yes, if there is anything stuck in the gun and a blank is put behind it -- yes, that stuck thing can become a projectile, functioning like a bullet
That's why one of the things we always do every single time is check the guns all the way down the barrel.
That's also why one of the basic safety protocols is that blank firing guns are never pointed directly at someone else -- not at other actors, not at crew

please know that when very basic, very standard safety protocols for movie gun safety are followed, this sequence of events is not something we expect to be possible. Not ever, not even rarely.

https://twitter.com/sl_huang/s.../1451797888158375937

Thanks sdy,

A good read.

What SL Huang describes as to how firearms are handled on a film set is more-or-less what I would have expected.

How ironic is it that the fact that Alec was so anti gun might actually work against him in courts or in settlement talks??