Alec Baldwin held the gun.
Alec Baldwin pointed the gun at Mrs. Hutchins.
Alec Baldwin thumbed the hammer, let it drop, and/or pulled the trigger.
Alec Baldwin is the final and sole bearer of responsibility.

My mind is made up, so do not bother calling me for jury duty, as it will be a waste of time for everyone.

Interesting you guys discussing gun mechanics while the problem is still who fired the gun.

In this day and age couldn’t the character just aim at a camera with a remote monitor display or is his production really that cheap.

Long chain of irresponsibility here.

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Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:

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Originally posted by bigwagon:

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Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:

If my understanding is correct, there are true "4 click guns" which seem to include an initial safety notch followed by the Half Cock intercept (I haven't figured out where the 3rd click comes in)

The third "click" on an original style Colt SAA action is actually the sound of the legs of the cylinder stop (aka bolt) dropping off the cam on the side of the hammer. The other three clicks are stop notches in the hammer itself. When the hammer is in the half cock or loading position, the cylinder is rotated into alignment with the loading gat. If you drop it from there, it will fall onto the safety notch. If that notch is broken, not uncommon on older or heavily abused guns, the firing pin could hit the primer but may not have enough energy to ignite it.

Thank you for taking the time to explain that! I had a pretty good inkling for clicks one, two, and four, but your explanation of click three now makes perfect sense.

A couple follow up questions; am I correct that, on the true SAA 4 click type, if the hammer falls from click 2 that the cylinder has only partially rotated and the hammer will fall between the Chambers?

Are all 2 click guns of the Transfer Bar type? Am I correct that on these 2 click types that there is no partial cylinder rotation and therefore the hammer will fall on a chamber each time?

On a properly timed SAA, if the hammer falls or is lowered from the half cock or loading notch, the hand will rotate the cylinder backwards into alignment with the barrel. But the bolt will not snap back up into position into the cylinder notch and it won't be locked up.

Can't speak to the operation of the other systems. There are several different types.

quote:

Originally posted by 0-0:
Interesting you guys discussing gun mechanics while the problem is still who fired the gun.

In this day and age couldn’t the character just aim at a camera with a remote monitor display or is his production really that cheap.

Why? This is a gun forum, where guns and shooting are discussed.

Even when investigating aviation accidents in which the pilot(s) is suspected to be at fault, all the variables such as the mechanical condition of the aircraft, fuel contamination, WX, and a whole host of other factors are investigated as well.

Discussing the mechanical operation of the gun doesn't relieve Baldwin of his share of the responsibility for this tragedy, and if the mechanical safety features of the gun failed and/ or rules for safe operation were violated then why not take the time to learn from them and re-evaluate currently accepted safety designs and practices, or remind ourselves of their shortcomings?

There is no doubt that Baldwin violated currently accepted safety practices...the only question is whether others will be assigned some of the fault for this tragedy.

Under U.S. law there are variations of two types of negligence, Contributory and Comparative. If nothing else, I think it will be interesting to see if and how fault is assigned.

One of the interesting underlying legal questions in this tragedy is whether the responsibility for safety lies solely with the person who pointed the gun when it fired the fatal round, or will others who handled/ inspected the gun, or perhaps even manufactured it, or those who manufactured the ammunition be assigned a portion of the fault?

Of particular interest to me is; legally speaking, can you pay an armorer to be responsible for all the gun related technical and safety issues, effectively outsourcing responsibility for safety to a professional and absolving the person who fired the round from any responsibility...or, even with an armorer on set will the person who fired the round be held partially or primarily responsible? I suspect it will be the latter.

One person died, one person injured, several people and an industry affected and impacted... determining all the factors that lead to a tragedy help to prevent it from occurring again... but only if we take the time to learn from them.

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Long chain of irresponsibility here.
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Agreed.. which is what this discussion is about.

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Originally posted by bigwagon:

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Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:

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Originally posted by bigwagon:

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:

If my understanding is correct, there are true "4 click guns" which seem to include an initial safety notch followed by the Half Cock intercept (I haven't figured out where the 3rd click comes in)

The third "click" on an original style Colt SAA action is actually the sound of the legs of the cylinder stop (aka bolt) dropping off the cam on the side of the hammer. The other three clicks are stop notches in the hammer itself. When the hammer is in the half cock or loading position, the cylinder is rotated into alignment with the loading gat. If you drop it from there, it will fall onto the safety notch. If that notch is broken, not uncommon on older or heavily abused guns, the firing pin could hit the primer but may not have enough energy to ignite it.

Thank you for taking the time to explain that! I had a pretty good inkling for clicks one, two, and four, but your explanation of click three now makes perfect sense.

A couple follow up questions; am I correct that, on the true SAA 4 click type, if the hammer falls from click 2 that the cylinder has only partially rotated and the hammer will fall between the Chambers?

Are all 2 click guns of the Transfer Bar type? Am I correct that on these 2 click types that there is no partial cylinder rotation and therefore the hammer will fall on a chamber each time?

On a properly timed SAA, if the hammer falls or is lowered from the half cock or loading notch, the hand will rotate the cylinder backwards into alignment with the barrel. But the bolt will not snap back up into position into the cylinder notch and it won't be locked up.

Can't speak to the operation of the other systems. There are several different types.

Ahh. More pieces of the puzzle fall into place. Thank you!

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Interesting you guys discussing gun mechanics while the problem is still who fired the gun.

Seems natural to discuss mechanics when the person who fired the gun claims to have not pulled the trigger. I appreciate the discussion as an opportunity to learn from the knowledgeable people here.

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Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:
determining all the factors that lead to a tragedy help to prevent it from occurring again... but only if we take the time to learn from them.

Preach it, Brother!

In my time here I have seen many discussions about misuse of firearms shut down, but I don’t recall any pertaining to how firearms work being deemed inappropriate. One of the many gun safety rules that we should observe is to know how any firearm that we handle functions. It’s also important to be aware of and understand how accidents involving firearms occur. Discussions like these that move beyond platitudes and baseless speculation help ensure all that.

I very much appreciate the discussion. Even those who are fairly knowledgeable about firearms may not have a very good understanding as to the mechanics of these single action revolvers, me being one of those.

So just to clarify, are we saying that there may be a scenario where the hammer could fall without necessarily pulling the trigger?

Yes, that is possible with the pistols in question. That is why you never let the hammer down while pointing it at something you're not willing to shoot and you must always ride the hammer down with you're thumb. Its highly unlikely that Baldwin didn't know this.

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So just to clarify, are we saying that there may be a scenario where the hammer could fall without necessarily pulling the trigger?

It would take a highly unlikely, almost inconceivable, chain or cascade of failures, but none of them are possible without at least cocking the hammer. That's on him.

The usual way a single action revolver fires a cartridge is to pull the trigger after the hammer is cocked. It’s possible, however, for a round to be fired with some (all?) revolvers if the trigger is pulled and the hammer is pulled back and then released while the trigger is being held to the rear. Both require that the trigger be pulled, but the second is not the normal method, and someone may think, “I didn’t pull the trigger,” because it wasn’t done in the usual way.

Although now I’m speculating, someone who handles single action revolvers regularly may know that pulling the trigger when the hammer is not cocked does not fire the gun, and therefore he may get in the habit of pulling the trigger and perhaps holding it to the rear. If he does that and cocks the hammer, nothing bad will happen either—unless he allows the hammer to fall freely while keeping the trigger pulled. Even then there will be no discharge if the gun is unloaded as he expects it to be. Like so many disastrous accidents, all that requires a specific set of circumstances, but sometimes even unlikely sequences of events occur.

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Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
So just to clarify, are we saying that there may be a scenario where the hammer could fall without necessarily pulling the trigger?

On old-model, pre-transfer-bar SA revolvers: If the safety notch is broken and the hammer inadvertently released before it gets to "half-cock" (the loading position): Yes.

On modern revolvers, with a transfer bar: No, because the transfer bar is linked to the trigger. If the trigger's not pulled the transfer bar remains down, so, even if the hammer falls, it cannot strike the firing pin.

Actually, in transfer-bar revolvers the hammer never actually contacts the firing pin, per se. The hammer strikes the transfer bar and the transfer bar strikes the firing pin. Thus "transfer bar"

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Originally posted by egregore:

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So just to clarify, are we saying that there may be a scenario where the hammer could fall without necessarily pulling the trigger?

It would take a highly unlikely, almost inconceivable, chain or cascade of failures, but none of them are possible without at least cocking the hammer.

Regardless of who placed hands on the gun prior to Baldwin, what cartridges were in it, however they became loaded into it, the gun is INCAPABLE of being fired without the manipulations that obviously occurred to set the shot in motion. Baldwin can whine and complain all he wants, but at the end of the day, he owns this.

As a comparison, if I am in training and an armorer hands me what appears to be an unaltered duty pistol and swears 6 ways from Sunday that it is unloaded and safe, what would happen to me if I pointed at someone, pulled the trigger, and shot them without ever having verified it was in fact unloaded and safe? The armorer might share a fraction of the blame, but in the end I would be up shit creek, and rightly so.

I want to correct my post on page 44

I wrote

And she told him to cock the gun. "I sort of cock the gun"

that quote is what appears in the text of cited article

but after listening again to the video, what Baldwin actually said was:

"I start to cock the gun"

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Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
So just to clarify, are we saying that there may be a scenario where the hammer could fall without necessarily pulling the trigger?

On old-model, pre-transfer-bar SA revolvers: If the safety notch is broken and the hammer inadvertently released before it gets to "half-cock" (the loading position): Yes.

On modern revolvers, with a transfer bar: No, because the transfer bar is linked to the trigger. If the trigger's not pulled the transfer bar remains down, so, even if the hammer falls, it cannot strike the firing pin.

Actually, in transfer-bar revolvers the hammer never actually contacts the firing pin, per se. The hammer strikes the transfer bar and the transfer bar strikes the firing pin. Thus "transfer bar"

The transfer bar in my Rugers are not linked to the trigger. Simply pulling the hammer back moves the transfer bar into position, so, if somehow the hammer was released due to some mechanical issue, it would still strike the transfer bar.

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Originally posted by Pale Horse:
You might want to double check that. The transfer bar in my Rugers are not linked to the trigger.

Now, see: That's why we have these discussions about guns on a gun forum.

quote:

Originally posted by Pale Horse:
The transfer bar in my Ruger is not linked to the trigger. Simply pulling the hammer back moves the transfer bar into position, ...

Yes, but watch what the trigger's doing as your cock the hammer. Start cocking the hammer, with your finger off the trigger, until you see the transfer bar rise to between the hammer and firing pin, stop before it reaches full-cock, then lower the hammer, with your finger still off the trigger, and see what the transfer bar does.

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Originally posted by egregore:

quote:

So just to clarify, are we saying that there may be a scenario where the hammer could fall without necessarily pulling the trigger?

It would take a highly unlikely, almost inconceivable, chain or cascade of failures, but none of them are possible without at least cocking the hammer. That's on him.

I don't disagree and my comments aren't intended to relieve Baldwin's share of responsibility here but, while researching Pietta guns, I've come across annecdotes of criticisms that range from poor fit and finish, to parts breaking within 10 trigger pulls on a new gun causing stoppages. To be fair, these complaints were noted on both Pietta and Uberti cap and ball black powder revolvers, and I haven't come across them (yet) in the SAA style guns.

The problems with the parts breaking on Pietta and Uberti cap and ball black powder revolvers are so apparently accepted and understood that an aftermarket replacement parts industry has emerged for them, and some owners mention that the relative affordability of the Pietta makes them attractive because new owners can practice their home gunsmithing skills on a cheap gun that, once parts are replaced/ adjusted, make them good 'starter' guns.

So, what was the mechanical condition of the Pietta that fired the fatal round? Were parts worn? Did it have factory original or replacement parts in it? What Pietta model was it? Which generation was it and did it have a Transfer Bar?

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Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by Pale Horse:
The transfer bar in my Ruger is not linked to the trigger. Simply pulling the hammer back moves the transfer bar into position, ...

Yes, but watch what the trigger's doing as your cock the hammer. Start cocking the hammer, with your finger off the trigger, until you see the transfer bar rise to between the hammer and firing pin, stop before it reaches full-cock, then lower the hammer, with your finger still off the trigger, and see what the transfer bar does.

Does it retract as the hammer falls?