It is not the actor’s responsibility to verify the weapon is cold. This is well established practice in the film industry. There is plenty of case law with other accidental shootings to back this up. If an actor is also a producer It is what role they are doing at the time of the incident. It is irrelevant that an actor is also a producer if they are doing the active role of acting while on set. This shooting occurred during a rehearsal for a live shoot these are very common in the indisty and are treated legally exactly like a live shoot with film rolling. Why because film is expensive and scenes are regularly and frequently rehearsed with no film rolling. The armor and the associate director who were both in roles requiring them to ensure the weapon was a cold gun however are legally required to verify the weapon is cold. Again let repeat what case law already has held up multiple times. An actor in the role of acting be it in a live shoot or full dress rehearsal for a live shoot are legally identical and the actor has zero responsibility to verify the weapon as cold that is not their role, scope of work or responsibility. All the “rules” of weapons do not apply on set where you will actively be aiming prop guns are live targets for a movie. That also has been held up in court. Otherwise you couldn’t film with weapons at all. The responsibility lies with the armors on set and ultimately the ACTIVE director on scene.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/24/opinions/rust-movie-prop-gun-investigation-callan/index.html
The standard in NM is “reckless” conduct resulting in a loss of life. Indeed he should be charged.
Amid all the trivial debate about accidents and misfires, here’s a real thought experiment:
Just how ridiculously coincidental is it that the cylinder of a revolver (6 holes, I imagine) is loaded with five blanks and one live round when the person loading the pistol handles six cartridges, five being flat-tipped with wax or wadding level with the brass of the cartridge AND one cartridge with a round tip, the slug, protruding above the brass and not noticing, when, after all, every single round has to be handled with the fingers and inserted into the cylinder individually????
And even more incredible, add this: how astronomically coincidental is it that the live round is loaded into the precise hole in the cylinder that will rotate into the firing position the first time the weapon is fired?
I would say so unlikely are these two coincidences, back to back, that I might argue that this wasn’t an accidental anything, misfire or otherwise.
Did we not read that a union crew walked off the job in protest and nonunion labor was hired?
Does the word sabotage ring a bell in anybody’s thought experiment?
True storyâ¦â¦.
Massapequa, NY. 1972 through 1976.
We had a rifle range/fallout shelter in the basement of Massapequa High School. We had a rifle team (all Nassau County). If you didnâÂÂt know gun safety by the time you tried out for the rifle team, you were given several hours of instruction before you touched a gun. If you slacked, you were gone. Who was the rifle coach?
Alexander Baldwin, Sr.
Again, true story.
Little Alec should have known better. (He graduated in 1976 too).