albie: Whoever holds the gun is “responsible” for checking the gun and it’s safety.
You: It is not that simple. And when it comes to actors in a movie production, that statement is specifically false.
Movie scenes often require firearms to be pointed at other people or at the camera. Such conditions are inherently dangerous.
1. Actors are required to check the gun.
2. Movie scenes almost NEVER require firearms to be pointed at people.
https://www.csatf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/01FIREARMS.pdf
Sorry I did not post the link before.
It is not difficult reading (only 4 pages). The rules, procedures, and job assignments are straightforward. They are not quite the same "4 rules" you would expect at your local gun range. They are dealing with different problems.
See rules 9, 11, 12 and 16. As a Producer, Alec Baldwin specifically failed to see these rules announced and enforced.
As an Actor, Alec Baldwin should not have been rehearsing shots (which the scene required to be aimed at the camera) until the setup was complete and the crew were clear of the line of fire. The Prop master or Armorer should have called a halt to rehearsal activity.
The Director should have called a halt to rehearsal activity. Maybe because Alec Baldwin was also the Producer and the boss, there was some inhibitions there.
The Actor, Alec Baldwin, was not specifically required to check the weapon given to him. He was within procedure to request such a check from the Armorer or Weapons Handler and "witness the loading of the firearms". But he did not do that.
The Armorer or authorized Weapons Handler should have been there to unload and clear the pistol immediately before the rehearsal. You don't just tell somebody else to pick up a "cold gun" from a cart.
Firearms are supposed to be unloaded or checked immediately before rehearsals, loaded immediately before active filming, and then unloaded and cleared immediately after. The Actor is not supposed to do any of that. The people who were supposed to do that - didn't.
The failures go on to the point of tedium to list them all. A professional inquest likely will be several hundred pages and name a dozen people responsible in some way for the death. But it starts at the top with bad management and percolates down from there.
Alex Baldwin was in the bad management group.