Like @immatthewj, I’m a liberal progressive who was raised in a home with firearms. My dad made my brother and I take NRA firearm safety courses back when it was just that, safety courses and not a lobbying firm on the take for gun manufacturers.
Having said that, I don’t believe Alec Baldwin was at fault, even if he was the producer. He can’t be everywhere at all times and besides, being a producer just means you helped secure funds to have a movie made or know someone who does.
The job of armorer is very important and Reed was young, connected and incompetent. Actors act, amoreres maintain and arm guns, cameramen run cameras, etc. When an actor is handed a gun, the armorer and another person have to have inspected and/or loaded the gun. Live ammo is never allowed on set. "Cold gun" was announced when the gun was handed over. That meant no ammo in it. "Hot gun" means there’s blanks in it. Reed said she checked "most of the time" Her testimony! It’s one of the cushiest jobs in film making you can get and she couldn’t even take it seriously enough to do it right.
Even if there were blanks, there’s no way for an actor to tell if a six gun is safely loaded with blanks unless they look down the front of the gun and rotate the cylnder chamber by chamber and I know of no one who would do that. You can only tell by looking at the buisness end of the bullet. You just can’t swing open the cylinder like on a modern gun and you can’t tell by looking at the primer end of the bullets even if you could swing it open.
Blanks are still deadly. I’ve seen 9mm blanks go halfway through a phonebook and a .45 punch threw a can at close range. That actor who put a gun loaded with blanks to his head and pulled the trigger thinking nothing would happen shoved a half dollar size of his skull halfway into his head.
Reed gave a bag of cocaine to another crew member so it wouldn’t be found on her. Off set she did coke, pot and booze (that’s her business but it speaks to her character). She and/or her subordinate brought the live ammo on the set. As for pointing the gun at the camera, that’s what the scene called for (you see it all the time in movies).
Cinematographer Hutchins was lining up her camera for the shot as Baldwin held the gun. It went off like it did about a week earlier with another actor prompting several crew members to say" f*ck it, I’m outta here".
In the trial Hannah was found guilty of negligent manslaughter but charges of tampering with evidence was dropped after many people suddenly started handling the guns and ammo. That should tell you something. Hannah also faces charges of bringing one of her loaded guns into a bar as well. As for Baldwin, he was exonerated after finding the prosecution hid evidence that there was live ammo on the set. Prosecutorial misconduct as they call it. They had it in for him since he’s a liberal. Go figure.
Now watch this post get deleted.
All the best,
Nonoise