this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
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[–] ultranaut@lemmy.world -4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Was he actually in charge of conditions? Did he supervise the armorer or the AD who were responsible for handing him a loaded prop gun? I've never seen those claim proven anywhere, from what I I've seen he was an actor on the set and his producer title came primarily from his role in funding the production.

[–] circuscritic@lemmy.ca 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

The production company, Rust Movie Productions.

Alec Baldwin was both a producer of the movie, and part of the part of said production company.

So to answer your question, yes, he was.

https://marketrealist.com/p/who-owns-rust-movie-productions-llc/

[–] ultranaut@lemmy.world -1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

That doesn't answer anything. Producer is a title that encompasses a lot of different things, what were his actual duties and responsibilities as a producer? That's what actually matters here, that he has a producer title on the movie and helped pay the bills doesn't mean he had any involvement in hiring or supervising the two people so far found legally culpable.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I thought the same, and it's definitely a witch hunt from the right, HOWEVER I also did some lookups and it sounds like he was basically running this movie. Even the director was taking orders from him, and the lax safety standards are pretty much directly because he ordered them to ignore them. So the witch hunt is stupid, but he does deserve punishment for his negligence.

[–] circuscritic@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

The term witch hunt came to be used because magical witches don't actually exist.

But the criminally unsafe working conditions that lead to a woman's death the set of Rust did exist and Alec Baldwin was in charge of, or at least responsible for them, in his role as producer and partner in the production company.

The other type of witch hunt is basically malicious harassment or persecution for being different in some way (political, religious, etc.)

His patterns of behaviors, direct actions, and personal role in setting the working conditions of the set directly resulted in a woman's death, and that's before even taking into account that he pulled the trigger.

For anyone to claim that despite all of that, he's actually being persecuted for his personal views or political leanings, is disingenuous at best.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 1 points 6 months ago

I call it witch-hunt because at the beginning conservatives were just going after him because he played Donald Trump on SNL and they wanted to see him behind bars. It wasn't until after that that it came to light that he actually had a big say in the safety of the show.

So, I hold to that there are two things currently going on. Conservatives are just happy he's being prosecuted for anything, and then other people who are glad he's standing trial for being negligent.

[–] ultranaut@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Sorry for interrupting the witch hunt with questions. I've not seen that and no one ever points to any actual evidence.

[–] circuscritic@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 months ago

Just because he was the lead actor, producer, partner in the production company, and gave orders to the cast and crew, doesn't mean he has any responsibility for what happens on set

[–] Rivalarrival 1 points 6 months ago

The only "condition" that is relevant is the fact that he was handling the firearm at the time it was fired. Yes, he was fully and solely in charge of that condition.

He failed to take any safety precautions whatsoever. He failed to abide by the layers of multiple precautions of normal gun use, let alone the heightened precautions necessary for film.

Standard operating procedure when picking up or being handed a gun is to immediately check if it is loaded. He failed to do a proper check. He failed to do any check at all. Had he pointed the gun at the ground and pulled the trigger 6 times, it would have fired, but nobody would have gotten hurt.

If someone blew through a red light in a school zone at 80mph, without bothering to check that there was no cross traffic, let alone that the roads had been closed, the fact that he had a cameraman in the passenger seat would not absolve him of any injuries he caused in the process. The way Baldwin used that revolver was far more reckless.

Even if the armorer had deliberately tried to murder her by telling him the gun was safe when she knew it wasn't, his actions would still rise to the level of criminal negligence.