[b]● Prosecutors in New Mexico have dropped enhanced firearm charges against Alec Baldwin. ● The move reduces possible prison time. ● The actor still faces 18 months in prison if found guilty of the lesser charges.[/b]
[i][c=666666]Alec Baldwin and the film's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, still face involuntary manslaughter charges. (GETTY IMAGES)[/c][/i]
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New Mexico prosecutors have dropped firearm enhancement charges against actor Alec Baldwin following the fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie Rust. Ms Hutchins, 42, died in hospital after she was shot in the chest by a prop gun fired by Mr Baldwin.
The original charges carry a mandatory five-year prison sentence while the reduced charges (involuntary manslaughter) can result in 18 months of prison time.
The district attorney for Santa Fe (Heather Brewer) said the prosecution had dropped the initial charges to “avoid further litigious distractions by Mr Baldwin and his attorneys”.
"The prosecution's priority is securing justice, not securing billable hours for big-city attorneys," Ms Brewer said.
The firearm enhancement charge has also been dropped for the film's armorer - Hannah Guitierrez-Reed according to CBS News.
Lawyers for the two accused had argued that the firearm enhancement charges were related to a version of the law passed after the October 2021 shooting incident.
Mr. Baldwin’s lawyer, Lukas Nikas said his client “had no reason to believe that there was a live bullet in the gun - or anywhere on the movie set. He relied on professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds”.
Earlier in February, the sister and parents of Ms Hutchins sued Mr Baldwin over Ms Hutchins death. Her husband agreed to settle his wrongful death lawsuit last year. Filming for the Western film will resume this spring with Mr Baldwin as the lead actor.
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[c=004A59][b]Opinion Poll: [u]Should Alec Baldwin have checked the gun himself?[/u] [/b][/c]
📊 Vote your Opinion in the Poll, above. 📥 💬 Comment below. ⬇️
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I got mixed feelings about this. In real life when you pick up a gun you are responsible for being sure it isn't loaded and you certainly don't point it at someone and pull the trigger. Things apparently work different on movie sets. Someone else is responsible for being sure it isn't loaded, or at least being sure it is loaded with blanks or fake cartridges or whatever the scene calls for. And when someone gets shot and killed they are supposed to jump back up afterwards like nothing ever happened. In other words the gun was supposed to be idiot proofed by someone else, and on top of that the idiot wasn't supposed to point it directly at the other person but off to the side.
Multiple things went wrong here, starting with someone bringing live rounds on to the set. From what I understand the armorer wasn't even on the set at the time of the accident and someone else handed Baldwin the gun and it sounds like they only half ass checked it. Was he qualified to do this? Shouldn't the Armorer have been there? I don't completely understand what the "rules" about this are. It was supposed to be a practice run. There's no reason it needed any cartridges, blanks or otherwise. I don't see any point in him actually cocking the gun and pulling the trigger but he did, and he was pointing it directly at the woman. Then he claimed he didn't pull the trigger. Bullshit. I own what is for all practical purposes the same exact gun except in .357. Depending on precisely which version he was using, the hammers on those have 3 or 4 positions. The first would be a "safe" position that holds the firing pin slightly above the cartridge, the second is the loading position that allows the cylinder to rotate freely so it can be loaded through the loading gate, the third is a half cock position in which the chamber is indexed to the barrel and firing pin but the trigger can't be pulled, the final position is fully cocked and ready to fire. I tried every way imaginable to make the hammer drop (on an empty chamber of course) and there's only two ways that could have happened. One is he fully cocked it and pulled the trigger, the other is he (at least) halfcocked it and was trying to decock it and his thumb slipped while he still had his finger on the trigger. Either way, he had his finger on the trigger when it went off. Ultimately, he was the director, he should have known what the proper procedures were. He bears a certain amount of responsibility for what happened even if it had been someone else holding the gun
To answer the actual question, from what I understand no, actors aren't supposed to do anything but what they are told to do. Someone else was supposed to check. It's assumed the actors aren't qualified to know how a gun is supposed to work. That would have been the armorers job. But then he hired her. But then she wasn't there. But he most likely hired the guy who handed him the gun, who apparently didn't know how guns worked either.
@robb65 If actors are only supposed to do what they are told, there was no part of the script as I understand that told him to do what he did.
In this day and age there's no reason for a real gun on a set. There are "prop guns" which don't shoot anything. They can add the bang and fireball or gun smoke or whatever in the editing room.
