Uh, Alec Baldwin just shot and killed someone

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Jersey Girl
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Re: Uh, Alec Baldwin just shot and killed someone

Post by Jersey Girl »

Cultellus wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 5:11 am
Jersey Girl wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 5:08 am


Alec Baldwin pointed a gun at someone and pulled the trigger with WHAT expectation?
Tell me. The expectation and the probable outcome and the possible outcomes are all different.
Alec Baldwin pointed a gun at someone and pulled the trigger with WHAT expectation?

ETA: Don't let the question throw you. There's only one right answer.
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Re: Uh, Alec Baldwin just shot and killed someone

Post by Cultellus »

Did you ask Alec? I was not there.

If he pointed a real gun at someone and pulled the trigger, his expectations are not relevant. The probability of something unexpected is not zero.

It does not matter one damned bit what he expected. The risk he took, when he pulled that trigger, matters. His expectation does not damned matter. His RISK matters.
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Re: Uh, Alec Baldwin just shot and killed someone

Post by canpakes »

Cultellus wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 4:42 am
Alf'Omega wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 4:32 am
[blatant and unimaginative personal attack removed -cp-]
Typical for you. What’s your point?

So a man points a gun at someone and pulls the trigger, is it an accident if the bullet hits the target?

If the gun had discharged unpredictably, that could have been accidental. But in this case, someone pointed the gun and pulled the trigger.
Alf, calling this negligent as opposed to accidental is understandable. The idea is fleshed out a bit more thoroughly in this short piece at the link below (having nothing to do with this incident specifically):

https://www.eaglegunrangetx.com/police- ... tor-error/

The counter argument to this is, if we are considering whether or not the person handling the firearm had any understanding that it could realistically harm anyone. Think of a situation where a child accidentally discharged a weapon, harming themselves or another person. The child may have placed their finger on the trigger but would not necessarily have had any knowledge of personal harm possible from doing so. Negligence would still come into play, but the charge might be levied at the owner of the firearm, or whoever chambered it, assuming that it wasn’t the child.

This argument grows significantly weaker once we move up in age to adults, but there is probably an expectation that a firearm to be operated as a prop would not be capable of killing someone at fairly close range - either because it might be assumed to not operate as an actual firearm, or because the person wielding it may not have knowledge of the potential lethality of ‘blanks’. In other words, an actor/actress used to dealing with props might be overconfident of the assumed safety of those props as prepared for them by others whose job is to ensure safe operation, specifically because of their potential for harm otherwise.

And yet, the possibility that this firearm may have been purposefully loaded with a standard round (labor dispute shenanigans by someone who may never have expected this serious of an outcome), and the case for ‘accidental’ then becomes more valid.

Just my opinion, so sharper legal minds may need to step in and correct me where I’m going astray.
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Re: Uh, Alec Baldwin just shot and killed someone

Post by Jersey Girl »

Cultellus wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 5:32 am
Did you ask Alec? I was not there.

If he pointed a real gun at someone and pulled the trigger, his expectations are not relevant. The probability of something unexpected is not zero.

It does not matter one damned bit what he expected. The risk he took, when he pulled that trigger, matters. His expectation does not damned matter. His RISK matters.
Can't you answer a simple question?
We only get stronger when we are lifting something that is heavier than what we are used to. ~ KF

Slava Ukraini!
Cultellus

Re: Uh, Alec Baldwin just shot and killed someone

Post by Cultellus »

Jersey Girl wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 5:39 am
Cultellus wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 5:32 am
Did you ask Alec? I was not there.

If he pointed a real gun at someone and pulled the trigger, his expectations are not relevant. The probability of something unexpected is not zero.

It does not matter one damned bit what he expected. The risk he took, when he pulled that trigger, matters. His expectation does not damned matter. His RISK matters.
Can't you answer a simple question?
I did. Play fetch with someone else or give us the answer. FFS
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Re: Uh, Alec Baldwin just shot and killed someone

Post by Res Ipsa »

Cultellus wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 4:42 am
Alf'Omega wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 4:32 am
[blatant and unimaginative personal attack removed -cp-]
Typical for you. What’s your point?

So a man points a gun at someone and pulls the trigger, is it an accident if the bullet hits the target?

If the gun had discharged unpredictably, that could have been accidental. But in this case, someone pointed the gun and pulled the trigger.
If a man points a gun that he knows is loaded and pulls the trigger, the discharge is intentional. If he does the same thing with a gun being used as a prop in a movie that he reasonably believes is not loaded, the discharge is accidental because he neither intended nor expected pulling the trigger to result in the firing of the gun.
he/him
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Cultellus

Re: Uh, Alec Baldwin just shot and killed someone

Post by Cultellus »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 6:25 am
Cultellus wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 4:42 am


Typical for you. What’s your point?

So a man points a gun at someone and pulls the trigger, is it an accident if the bullet hits the target?

If the gun had discharged unpredictably, that could have been accidental. But in this case, someone pointed the gun and pulled the trigger.
If a man points a gun that he knows is loaded and pulls the trigger, the discharge is intentional. If he does the same thing with a gun being used as a prop in a movie that he reasonably believes is not loaded, the discharge is accidental because he neither intended nor expected pulling the trigger to result in the firing of the gun.
We concluded that the gun was expected to fire, prop or not. It was always expected to fire. That was the point of having the gun.

An accidental discharge is the unintentional firing of a shot not due to improper gun handling and through no fault of the person handling the gun. In the vast majority of cases, an accidental discharge is due to mechanical failure or equipment malfunction.

In Baldwin’s case, he fired the gun. It did not discharge because of a mechanical failure. It discharged, as intended, when he pulled the trigger. This is not that hard. He pulled the trigger. It went bang. Not an accidental discharge.

He pulled the trigger. It discharged as intended. He may have had a live round in the pipe and he thought it was something else. Yes. That is negligence, but not an accidental discharge. He still meant to empty the pipe.
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Re: Uh, Alec Baldwin just shot and killed someone

Post by Res Ipsa »

canpakes wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 5:34 am
Cultellus wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 4:42 am


Typical for you. What’s your point?

So a man points a gun at someone and pulls the trigger, is it an accident if the bullet hits the target?

If the gun had discharged unpredictably, that could have been accidental. But in this case, someone pointed the gun and pulled the trigger.
Alf, calling this negligent as opposed to accidental is understandable. The idea is fleshed out a bit more thoroughly in this short piece at the link below (having nothing to do with this incident specifically):

https://www.eaglegunrangetx.com/police- ... tor-error/

The counter argument to this is, if we are considering whether or not the person handling the firearm had any understanding that it could realistically harm anyone. Think of a situation where a child accidentally discharged a weapon, harming themselves or another person. The child may have placed their finger on the trigger but would not necessarily have had any knowledge of personal harm possible from doing so. Negligence would still come into play, but the charge might be levied at the owner of the firearm, or whoever chambered it, assuming that it wasn’t the child.

This argument grows significantly weaker once we move up in age to adults, but there is probably an expectation that a firearm to be operated as a prop would not be capable of killing someone at fairly close range - either because it might be assumed to not operate as an actual firearm, or because the person wielding it may not have knowledge of the potential lethality of ‘blanks’. In other words, an actor/actress used to dealing with props might be overconfident of the assumed safety of those props as prepared for them by others whose job is to ensure safe operation, specifically because of their potential for harm otherwise.

And yet, the possibility that this firearm may have been purposefully loaded with a standard round (labor dispute shenanigans by someone who may never have expected this serious of an outcome), and the case for ‘accidental’ then becomes more valid.

Just my opinion, so sharper legal minds may need to step in and correct me where I’m going astray.
The problem I see is the assumption that negligence and accidental are opposing categories. They aren’t. Negligence is the legal standard we use to decide when to hold someone financially liable for an accident. If injury or damage isn’t an accident, we describe it as intentional injury — not negligence.

Negligence basically means that the person departed from what a reasonable person would do in the specific circumstances. The standards of reasonableness for LEOs carrying a loaded block are not the same for an actor using a gun as a prop on a movie set when others are assigned the responsibility of making sure the firearm is safe.

An accident means that something unexpected and unforeseen occurred in the chain of causation that resulted in harm or injury that was not expected or intended.

Insurance companies pay out millions of dollars a day for accidental injury or damage for which their insured were found to be negligent.
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Re: Uh, Alec Baldwin just shot and killed someone

Post by Jersey Girl »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 6:25 am
Cultellus wrote:
Sat Oct 23, 2021 4:42 am


Typical for you. What’s your point?

So a man points a gun at someone and pulls the trigger, is it an accident if the bullet hits the target?

If the gun had discharged unpredictably, that could have been accidental. But in this case, someone pointed the gun and pulled the trigger.
If a man points a gun that he knows is loaded and pulls the trigger, the discharge is intentional. If he does the same thing with a gun being used as a prop in a movie that he reasonably believes is not loaded, the discharge is accidental because he neither intended nor expected pulling the trigger to result in the firing of the gun.
Do we know if Alec Baldwin thought the prop gun wasn't loaded?

When he asked why someone handed him a hot gun, did he mean a gun that was loaded?

Why would he have thought the prop gun wasn't loaded?
We only get stronger when we are lifting something that is heavier than what we are used to. ~ KF

Slava Ukraini!
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Re: Uh, Alec Baldwin just shot and killed someone

Post by Res Ipsa »

It depends. My understanding is that if the scene was being rehearsed, the gun should not have been loaded with anything. If they were filming, It doesn’t sounds like the Brandon Lee scenario, in which the gun was fired at another actor in the scene. The woman who was killed was the cinematographer. If Baldwin asked why someone had handed him a hot gun, that’s evidence that whatever was in the gun, it wasn’t what expected it to be. That’sa classic cause of accidents — someone misjudging some fact crucial to the outcome.

It’s very likely that someone was negligent. We just don’t know enough yet to tell who it was.
he/him
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