this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
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Baldwin didn't, yes, because he hired an incompetent armorer. In normal circumstances the armorer is the person doing everything you just said needed to be done.
A gun is different, it requires ammunition. If a gun is to fire a blank then the gun must be functional, the ammunition simply is designed to not fire a round that's meant to kill someone.
To expect every handler of a firearm to be knowledgeable enough about guns to safely unload, confirm what ammunition is in use, and then proceed accordingly when they also have to act and deal with what comes with that is insane. That's why there's a person whose professional job it is to do all of that and then tell the actor what can and cannot be done with the weapon.
Baldwin is guilty because he failed to employ a good armorer who could do their job. If it was a random actor not involved in the hiring process of the film then they'd be perfectly innocent in this situation, to think otherwise is straight up victim blaming.
Fuck that, absolutely not, every single handler of any firearm is required to know how to safely unload and confirm that it is unloaded. Period. End of story. If you don't know how to drop the mag and rack the slide then don't fucking touch that thing. Guns aren't toys, and they aren't props. The armorer is there for guidance and for double checking but there should never, ever, for any reason other than a survival emergency, be a gun in the hand of someone who does not know how it functions. Not for actors, not for cops, not for civilians. It takes less than a minute to confirm an unloading and it takes 15 minutes to teach someone how who has never seen a firearm before. There is no excuse whatsoever (BIG EDIT: assuming a competent armorer, that can actually teach this) for an actor not knowing how to confirm their own gun is ready for scene, and the armorer should check it themselves immediately before or after, before the scene starts.
Holy shit that's a lot of unformatted text to basically say:
Based on this incident, it seems that the film industry doesn't work.