Re: OT. Movie Prop Guns

Are you trying to get out of jury duty or something ? John T.

I have basic familiarity with firearms and would have checked a SAA style, but there are probably lots of types that I haven't seen and don't know exactly how they function. That's why they have trained armorers and safety officers on sets. If someone has only seen a DA revolver they may be lost on an SA. My kids would be fine with a break action shotgun because we've shot skeet but they haven't seen a pump or lever.

Back when I worked corrections we had an accidental discharge that blew a hole in the roof of a gun tower. All of us had qualified and most of us hunted, it was not a gun naive crowd. But part of the procedure after shift change was to check the weapon, and the SOP was to keep the shotgun loaded but with empty chamber. We changed brands of shotgun while one officer was on vacation. The old brand didn't chamber the first round when you worked the action, the new one did - I forget, went from Remington to Mossberg or vice versa. So he had one in the chamber and he pulled the trigger, pointing the barrel in a safe direction because we always did, and it went bang. Lots of drama when you do that in a max security prison.

Funniest part was he got to thinking about what went wrong, and he was pretty sure he'd followed procedure exactly, so about an hour later Bang! he did it again.

WOW! Let's apply your new rules to EVERY gun owner or shooter. Your gun gets stolen and used to kill some one, or someone in your family kills themself with it, YOU go to jail, and you get fired. Great plan!

Where I live there are certain rules for the homeowner with guns. Such as if there are children in or may be in the house (such as grandchildren visiting) you are suppose to keep the guns locked up or placed where it is very difficult for them to access them. Or have locks on the guns so they can not be fired .

Once a gun is stolen, it is no longer in your possesson and you should not be held responsiable.

Work place safety seems to have odd rules. Like a man where I worked fell off a fixed ladder. That is a ladder made on to the side of a building. He climbed up and fell off breaking his hip. It was entirely his fault, but the company was still somehow lible for the accident.

On the movie set there should be someone or group of people in charge of the guns and other things that are dangerous. Say an actor has to be lowered with a rope down into a pit. Someone should be in charge of inspection the rope to make sure it is safe. Where I worked we had periodic inspections of many things, such as ladders would be inspected every month and a sticker put on it to tell who inspected it. MOst electrical tools were tested every so often to make sure they were safe.

If it's any consolation to you, if he's half a man, this will eat at him for years, jail or no jail.

If the armorer told me the gun was cold, and even if i checked it and somehow thought the real bullets were not real, and I killed someone, I think it would take me 5 years to mostly get over it, and after that I'd try very hard not to think about it, because I'd never really get over it.

You either have to have intent, or criminal negligence.

BTW, I left out before, gross negigence requires " reckless disregard of, or with a lack of substantial concern for, the rights of others"

"To constitute a crime, there must be an actus reus (Latin for "guilty act") accompanied by the mens rea (see concurrence). Negligence shows the least level of culpability, intention being the most serious, and recklessness being of intermediate seriousness, overlapping with gross negligence. The distinction between recklessness and criminal negligence lies in the presence or absence of foresight as to the prohibited consequences. " I don't think this is well-written (for example it should be "absence or presence" to be int he same order as recklessness and criminal negigence) and so I wouldn't trust it, but on the hopes that it's correct, it's certainly foreseeable that if you give someone a loaded gun, someone will get killed.

But I think this is still separate from regular vs. gross negligence. If Baldwin or the armorer were drunk or high, that might well make it gross negligence. If the armorer were talking on the phone when she handed out the gun, that might make it gross negligencew. The fact that they had procedures which were not followed, maybe that is enough too. I would expect to see somethign like thiat listed in the statute. I don't know if that is sufficient or not.

Is this Arizona?

What I don't know but a negligence or criminal lawyer would know is what "extreme indifference or recklessness and a disregard" is. If they had no procedure and handed out the guns willy nilly, that would be gross negligence, but what if they have a safety procedure and plan to follow it and act like they're following it, but don't realize they're not following it? Is that gross or not? And is it the same in every state?

New Mexico.

Are you talking about Workman's Compensation? That doesn't mean they're at fault, only that they will pay. That there is an agreement that the employer either buys insurance or acts as a self-insurer and every injury at work is covered.

In return everyone agrees not to sue for negligence amd whatever addtional payments he might get beyond what workman's comp pays.

So the somehow is an agreement to almost eliminate litigation and have everyone covered and paid pretty promptly** whether it was the company's fault or their fault. **In fact I think doctors and hospitals ask if it's covered by workman's comp and most don't bill the injured person at all.

Maybe they do that, except for fly-by-night productions.

There are two sides of that equation. What the insurance company does and what OSHA does. OSHA can easily bankrupt a small company with fines.